Fighting a confined animal feedlot operation (CAFO) in your region? Looking for good articles about the fight between ginormous feedlot operations and small family farms? Need a good gross-out? Here are four articles that may provide talking points, bullet points, and/or insight into the issues swirling around CAFOs.
Bacon as Weapon of Mass Destruction, by Arun Gupta, The Indypendent. Sheer, partisan CAFO-bashing. Choice quote:
Rolling Stone’s stunning report describes the lakes of manure that surround pig factories as Pepto Bismol colored because of the “interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs.” (Vegetarians who think they are unaffected by this toxic fecal frappe should think again: The sludge is often used to “fertilize” crops that may find their way to your table.)
CAFOs vs. Rural Communities, by Dr. John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia. The scholarly approach. Choice quote:
In calling for a nationwide moratorium on CAFOs, the American Public Health Association cited more than 40 scientific reports indicating health concerns related to CAFOs. The citations include research from such prestigious institutions as the University of North Carolina Medical School, the University of Iowa Medical School and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. In testifying before a U.S. congressional committee, the director of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health cited scientific evidence concerning the contamination of air, water, soil, and foods with toxic chemicals, infectious diseases, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and E. coli 0157:H7.
Confronting CAFOs through Local Control, Dr. John Ikerd again. A more personal approach. Choice quote:
Local farmers are being used as unwitting “front-men” for corporate agriculture. By failing to distinguish between large-scale, industrial agriculture and conventional family farming, the future of American agriculture is being placed at risk. … The American public tends to paint agriculture with a very broad brush. Thus, the picture of public irresponsibility represented by CAFOs threatens the public acceptance of agriculture in general.
Are CAFOS ands Small Producers Entering a Time of Benign Co-existence? Minnesota Farmers Union. A more nuanced look at the issues that Dr. Ikerd addresses in his second article above. Choice quote:
In forcing CAFOs to solve and internally bear the attendant costs of pollution, antibiotic-use, and other CAFO-related problems, small producers would find themselves on a more level playing field with CAFOs since existing and especially new CAFOs would be producing with a higher cost structure compared to today. Of course some would argue that such a transformation in CAFO’s cost structure will not occur. But we are not so sure. We suspect-to quote Bob Dylan, “the times they are a-changin.”
