On news of a fifth case of "mad cow" disease in Canada since 2003, consumer advocates are pushing for stricter feed standards and better enforcement. David Hansen, PhD with the Consumers Union is quoted in the Vancouver Sun's story saying regulators "haven't taken the action they need to" and in a Reuter's story saying "the feed ban is not a firewall." Consumer's Union calls for enforcing narrow standards passed in 1997 and for imposing new standards to prevent chicken feces, slaughterhouse remains and restauraunt waste from being used as feed in their press release:
"Both the United States and Canada instituted feed rules in 1997. Both countries banned the feeding of remains of dead and slaughtered cattle to other cows. However both countries continued to allow cattle remains to be fed to pigs and chickens, and pig and chicken remains to be fed to cows. In addition, the United States allows two more kinds of risky material--restaurant waste and chicken coop floor wastes--that Canada prohibits in cattle feed."
--Consumer's Union (link above).
Because "mad cow" or bovine spongiform encepholopathy has sensational neurological consequences and is related to the terrible human neuro-degenerative disorder Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, it get's alot of attention in the media. However, it is only one of a host of health, economic, ecological and moral costs of factory farming using "confined animal feeding operations" (CAFOs).
Antibiotic Resistance
By 1999, three antibiotic resistant strains of disease causing organisms were identified in a GAO report prepared for Senator Tom Harkin (D, IA), the ranking Democrat on the nutrition and forestry committee: Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. Coli. Antibiotic resistance can evolve in CAFOs where animals are given some anti-biotics just to promote growth. Still other antibiotics are used to prevent and treat the spread of microbes that would otherwise spread in the cramped and filthy environment that the animals are kept in. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70% of the antibiotics used in factory farms is in healthy animals. Progress has been made in this area through legislative initiatives in Europe and voluntary actions from some companies, showing that the diligent oversight of progressives using sound science can prevail on these kinds of issues.
ACTION: The number one thing that you can do is avoid meat that is produced in CAFOs, especially those that use antibiotics to promote animal growth. If you eat meat, it is best to purchase free range organic products from local farms. Also, write your Representatives and ask them to support the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2005 (S. 742/H.R. 2562).
Air and Water Contamination
CAFOs also pose a threat to the nation's water supply. In 2003, the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) and the Waterkeeper's Alliance filed suit and won against the Bush administration for reclassifying pollution from these farms as "agricultural stormwater." Even before Bush's attempted gutting of the Clean Water Act, as the NRDC detailed in 1998 and again in 2001, there have been very serious conaminations from factory farms that excrete as much crap as many cities. Studies have repeatedly shown farms to perform below state standards for preventing leakage from manure lagoons that contaminates groundwater and catastrophic events like hurricanes can cause massive manure spills.
Aside from stench, which is a problem in and of itself for people living near factory farms, CAFOs emit large amounts of nitrates and ammonia. Despite the fact that hog farms in particular are leading sources of ammonia emissions can lead to the formation of respirable aerosols that effect human health, Republicans in Congress are pushing for legislation, lead by Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) to exempt factory farms from the standards set forth in the Clean Air Act (H.R. 4341) and exempt polluters from litigation.
ACTION: Learn more at Sierra Club and NRDC websites and start thinking about how you can change your diet based on what you have learned. Write your Representatives and tell them to oppose H.R. 4341.
Ecological Impact
The health impacts and the ecological impacts of CAFOs are intertwined. In 1995 a 25 million gallon lagoon spill in North Carolina not only contaminated groundwater, it also killed 10 million fish and closed 365,000 acres of coastal wetland to shellfishing. When hurricane Floyd struck in 1998, North Carolina experienced more spills. All over the country, manure lagoons threaten ecological disaster on par with oil spills like the Exxon Valdez disaster.
The ecological impact of CAFOs doesn't stop at the barn door. Animals need feed to grow. Much of America's agricultural land is dedicated to growing that feed. To meet the demand for feed, farm land is being taken from the Amazon. Greenpeace forests campaign coordinator Gavin Edwards told USA Today that "Fast Food giants like McDonald's are trashing the Amazon for cheap meat. Every time you buy a Chicken McNugget you could be taking a bite out of the Amazon." Here at home, where much land is already claimed for agriculture, fertilizer from American farms flows down rivers dumping nitrates into our oceans, creating "Dead Zones" in areas like the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico, where the fishing industry pays the price.
ACTION: Search for sustainable agriculture in your area or consider becoming a vegetarian or vegan. Write your representatives asking them to reign in the meat-industrial complex. Support local efforts to convert land around farms into forest that can trap nitrates before they enter our rivers.
Economic Impact
Health and ecological impacts have their greatest effect on the poor. When CAFOs move in, poperty values plummet. In the rural South poultry producers tempt poor regions with the promise of jobs, but wind up devastating local economies:
"There's a horrible odor, a stench, and I have flies and rodents digging in, trying to get into my house. It is unbelievable. . . I'm too old to start over. I can't afford to. My house is paid for."
--Bernadine Edwards, quoted in Grist.
Independent farmers are pushed out by factory farms that monopolize markets through verticle integration by exploiting externalities to afford to undercut prices. Then farmers are forced by agribusiness cartels into a kind of serfdom where they are pushed into unfair contracts or replaced altogether by migrant workers. What's even worse is that local governments are left footing the bill for clean-up if a factory farm ever goes out of business.
ACTION: The most important thing you can do is buy as much food as you can from small, local producers. Having dramatically reduced my meat consumption several years ago, my next resolution is to buy more from community supported agriculture.
Animal Welfare
I hope that responses won't focus on divisive debates over the moral status of animals. One thing that all but the most heartless should probably agree on is that animals raised for slaughter ought to at least be spared a life of pain and misery. Compared to traditional farming, CAFOs are hell.
Towards a Sustainable Economy
University of Missouri Professor John E Ikerd has a number of articles on sustainable agriculture as an alternative to industrial agriculture. He concludes "Hogs, Economics and Rural Communities" with a call for common sense:
"Rural America is going through a great transition today, but the consequences are neither inevitable nor inevitably negative. Rural communities are being told that they must embrace the corporate model of agriculture or they will be left behind to wither and die. But, their common sense tells them that factory farming is not good for the natural environment, it's not good for family farms, it's not good for the rural economy, and it's not good for the people of rural communities. Economists tell us that industrialization is simply the impersonal working of free markets - of a competitive, capitalistic economic system. But, our common sense tells us that the economists are wrong. An economic system dominated by a handful of global corporations is not a "free market." Adam Smith's invisible hand has been mangled in the machinery of corporate industrialism. It's time to call the economist's hand on the fallacies of corporate "free markets." In reality, the future of rural communities is in the hands of rural people. Industrial or sustainable--they must choose. The choice really isn't all that difficult. All it takes is a little common sense."
--John E Ikerd (link above).
The economic power of corporate agribusiness cartels can only be resisted by organizing the stakeholders in rural economies to support state and local zoning and environmental legislation that makes it hard for the cartels to move in. In researching this post I found the GRACE Factory Farm Project, producers of The Meatrix, as a central source of information on the web, but was most encouraged by groups like The Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska, The Rural Advancement Foundation International USA in North Carolina, The Pennsylvania Environmental Network (who have a bunch of great links on their CAFO resource page), and The Clean Water Action Council of Northeastern Wisconsin (another good page of links on Factory Farming Impact). In my home state I found the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. The Sierra Club and NRDC are great, but it's these local organizations that will ultimately make the difference on the local level.
Please support sustainable agriculture.
Crossposted at ifthenknots.
I'm a Dkos environmentalist.