U.S. Factory Farms: The Facts

If you can’t imagine life without bacon, fried chicken or steak, you’re not alone. The New York Times reports that Americans consume almost 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita annually. With the increased demand for meat, huge factory farms are rapidly overtaking small and mid-size livestock operations. Today, U.S. factory farms house and feed around 10 billion animals per year.

One of the biggest problems with factory farms is the amount of manure they produce. U.S. factory farms generate approx. 500 million tons of manure per year. In order to get rid of this waste, farm operators use it as fertilizer or store it in manure lagoons. These lagoons emit noxious gases like hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and methane which pollute the air and can cause skin rashes, respiratory problems, headaches and more. Long-term exposure can cause neurological damage along with other serious health problems.

“The Facts” widget provides a snapshot of the problems surrounding large-scale livestock operations. The widget was created by Food & Water Watch, a non-profit organization that advocates and promotes policies that result in safe food, clean drinking water and healthy oceans. Find out more about factory farms.

Like Food & Water Watch, Solterra seeks to create a safer environment for people and animals to live in. That’s why we offer products that do not contain any toxins, harsh chemicals or allergens and have ZERO volatile organic compounds (VOCs). All Solterra™ products are recognized for safer chemistry by the EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) program, meaning they are safer for people, animals and the environment. The products were found worthy of recognition after passing a rigorous third party toxicology review and an EPA scientific review. For the DfE label, Solterra partners with the EPA to maintain the highest standards of product safety.

To deal with odor problems and pollution on factory farms, we created Remedia™ Animal Habitat Treatment, a product specifically designed to eliminate odor and pollution at chicken, turkey, hog and other livestock farms. Remedia Animal Habitat Treatment powerfully remediates ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, dust and strong odors without exposing animals or workers to toxins, harsh chemicals, allergens or volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

For livestock operations such as hog farms that produce waste that is latent with heavy metals like zinc, copper and nickel, we created Remedia™ Heavy Metal Stabilizer, a product that has been proven effective for remediating heavy metals without causing greater risk to the environment. Remedia™ Heavy Metal Stabilizer remediates heavy metals by binding to them and rendering them non-bioavailable and non-mobile (minimizing the risk of entering the groundwater). This is done without exposing people, animals or the environment to toxins, harsh chemicals, allergens or VOCs.