Unit 7: Agriculture // Section 6: Livestock: Growing Animals
Many subsistence farmers in traditional societies raise
livestock along with their crops, either for their families' use
or for sale. But in industrialized nations, animal agriculture
has been transformed in much the same way as crop production
over the past century. Modern livestock farms are large and
specialized and rely heavily on technology inputs. Like major
plant crops, meat and dairy products are increasingly produced
through a kind of monoculture in which farmers raise one or a
few animal strains that have been bred to maximize output—hens
that lay more eggs, dairy cows that produce more milk, or pigs
that grow quickly and develop lean meat. Producers use
technological inputs, such as antibiotics and hormone
treatments, to make animals grow larger and more quickly. To
maximize efficiency, large-scale livestock farms confine animals
indoors instead of letting them range outside (Fig. 10).
Confining animals makes it easier to control the amou