Intensive animal agriculture creates conditions that favor emergence and amplification of zoonotic diseases, linking animal welfare and human health in direct ways.
The link between intensive animal farming and zoonotic disease emergence is now well established. Crowded, stressed animals with compromised immune systems are ideal environments for pathogen amplification and mutation. Addressing factory farming welfare problems simultaneously reduces pandemic risk, antibiotic resistance development, and individual animal suffering — creating powerful co-benefit arguments for welfare reform.