Chemicalization of animal husbandry: justified and unjustified cases of its application

Chemicalization of agriculture is one of the most effective ways to make it more cost-effective. The use of chemicals allows to achieve high results at a minimum cost, whether it be growing different crops or producing livestock products.

The view that the chemicalization of animal husbandry is solely the use of hormonal drugs, antibiotics or harmful chemical additives to rapidly increase the meat mass is not entirely correct. First and foremost, livestock chemicals are aimed at preventing diseases and improving animal nutrition. So, most of the food additives are aimed at increasing the protein component of feeds - that is, they add either synthesized proteins or complexes of amino acids. Similar components are a part of many children's formulas or medicines, so you can safely talk about their safety. Their use makes it possible to significantly increase and accelerate the growth of meat mass, significantly reducing the cost of feed, so it is not only fully justified, but also highly desirable.

Also of great importance for the industry are such nutritional supplements as fodder yeast. For meat cattle breeding, their benefits are invaluable: the use of one ton of yeast makes it possible to increase the production of pork to seven hundred kilograms, and poultry to two tons, and not only are they not dangerous to one's health, but also contain a number of vital nutrients .

In addition to increasing the nutritional value of feed, the chemicalization of livestock production can be aimed at their preservation during the winter period. It can be not only substances used as preservatives to prevent spoilage of feeds, but also various means for their physical protection against external factors, for example, various films or containers of polymeric materials.

The next type of chemicals used in animal husbandry are veterinary drugs and means of fighting infection. Their list includes not only medicines designed to treat existing diseases or used for their prevention (for example, to prevent helminthiasis), but also all sorts of disinfectants. This can include such an increasingly popular measure of preventing veterinary diseases, such as the use of antibiotics, which simultaneously stimulate the growth of animals and ensure greater safety of meat. Of course, at some point it can be effective, but ultimately it only harms livestock, because the constant use of antibiotics leads to the fact that bacteria develop resistance to most of them, and the probability of severe epidemics only increases, and the means of fighting it constantly Are limited. In addition, these substances fall into the final product, making it thus unsafe for human consumption. The same and with hormonal drugs - in the 80s of the last century began their active use in livestock, than many scientists are inclined to explain the unexpected acceleration in the population of people that occurred in the 80-90s - neither before nor after the average growth of young people Was not so great.

At the same time, biotechnology in animal husbandry was also introduced everywhere, but in connection with recent research, the safety of the use of transgenic food in human nutrition by some scientists is being questioned, so biotechnology is used with caution. Nevertheless, the chemicalization of livestock farming with unreasonable and inappropriate application of drugs can bring proven harm, but the harm of GMO is not known, moreover, many question it.