The animal agriculture industry has been reinventing itself over the centuries, but some of the “advances” it created through its research and innovation side eventually backfired
Animal agriculture is a big industrial sector that, like all industries in our economic system, aims to produce as much profit as possible. As such, it constantly tries to produce more “animal products” to sell (meat, eggs, dairy, wool, silk, leather, etc.), reducing as much as possible the cost to produce them, and making them more appealing to potential customers. Therefore, this industry has a “research and development” dimension that has been looking at new ways to achieve that since the agricultural revolution started centuries ago.
Now and then, the efforts of the industry research produces breakthroughs that are seen by the industry — and politicians — as landmark “improvements”. However, are they really? It depends on the negative side effects they may cause. In many cases, an improvement in one area causes a worsening in another. If those aspects that worsen from the innovation are external to the industry, animal agriculture may not care that much and may continue developing the new practice if it gives them higher profits. However, on some occasions, the negative side effects revert back to the industry, which needs to invest more to mitigate them, to hide them, or to appease the external forces that criticise them to such an extent that their reputation may be negatively affected and their growth consequently curtailed.
In other words, the “advances” may at one point backfire and what initially was perceived as an improvement eventually loses its “shine” and can even be considered a problem that can lead to existential consequences for the industry.
The following are some examples of this.
1. Artificial Selection
Artificial selection (the deliberate breeding of animals to enhance desirable traits) started with the dawn of agriculture but was systematised at an industrial scale in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pioneers like Robert Bakewell developed selective breeding methods for sheeps and cows, producing animals that grew faster, yielded more meat, or produced more wool. In the 20th century, the US chicken industry refined this further, creating the modern “broiler chicken”, a bird “designed” by breeders to reach slaughter weight in just 5-7 weeks instead of several months.
What was hailed as agricultural progress soon became a welfare disaster. Breeding for extreme characteristics created animals whose bodies could not cope with their own physiology. Modern broiler chickens, whose breast muscles have been selectively enlarged, now suffer chronic pain, skeletal deformities, and heart failure because their organs and bones cannot support their rapid growth. Up to 30% of broilers have difficulty walking; some collapse under their own weight.
Turkeys bred for large breast meat can no longer reproduce naturally, and nearly all industrial turkeys are produced through artificial insemination. Dairy cows bred to produce more than 10,000 litres of milk per year routinely suffer mastitis, lameness, and reproductive disorders. Pigs bred for larger litters produce more stillborn and malnourished piglets.
The “advance” of selective breeding created animals that, although initially hailed for being highly profitable, turned out to be physiologically unsustainable. Living beings designed like biological machines, breaking down under the pressure of their own exaggerated traits. “Consumers” who initially were happy to buy the flesh of these animals now begin to feel uncomfortable about it (even using negative labels such as “Frankenchicken”).
2. Feeding Grains to Pigs and Cows
The shift from pasture-based feeding to grain-based intensive feeding accelerated after World War II, when the Green Revolution produced abundant, cheap crops like soya and maize. This shift, adopted heavily in the US, Europe, and later China, allowed farmers to fatten animals more quickly and cheaply. Feedlots (industrial yards where cows are fed grain instead of grass) became widespread by the 1970s.
However, grains require vast land and resources. As global demand for cheap feed grew, countries turned to the Amazon Basin (especially Brazil) to produce enormous quantities of soya beans. Today, around 80% of the world’s soya is fed to farmed animals.
The result has been devastating. The Amazon, once called the “lungs of the planet,” has been cleared at alarming rates to make way for soya plantations and cow ranches. Over 17% of the rainforest has already been destroyed, with animal agriculture driving up to 91% of Amazon deforestation. In 2022 alone, Amazon deforestation reached its highest point in 15 years, largely due to land clearing for cows and feed crops.
Beyond biodiversity loss, deforestation disrupts the Earth’s climate. Rainforest destruction contributes billions of tonnes of CO₂ annually, pushing the Amazon dangerously close to a tipping point where it could shift from rainforest to dry savanna. What began as a way to “boost productivity” has become a global environmental crisis.
3. Factory Farming
The industrialisation of animal farming (factory farming) accelerated after the 1950s in the US and Europe. The shift to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) was framed as efficient, modern, and necessary to “feed the world.”
However, as billions of animals were confined in crowded warehouses, disease risk exploded. When tens of thousands of genetically similar animals live beak-to-beak or snout-to-snout, pathogens spread with deadly efficiency. Factory farms have since become breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases.
Avian flu is the most alarming example. Highly pathogenic strains such as H5N1 and H7N9 have repeatedly emerged from industrial bird farms. In 2022–2024, H5N1 caused the largest global bird flu outbreak in history, killing over 500 million birds (mostly culled) and jumping to mammals, including humans. The WHO warns that H5N1 has a 50% human fatality rate in known cases.
Industrial pig farms have produced swine-origin influenza strains, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, which infected 1.4 billion people. Meanwhile, overcrowded fish farms spread parasites and viruses that then infect wild fishes (We use fishes rather than fish as I write in veganised language).
The “advance” of factory farming has created an ongoing public health time bomb, with places so densely packed with stressed animals that viruses evolve rapidly, potentially producing the next global pandemic.
