Which developing countries are embracing factory farming practices the most vigorously?
A. The spread of factory farms is the fastest and most intense in Asia: Taiwan, China, Thailand, and, more recently, the Philippines, as well as others. Danielle Nierenberg of Worldwatch wrote a great cover piece for Worldwatch magazine (May/June 2003) on factory farming going global. It focused on the situation in the Philippines where there are still lots of small-scale farmers, but concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs, a U.S. term) are growing fast. Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have factory farms (development of them may have been accelerated by NAFTA) and so does South Africa, although no other African countries that I know of do. But that may be changing as (or when) those countries look like better investments to agribusiness. Most of the worlds population growth is in Asia and Africa so the markets are there, but whether the water, land, and popular support for factory farms are is a question we dont really know the answer to yet. Q. What are the factors leading to the
