Factory Farm Presentation

Today Nick Cooney talked to our class about farm facilities in America. The most surprising thing I found about his presentation was the "Dead Zone" where pollution of the Mississippi river causes a large area of the Gulf of Mexico to be an area of just dead waste where no marine life can possibly exist. I wonder if this is primarily due to animal farming or the fact that the Mississippi river runs through the bread basket where the primary usage of fertilizer is being used, and if the usage of animal fertilizer was banned, would the substitute be just as potentially hazardous? The other thing that surprised me was that he said 90% of American meat products comes from these types of farms. This surprises me the most because many of my friends parents work for Taylor beef which is a small industry that was taken over by Cargill Beef corporation. Cargill has several rendering factories over the united states that buys livestock to be slaughtered at their rendering factories. Cargill is the number one supplier of beef and other meat products in the world, and it shocks me that Nick Cooney wouldn't have mentioned them in his presentation.