Reader opinions of "factory farming"

This morning's poll got over 600 votes in only a few hours, which may mean it's a bit skewed towards those with the strongest opinions about this.  But here are the results:

What is your opinion of so-called "factory farming"?
Selection		Votes
It is a moral abomination, an animal "Holocaust"	27%	167
It is morally wrong	54%	332
It is morally neutral	5%	31
It is a morally justifiable way of providing low-cost food products to people	13%	82
It is morally commendable by bringing into existence animals who otherwise would not have existed	1%	5
617 total

This is a quite remarkable consensus among philosophically-minded folks.  I will be interested to see whether it holds for other issues.  (By the way, a version of the last choice has been defended by Loren Lomasky [Virginia].  In general, it's clear that many philosophers are quite ready to dismiss the cultural and culinary traditions of hundreds of millions of people as having no moral weight.  In this paper, I speculate about the likely practical limits of these moral arguments for vegetarianism.)