The Human Cost of Chicken Farming
Industrial efficiency has led to plentiful, cheap meat and eggs, while immiserating farmers.
Leah Garcés is still a little bewildered that she is working with poultry farmers. The longtime vegan and animal-rights activist is the president of Mercy for Animals, an influential nonprofit known for its investigations of factory farms. “Up until very recently, we saw the farmers as the enemy,” Garcés told me. “We blamed them. We were angry at them. And we honestly wished them ill.”
But a few years ago, Garcés met a factory farmer. She spent hours with Craig Watts, talking about the ins and outs of the business, visiting his chickens, walking through his facility. She filmed
