Real life farmer here. Maybe is the USA cows in pastures are a lie, but in the UK ours spend the summer out in the fields. It's cheaper to keep them in a pasture than in a barn. Also, we don't feed our cows antibiotics. Again, that's something they might do in the US, but in Europe antibiotics in cattle feeds have been banned for quite some time. We have some factory farms in the UK also, but nothing the size of many US herds. One farmer wanted to build an eight thousand head farm, but it made national news and there was massive public resistance. They do not want that sort of farm in the UK.
If you want to blame farmers for using such practises, blame yourself for looking for the cheapest food you can get. Supermarkets compete on prices. You wanted cheap food, you got cheap food. Now, you realise the price of that cheap food. The farmers were just giving people what they wanted, the cheapest food they could produce. Did you ever pick up an item at the supermarket and think that it was too cheap? When it comes to many quality foods, people should really stop asking themselves "Why is it so expensive?" and ask "Why is the other stuff so cheap?"