The industrialization of livestock production in the United States

Livestock production in the United States has moved out of the barnyard and into the factory during the second half of the 20th century. Entrepreneurs have developed specialized large-scale, mass production systems for beef cattle, dairy cattle, broilers, eggs, turkeys, and hogs. They keep beef and dairy cattle in drylots, but house poultry and hogs in distinctive purpose-built structures. They have borrowed ideas and technologies from each other, and the new production systems have developed along parallel lines. Much industrialized livestock production is vertically integrated, with a single decision-making unit controlling the entire production process. The gargantuan new operations have been highly controversial.