Some of the scariest viruses of the 20th/21st century emerged in large-scale farming operations (1918 influenza, SARS-CoV-1, most likely SARS-CoV-2). It seems like these farms are massive accidents waiting to happen.
Before that they emerged from small-scale farming. “Whooping cough comes from pigs as does flu as well as from birds; our friend the cow alone is responsible for measles, tuberculosis and smallpox” [1]. Proximity, to humans and animals, drives disease.
B. pertussis “evolved from Bordetella bronchiseptica or a B. bronchiseptica-like ancestor… B. bronchiseptica infects a broad range of mammals, including humans, and although it can cause overt disease such as kennel cough in dogs and atrophic rhinitis in pig” [1].
The San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 1979, p. 5 reported a claim by the Church of Scientology that the CIA conducted an open-air biological warfare experiment in 1955 near Tampa, Florida, and elsewhere in Florida with whooping cough bacteria. It was alleged that the experiment tripled the whooping cough infections in Florida to over one-thousand cases and caused whooping cough deaths in the state to increase from one to 12 over the previous year. This claim has been cited in a number of later sources, although these added no further supporting evidence.[52][53]
What source says 1918 came from large scale farms?
Large scale farming in 1918 would not have existed as we think of it today, as average farm size was about 150 acres with approximately 6 million farms.
For reference, 2022 average farm size was 464 with approximately 1.89 million farms.
Sources: Changes in agriculture 1900 to 1950 https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/41667073v5...
Farming and Farm Income https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...