Confined Animal Feeding Operations, also called factory farms impose heavy environmental costs. The poultry industry pioneered the use of CAFOs more than 50 years ago. More recently, the hog industry started down the same path. Now, cattle ranches and dairies are becoming “chickenized.”

Phosphorus and nitrogen are the most concentrated nutrients in manure. Poultry manure is especially high in phosphorous. High phosphorous content in water promotes algae blooms. When the algae die, their decomposition extracts oxygen from the water, which suffocates aquatic animal life. Poultry producers argue that using dry chicken waste as fertilizer poses no threat to surface water because phosphorous adheres to soil particles and is eventually utilized in plant growth. However, soil can become saturated with phosphorous leading to runoff; and soil particles, with the phosphorous still attached, then erode. Egg, hog and dairy operations mix wastes with water and store it in lagoons. Every lagoon studied has been found to leak.

Photo courtesy The Sierra Club.

There are one million hogs in the Texas panhandle with the prospect of an additional million in the near future. It takes 3,194 acres of irrigated cropland to handle the nitrogen in the manure produced by 3,700 sows. It takes 7,454 acres to handle the phosphorous.

As wastes are broken down, numerous harmful gases are produced. The major ones are ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and methane. What goes up must come down – somewhere. Studies have found that soil and water downwind from CAFOs and waste disposal sites may become acidified. In close proximity to broiler houses, nitrogen deposits are too high for healthy trees to thrive. Plant diversity decreases as nitrogen-tolerant plants take over.

Also excreted in the wastes of both species are naturally produced hormones, pathogens and heavy metals like arsenic and selenium,. Because CAFOs are such a flawed method of animal production, their mortality rates are tremendously high — a fact that corporations go to great lengths to hide. Carcass disposal compounds the environmental problems.

Not only do CAFOs pollute the environment, they also squander resources. The aforementioned 3700-sow facility needs 254 million gallons of water/year for animal consumption and waste disposal. Energy consumption is extraordinary because CAFOs are climate-controlled. Baby animals require a lot of warmth in cool weather, but toxic gases must be vented. Heat leaves the barn with the gases which increases the need for more heat. In the summer, numerous large fans are used to handle heat, humidity and gases. Growers report electricity or propane bills that can run into thousands of dollars each month.

In addition to harming the environment, CAFOs are a way to doing business. Studies show that economies of scale peak around 150 sows or 200-300 dairy cows, not the thousands of animals actually found. I have yet to find even one study showing that CAFOs are more efficient than traditional, smaller, diversified farms.

CAFOs claim they create jobs. For each new job created, they displace more than three existing ones because they do not buy locally, and are highly mechanized in order to minimize labor costs. CAFOs also claim to expand the tax base. What good is an expanded tax base if the taxes are forgiven? These companies will not move into an area without major tax abatements. Then they operate under both agricultural and corporate exemptions. On top of that, every aspect of their operation is heavily subsidized.

When the corporation (or grower) decides to abandon a farm, taxpayers will spend around $42,000/lagoon surface acre in cleanup costs.

Make no mistake about it, I am a farm girl from the Midwest and very pro-agriculture. What I oppose is the pseudo-agriculture being perpetrated by corporations.

For more information on CAFOs, email ziggyfred@hotmail.com