A Compassionate World

Welcome to my facts and figures page; where you can find out everything you need to know factory farming and the shocking figures that highlight the desperate need for change.

• Meat production has more than trebled since the 1960s from 71 million tonnes to over 280 million tonnes in 2008 (FAO).
• A kilogram of factory farmed beef takes the equivalent of 90 bathtubs of water to produce, much of it drawn from rivers and aquifers.
• There are 26 million laying hens currently producing eggs in this country; around 55% of these are kept in battery cages.
• There are over 240 million cows used to produce milk in the world, including over 24 million in the EU27, nine million in the USA and around two million in the UK.
• Two out of every three farm animals in the world are now factory farmed.
• A typical stocking density in the UK and Europe for broiler chickens is equivalent to around 17–20 birds per square metre by six weeks of age, i.e. a space allowance of less than one A4 sheet of paper per chicken.
• Overuse of antibiotics in animals is causing more strains of drug-resistant bacteria, which is affecting the treatment of various life-threatening diseases in humans.
• Commercial laying hens are slaughtered after only 12 months of laying, when their productivity begins to decline. Their ancestors – the jungle fowl – naturally live for around 10 years.
• Livestock consumes a third of the global grain harvest.
• Two hundred cows can produce as much manure as a town of 10,000 people.
• Worldwide, about 60 billion farm animals are now slaughtered for food each year.
• Over 70% of globally threatened wild birds are said to be impacted by agricultural activities.
• An area of land equivalent to the size of the European Union is used to grow feed for farm animals. 
• A gestation crate – or sow stall – confines a sow during her 114 day pregnancy. It is so small that she cannot even turn around. Sow stalls are illegal in the UK and their use will be restricted to the first 4 weeks of pregnancy in the EU from 2013.
• Factory farmed chickens are bred to reach a weight of 2.2 kilograms in just seven weeks, this is well beyond their natural limits and causes great suffering.
• There are more animals factory farmed in the world now than at any other time in history. 
• Worldwide, aquaculture has increased at an average rate of 9.2% per year since 1970, compared with 1.4% for capture fisheries and 2.8% for agricultural livestock production.  Around 40% of all fish directly consumed by humans is now farmed
• A chicken shed holding 100,000 broiler chickens for meat can emit up to 77 kilos of polluting dust every day. 
• On average, to produce 1kg of animal protein requires nearly 6kg of protein in the form of feed grains.
• Mortality rates of farmed fish are often very high compared with other farmed animals. For example, mortality of salmon reared in sea cages in Scotland is around 21%. Such high mortality rates would not be considered acceptable in other branches of farming.
• Globally, the current livestock industry overall contributes 18 per cent of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions – more than the entire contribution of human transport. 
• Chickens will naturally live for 6 or more years. After  12 months, the hen’s productivity will start to decline. This is when most commercial laying hens are slaughtered.
• Growth-enhanced transgenic Atlantic salmon have been produced that can grow 3-6 times faster than ordinary salmon.
• Every year, an area of forest equivalent to half the UK is cleared, largely to grow animal feed and for cattle ranching.
• A typical supermarket chicken today contains nearly three times more fat, and about a third less protein than 40 years ago. 
• Whereas a suckler cow would naturally produce around 4 litres of milk per day, a dairy cow will produce around 22 litres per day for a period of 10 months.
• Around 30% of the nitrogen that pollutes water in the EU and US is from livestock, more than 70% in China.
• Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout are often starved for several days, sometimes for two weeks or more, before slaughter to empty the gut. Such prolonged periods of starvation are unacceptable from a welfare viewpoint. Starvation or feed reduction is also sometimes used to adapt production levels to the market situation. The purpose is to keep the fish off the market when market prices are low in the hope that prices will rise before the fish have to be sold.
• About two-thirds of chickens on sale in the UK have been found to be contaminated with the food poisoning bug, campylobacter. 
• Dairy cows typically live to their third lactation before being culled. Naturally, a cow can live for 20 years.
• Farm animals are more prone to campylobacter infection when stressed.
• For the production of foie-gras, force-feeding increases the size of the liver by up to ten times and the fat content of the liver exceeds 50%.
• Piglets born into factory farms are often castrated; have their tails docked and their teeth clipped, usually without any form of anaesthesia.
• In 2009 the UK slaughtered around 800 million chickens, resulting in around 1.2 million tonnes of chicken meat. The average poultry meat consumption in the UK is just less than 30 kg per person per year, with a total consumption of around 1.6 million tonnes (2008)
• In order to continue to produce milk, dairy cows must calve yearly and will typically become pregnant again three months after calving.

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