The impact of factory farming upon the American land and native biodiversity is seldom discussed, but animal protein production has a significant impact upon the Nation's land and water.  The direct environmental problems like air or water pollution associated with large factory farming operations may be clear, but less obvious are the environmental impacts associated with the agricultural production of feed crops and other consequences associated with large factory farming operations.

According to the Animal Feed Manufactors' Association, one third of the world's grains are fed directly to animals. In developed countries the percentage of grains fed directly to livestock rises to 60%, with 80% of the grains in the United States fed to livestock.  Since the United States is the leading producer of beef cattle in the world, it is also the top animal feed producer in the world, with more than double the acreage in animal feed production than its closest rival China . This means the majority of cropland in the United States is not growing food for direct human consumption as many presume, but is used to grow forage crops for domestic livestock, including chickens, hogs, and cattle.  In fact, in the United States, domestic livestock consume 5 times as much grain as the entire American population

It takes a huge amount of grain crops to support livestock production.  For instance, to produce 1 kg of beef requires 7 kg of feed grain. Though chickens are more efficient at converting grain to meat, the ratio is still two to one with 2 kg of grain required to produce 1 kg of meat According to Cornell University's David Pimentel, if the cropland currently used to grow grain fed to livestock were directed towards growing crops for human consumption, we could feed 800 million additional people or more likely provide a decent meal for those whose diet is inadequate.

In order to feed concentrated, confined animals, huge acreages of America' s best farmland have been converted into monocultures of often genetically modified crops that stretch for miles. The major feed crops are corn, soybeans, and hay/alfalfa with smaller amounts of other grains like oats, barley and even wheat.  For instance, 22% of all wheat grown in the US ultimately ends up as animal feed, rather than in food products like bread or cereal consumed directly by humans.

While it's difficult to determine how much of any crop is used to feed confined animal operations as opposed to diverse small farming operations, the total impact of animal agriculture of any kind is significant. Consider these statistics. 

Globally, production of livestock feed uses a third of the Earth's arable land In the United States farmland production is even more skewed towards animal feed. In 2008 American farmers, primarily in the Mid-west, planted 87 million acres to feeder corn.  Part of that acreage figure was due to demand for corn created by ethanol, but the bulk of the corn acreage is used for animal feed.  By comparison, farmers only planted an average of 234,000 acres across the entire country to fresh market sweet corn, the plant we consume directly for corn on the cob, and other food . 

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