This week, the FDA acknowledged it is investigating whether a nearby massive concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), or factory farm, could be the source of E. coli contamination of romaine lettuce earlier this year. The tainted lettuce resulted in hundreds of illnesses in 36 states and resulted in five deaths.

According to Food & Water Watch’s Factory Farm Map, an analysis of USDA data on factory farms, the density of cattle feedlots in the region where the tainted lettuce was grown is extreme. In Yuma county in 2012, cattle feedlots had an estimated average of over 67,000 head of cattle per facility. In the region implicated in the outbreak, samples of nearby irrigation canal water tested positive for the same strain of E. coli that caused the outbreak. The canal is close to a CAFO that can hold in excess of 100,000 head of cattle at any one time.

Toxic algae is spreading through the coastal waters of South Florida, causing what is known as a “red tide” to form, and it is killing wildlife at alarming rates due to lack of oxygen. The explosion of wildlife-killing algae in the area is largely a result of agricultural run-off linked to the Big Sugar industry.

Let’s say all the meat — the combined poultry, beef, and pork — is ground down into patties. Let’s also assume, for simplicity (and because we’re not interested in preparing a meat mélange burger for ourselves), that those patties have the same density as an uncooked quarter-pound beef burger.

Paramilitaries, government troops, hired gangsters and smugglers killed 207 people trying to protect the environment from the spread of businesses like cattle ranches and sugarcane plantations in 2017, according to a new report by international NGO Global Witness. That’s approximately four environmental defenders killed every week of the year.