A Note on Advantages and Disadvantages of Animal Farming

Shubi Raja^*
*Correspondence: Dr. Shubi Raja, Department of Veterinary Science, Addis Ababa University, Bishoftu, Ethiopia, Tel: 9845637231, Email:

Editorial Note

Animals are kept for food and other human uses, such as the production of leather, wool, and even fertilizers, in livestock farming. This style of farming is most commonly associated with cattle or dairy cows, chickens, goats, pigs, horses, and sheep, but it also becomes increasingly significant for other animals. Since humans started domesticating animals to improve their lives, livestock farming has been a part of human culture for most of history. However, livestock farming like most forms of farming, such as agriculture, has grown in importance in recent decades.

This has made livestock farming products more widely available and less expensive to purchase; this is especially relevant if you consider that essentials like milk, honey, eggs, and meat are all products of livestock farming. However, intensive livestock farming techniques have raised concerns about food safety, animal welfare, and environmental impacts on several occasions, to the point in which livestock farming is often referred to as "factory farming."

At its brief look, the importance of this industry is difficult to dismiss: the direct contributions of livestock farming to the economy are estimated to be around 883 billion, and this does not include the services that rely on it, such as butchers, retailers, and transportation companies, as well as feed producers and equipment manufacturers. It is now one of the agricultural economy's fastest developing areas. This has been made possible by increasing the intensity of cattle farming operations, which has resulted in higher yields and efficiency while lowering costs. The concept of concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFO, for example, allows farmers to raise more animals by restricting them in small spaces, optimizing the potential of the land they have available.

On other words, pigs, cows, chickens, and other animals are maintained in a small area of land, making livestock management easier while increasing output on a smaller piece of ground. At the same time, we cannot overlook the growing concerns about animal welfare, the environment, and human health that increased livestock farming brings. When it comes to animal welfare, cost-cutting tactics sometimes have an impact on the animals' health and wellbeing. Many states and regions, including the European Union and New Zealand, have legislation that recognizes animals as "sentient beings" rather than "commodities," which means they can feel emotions such as pain and distress. This means that it is not acceptable for livestock animals to be kept in stressful conditions. Similarly, the often overcrowded conditions in which livestock animals are maintained under intensive farming make them more susceptible to disease. Thirteen livestock-related diseases that can harm people account for 2.4 billion cases of human illness in lowand middle-income countries.

Farmers employ antibiotics to prevent disease in their livestock, but this leads to the evolution of bacteria and the growth of drugresistant infections in the long-term. In terms of the environment, it is well known that the cattle industry accounts for 14.5 percent of all human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, surpassing transportation. Furthermore, animal waste and discards are frequently not properly handled, with farmers frequently disposing of their waste in rivers, polluting the water and threatening ecosystem biodiversity. While intensive livestock farming has obvious drawbacks, the need to address food security, under nutrition, and sustainability concerns has given rise to the concept of "sustainable intensification." This is significant because a Cornell University study found that increased blood circulation leads to better animal health, and another study found that cows utilizing this brush have a 35 percent reduced rate of clinical mastitis and have a greater lactation rate.