4. Curated Ultra-Processed Meat
The industrial processing of meat began during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the rise of preserved meats (i.e. sausages, bacon, or hot dogs) boosted by refrigeration, curing technologies, and the consolidation of the meatpacking industry in Chicago and Europe.
To make meat last longer, appear tastier, and sell more cheaply, companies used curing salts such as sodium nitrite, smoking, and later chemical additives and stabilisers. Processed meat became a staple of convenience foods worldwide, marketed as modern and efficient.
However, in 2015, the World Health Organisation classified processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same category as tobacco and asbestos. Regular consumption of processed meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18% per 50 grams per day, according to the WHO. Ultra-processing also introduces compounds like heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which damage DNA. A 2025 study found that eliminating meat from one’s diet may significantly reduce the risk of developing cancer, with figures reaching up to 45% less risk for some cancers compared to those consuming standard animal-based diets.
Highly processed meats are also linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, chronic inflammation, and premature death. Rather than a triumph of modern food innovation, processed meat has become a major driver of diseases.
5. Sheeps with Extra-Long Hair
The wool industry “advances” in breeding sheeps began in the 19th century with the rise of the Merino sheep, particularly in Australia, which became the world’s largest wool producer. Through selective breeding, farmers developed strains with excessive skin folds (called “wrinkles”) to increase surface area and thus more wool. This was considered a major success as wrinklier sheep meant more profit.
However, the extra folds trap moisture, faeces, and urine, making Merinos particularly vulnerable to blowfly strike (myiasis). This is a parasitic disease where female blowflies lay eggs in the soiled wool, and the hatched maggots eat into the sheep’s flesh. In Australia alone, over 3 million sheep suffer from flystrike every year.
To counter this, in the 1930s, the industry developed the controversial “mulesing” procedure, which is a painful operation in which strips of skin are cut from lambs’ hindquarters without anaesthetic. This is done to create scar tissue that resists flystrike. Despite efforts to phase it out, millions of lambs continue to be mulesed annually.
6. Mega Dairy Farms
Large-scale dairy intensification began in the late 20th century across the US, Europe, and New Zealand. The “mega dairy” model, with thousands of cows in confined, high-yield operations, was marketed as efficient and technologically advanced. Cows bred for enormous milk output were supported by antibiotics, mechanised milking parlours, and specialised feed.
However, cows are ruminants whose digestion produces methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years at heating the planet. One dairy cow emits 250-500 litres of methane per day. With over 270 million dairy cows globally, dairy farming is one of the largest sources of agricultural methane.
In some regions, individual dairies house more than 10,000 cows. In the US, farmed animals’ methane emissions account for around 36% of all methane emissions. In New Zealand, dairy has become the single largest climate polluter, surpassing transport.
Mega dairies also produce toxic slurry that contaminates soil and waterways. Studies in the US have shown that communities living near large dairy operations suffer higher rates of respiratory illness, contaminated drinking water, and nitrate pollution.
The industrial push for high-output dairy created a climate and public health liability now recognised even by governments desperately trying to reduce methane emissions, and the increasingly environmentally conscious customers are switching to plant-based milks.
7. Aquaculture
Fish farming (aquaculture) began to industrialise in the 1970s, particularly in Norway, Scotland, Chile, and Canada, where salmon farms were established in coastal net pens. This was celebrated as a sustainable alternative to wild fishing.
However, crowded sea cages — often containing 100,000–1,000,000 fishes — became perfect environments for parasites such as sea lice. These lice feed on the skin, mucus, and blood of fishes, causing lesions, infections, and often death. In Norway and Scotland, sea lice infestations have reached epidemic levels, killing millions of farmed salmons every year and spreading to wild salmon populations.
To control lice, farms use chemical pesticides and antibiotics, which then pollute surrounding waters, killing other marine life. Waste from fish farms (faeces, excess feed, dead fish, and chemicals) accumulates under the cages, creating oxygen-depleted sludge. A single salmon farm can release waste equivalent to a town of 10,000–20,000 people.
In Chile, where aquaculture expanded rapidly with little regulation, entire regions have experienced algal blooms, oxygen crashes, and mass fish die-offs linked to aquaculture.
8. Use of Antibiotics to Aid Growth
Antibiotics were first introduced into animal farming in the 1950s, after researchers discovered that adding small doses of antibiotics to feed made animals grow faster, likely by altering gut bacteria and reducing disease. This practice quickly spread across the US and Europe, becoming standard in industrial farming.
By the 1990s, around 70–80% of all antibiotics sold in some countries were being used on farm animals — not to treat illness, but to maximise growth and prevent infections caused by overcrowded conditions.
This overuse accelerated the evolution of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria, which can infect humans through food, water, air, or direct contact. The WHO now considers AMR one of the top 10 global public health threats, causing an estimated 1.3 million deaths annually.
Resistant strains such as MRSA, E. coli, Campylobacter, and Salmonella have been linked directly to animal farms. In some pig farms, 90% of pigs carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Resistant superbugs have now been detected in supermarket meat, hospital patients, rivers near farms, and even remote wildlife.
These are just some examples of animal agriculture practices that backfired, even if seen from the industry’s perspective, but the entire sector can now be considered a failure as calls to replace it entirely with plant-based agriculture are growing, even beyond the vegan community.
