i say this with all my heart, from one person who cares about animal welfare to hopefully many others:
please take the term “factory farm” out of your vocabulary when discussing animal welfare
talking about the welfare of livestock and livestock production is incredibly important! all animals deserve to have the best welfare possible, regardless of if they’re going to end up on a plate or not
but the term “factory farm” does not actually discuss animal welfare in the way so many people seem to assume it does
for starters, “factory farm” is not an actual industry term. it doesn’t actually mean anything, because what constitutes a factory farm is completely subjective. you will never see the phrase “factory farm” in any kind of published research or official article because, again, it doesn’t mean anything
sure, the phrase definitely has connotations. and the connotation is the issue here. people use the term “factory farm” as a shorthand for… well, typically, “farming practice i don’t understand but think looks bad”
the term isn’t something neutral. it is specifically designed to create a negative image when you hear it. someone says “factory farm” and most people imagine large amounts of animals kept in bad condition
the key here: large amounts of animals
the size of a farm does not dictate the welfare of the animals on it. there are plenty of large farms with hundreds, thousands of animals that take stellar care of their livestock. there are small farms with only a couple animals that live horrible lives
the size of a farm is not the issue when it comes to animal welfare, but rather the practices used on the farm. sometimes they do go hand in hand, yes. there are some practices that are only necessary because of the amount of animals present
but say that
there are other terms that are actually industry terms that work better for these scenarios. try “conventional farming” “industrialized farming” “commercialized farming”. these actually have meanings that you can then jump off of into talking about animal welfare practices on these farms
“factory farming” is just a term used to paint farming in an entirely negative light, when what actually makes a farm have good or bad welfare depends on so many other things
As someone with a degree in sustainable ag and who works in Organic agriculture now, the best term to use when talking about what people picture when they think about "factory farming" is Animal Feeding Operation (AFO) or Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)
From the USA EPA website:
(https://www.epa.gov/npdes/animal-feeding-operations-afos )
CAFO and AFO are easy to understand even if you aren't interested or involved in ag, but they are also legally defined and there are regulations and policies written about them. While terms like conventional farming and industrialized farming are useful and widely used and you won't be misunderstood (and I agree with op that they're better than 'factory farming') using specific language when talking about something that is regulated is important. "Conventional farming is bad" is a much harder point to argue when compared to "Confined Animal Feeding Operations are bad" even though I would agree that both are true. One is a broad statement about a wide variety of practices and operations and the other is discussing a specific type of operation with well documented animal welfare concerns and environmental impact (there's a reason they're defined on the EPA website - these things absolutely fuck up a watershed).
Using AFO/CAFO is also useful when discussing animal welfare as a whole. There are organic AFOs and while their animal welfare standards are higher than conventional AFO operations, they do exist. I grew up in a county with thousands of turkey and chicken CAFOs and some of them work with organic brands and were Certified Organic. Definitionally these operations are not Conventional, they're Organic. In professional circles those therms are opposite. This is where Industrial Agriculture is a more effective term than conventional, but I think my point stands.
By using AFO/CAFO to discuss any operation that raises animals as future meat products instead of as animals the critique is targeted and issue being discussed is clearer.
