Land degradation is an indirect impact of factory farming. It is referred to pollution or degradation of quality of soils and land utility. Forest is cleared for growing of animal feedstock, for example, soy and corn (Ilea, 2008). These plants are not able to hold onto the soil, hence causing soil erosion and loss of the fertile top soil (World Wildlife Fund, n.d.). It is contested that both traditional cattle ranching and factory farming cause land degradation. Trees are cut down to make room for animal grazing and pasturing. In fact, UN reports that 70% of forests in the Amazon have been transformed into pastures (Ilea, 2008). Additionally, cattle ranching is likely to cause land degradation due to over-grazing. Undeniably, cattle ranching is the main culprit of deforestation in Amazon as compares to agriculture. However, intensive farming is also highly associated with the negative impacts of farming due to the…show more content… The feed and manure causes water pollution due to dumping or leaching of wastes into the water body from waste lagoon. The highly concentrated chemical and bacterial toxins might kill the aquatic organism (PETA, n.d.). In 1998, a 100000 gallon spill of waste in Minnesota had killed 691000 fish in the 19 miles of major stream. (Richards & Richards, 2012) Nutrients in the waste could cause eutrophication or algae bloom, which affects the aquatic animals due to oxygen depletion when algae die and decompose. Moreover, pathogen in the manure also poses threat to public health when the water is consumed or human comes into contact (Ilea, 2008). Even though both traditional and factory farming could contribute to water pollution with in proper treatment and disposal of waste, factory farming has larger magnitude of pollution. This is because factory farming has more confined operation and more concentrated of waste is produced, causing higher concentration of contaminants in the water (Richards & Richards,