Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I am working on a research paper about animal welfare and factory farming for one of my college classes. I'm having a heck of a time finding basic statistics, from credible sources, about factory farming. I managed to find that something like 95% of eggs are produced in factory farms, but no luck finding similar facts for dairy, beef, pork, chicken, veal etc. I need credible, preferably non-biased, sources (so probably not websites like PETA or other AR).

I would appreciate any help with finding these facts or ideas of books, websites or journals where I can look.

I am the only person in my class doing research related to animal welfare so I'm hoping I can have a kick-ass research paper and presentation!

You might be able to find something from Statistics Canada (if you want to look at Canadian farms). One of my friends is writing her thesis on Canadian agricultural policy and has found a lot of resources with Stats Canada.

Does your college library subscribe to CQ Researcher? Opposing Viewpoints? Those are pretty basic, but good for fast facts. I hadn't realized, for example, that the number of dairy cows in the U.S. is half what it was in 1950, but milk production per cow has more than tripled.

Getting exact stats on "what percentage of eggs are produced in factory farms" might be problematic, though, as there's no standard definition of factory farm.

Oh, and ask your college librarian. This is pretty much what they do all day.

Thanks for the suggestions! That is a very interesting fact about dairy cows and now I'm curious to look into it! I have managed to find a lot of interesting facts through the Food and Water Watch report (factory farm map website). There is some info about CAFO's as another term for factory farm, but the main problem is that animals are counted in terms of "animal units" by weight instead of as individuals. I'll keep digging and definitely check out CQ Researcher and Opposing Viewpoints. Thanks!

Surely the national farming authority of the country in which you are based must keep statistics on these kinds of things?