Transcript CAFO’s - sampo.ru

Challenges and Perspectives
Dr. Edwin R. Squiers
Earth & Environmental Science
Taylor University
Upland, IN USA
 Confined
• The animals are kept tightly enclosed in buildings
during the entire process.
 Animal
• Pigs, Cattle, Poultry
 Feeding
•
Managed diets for rapid growth
in preparation for slaughter.
 Operations
• CAFO’s should not be
confused with farms, they are
industrial scale operations
Farm
NOT
Farm
Feed grain
& supplements
Antibiotics
Hormones &
other additives
Water
Live pigs to the
slaughter house
Manure and
other waste
products
Odor and other
air pollutants
Dead pigs
“Everything comes from somewhere.”
“Everything has to go somewhere.”
“Nothing goes away.”
Feed grain
 Is
there enough locally grown grain to
support the operation?
 If
not, where will the grain come from?
In either case, who will pay for the damage
to the local and regional roads caused by
the increase in heavy truck traffic?
Manure
 One
pig = 5.8 liters of waste/day
or… 2117 liters/year
 70,000
pigs = 148,190,000 liters/year
• Enough waste to fill a regulation sized
soccer field to a depth of 30 meters.
This is not a swimming pool
• The same amount of waste as a city of 280,000 people
 Petrozavodsk has a modern sewage treatment plant, CAFO’s do not.
Manure

Remember: “Everything has to go somewhere”

Q: What do you do with 148 million liters of manure?
• A: Put it in very large holding ponds
But there are problems…
• Although holding ponds are usually lined with heavy
plastic, almost all of them leak.
• If the ponds leak or overflow due to heavy rains or bad
planning, the waste pollutes surface and ground water.
Manure

“Everything has to go somewhere”

Q: What do you do with 148 million liters of manure
when the pond is full?
• A: You spread it on farm fields.
Manure

Manure is good fertilizer… you can use it to grow crops.

Most crops require a nutrient ratio of 3 parts Nitrogen
(N) : 1 part Phosphorous (P) : 1 part Potassium (K)

The ratio of N:P:K in pig manure is 1:1:1

To get the right amount of critical nitrogen, you must
use 3 times as much manure.
What happens to the extra P and K ?
“Everything goes somewhere”
Manure

And to further complicate things, spreading waste on
fields works as long as there is not snow on frozen
ground.

When the snow melts
the waste can not be
absorbed by the frozen
soil so it runs directly
into streams, rivers and
lakes.
How many month each year does snow cover frozen ground in Karelia?
Dead Pigs

What do you do with 7,000 pigs killed each year
by disease?
The meat packing companies
will not accept them…
“Everything goes somewhere”
Odor




1 pig is cute
100 pigs smell bad
1,000 pigs smell very very bad
100,000 pigs… is a smell you will never forget !
Even at distances of 10 kilometers as the wind blows
And it is worse than just a bad smell…
The chemicals released into the air can also make you sick:
• Physical symptoms: respiratory distress, diarrhea, &
headaches, and nausea
• Neurological symptoms: abnormal balance, loss of grip strength,
delays in verbal recall, confusion, and depression
“Everything goes somewhere”
But where is “somewhere?”
 Somewhere
is generally “Down”
• Down hill
• Down wind
• Down stream
• Down into the lakes
• Down into the groundwater
• Down into your water supply, and
• Down the food chain on to your dinner plate.
Trust me, you do not want to be “down” from a CAFO.
Feed supplements
 Antibiotics
• Large numbers of animals living together in a small
and dirty space means that disease is common.
• You can not sell dead or diseased animals.
• So, large doses of antibiotics are given to the animals
in their feed as a preventative measure.
But that is not the end of the story…
Campylobacter , one of many common disease
organisms found in CAFO operations. It causes
pneumonia in pigs… and humans .
When these bacteria cause diseases in humans,
they do not respond to treatment with antibiotics.
So… CAFO’s produce meat, but they also
produce new types of disease organisms
that are resistant to antibiotics.
E. coli is perhaps the best know and most common
disease organism found in the feces of warm
blooded animals (e.g. cows, pigs, and humans)
So… when manure containing the antibiotic
resistant E. coli is used on some crops, like
lettuce or spinach, they end up on your dinner
plate… and they can kill you.
Established in Europe
Then EU banned
the routine feeding of
antibiotics to livestock…
North Carolina…
Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky
After several major environmental
disasters in these states…
Lawsuits and tougher environmental
regulations forced them to look for
another home…
…in Indiana
The Results of CAFO Expansion
It has been said the only way for CAFO’s to make a profit
is to leave the mess for someone else to clean up.
Once established, CAFO’s operate until the regulations
catch up with them or until the mess is simply to big to
ignore, then they declare bankruptcy, change their name
and move to a new location.
In short, the meat and the money go “away”
but the pollution and other problems are left behind.
Can you guess who will pay to clean up the mess?
Targets for CAFO Expansion

Communities that are rural and poor and have:
• A history of farming
• Few or no environmental regulations
• A government that is sympathetic to big business
• A judicial system that is slow to act on personal
injury claims
• A history of failure to protect their own resources
Rural Indiana is one of those places….
Is rural Karelia also one?
“I’m selling the farm to Agribusiness and moving to
Рублёвка, but don’t worry, you can stay here and
you will lots of new friends…