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Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Global Warming and Air Pollution

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Global Warming and Air Pollution. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). 700 mature dairy cattle 1,000 beef cattle or veal calves 55,000 turkeys 2,500 swine if 55 lbs or over, or 10,000 swine if under 55 lbs 10,000 sheep or lambs

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Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Global Warming and Air Pollution

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  1. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Global Warming and Air Pollution

  2. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) • 700 mature dairy cattle • 1,000 beef cattle or veal calves • 55,000 turkeys • 2,500 swine if 55 lbs or over, or 10,000 swine if under 55 lbs • 10,000 sheep or lambs • 5,000 ducks if a liquid manure handling system is used or 30,000 if not • 55,000 turkeys • 30,000 hens or broilers if a liquid manure handling system is used or 82,000 if not • 125,000 chickens if other than liquid manure handling system is used

  3. Air Pollution Basics Primary Emission - gases or particles that violate NationalAmbient Air Quality Standards Regulated under the Clean Air Act (CAA) NAAQS • Ammonia (NH3) • Methane (CH4) • Carbon Dioxide (CO2) • Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) • Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) • Particulate Matter (PM)

  4. Total Animal Production 10 billion land animals are used for food production per year in the United States • 95% of these are chickens and turkeys • 100 million pigs • 35 million beef cattle, 9 million dairy cows and 1 million veal calves • Totals for farmed aquatic animals go unreported, estimated at well over 10 billion, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - National Agricultural Statistics Service 2004-2005 and USDA - Economic Research Service 2004-2005

  5. Total Vertical Integration Transformed Agriculture • Farm and feedlot sizes have increased dramatically • Decision makers no longer the farmer that lives down the road • Only 2 workers needed to operate a 9,000 hog farm • Circumventing environmental protection law reduces the cost of production and favors large producers • CAFO transfers cost of waste treatment to local communities • Clean Water (CWA) enforcement increasesCAA air pollution • Lagoons ready to overflow misted into spray fields instead of piped into surface water resources

  6. CAFO Environmental Impacts • Waste “lagoons” may contain between 200 - 400 varieties of volatile organic compounds (VOC)1 • Just 3 egg production facilities produce (per year) over 1,400 t ammonia and 2,000 t particulate matter • Animal agriculture in the U.S. produces more than 1.6 billion tons of manure per year3

  7. Animal agriculture is reported to be the largest contributor of ammonia emissions to the atmosphere in the U.S.1 EPA data and projections concerning CAFO ammonia emissions

  8. A Georgia Swine Effluent Lagoon

  9. Contributions to Global Warming • Open-air, uncovered anaerobic digestion applied with minimal to no treatment • Common to “aerosolize” liquid waste or ‘evaporate’ it through spraying onto waste fields - far exceeding the absorption capacity of the soil • Up to 80 percent of a hog lagoon’s nitrogen may volatize, changing from a liquid to a gas1 • Similar values exist for poultry lagoons, where over 70% of nitrogen entering exits as ammonia

  10. Locally - 52,300 dairy cows emitted 5.7 million pounds of ammonia in 2005 – three times the amount generated by all industrial sources, according to the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)1 Nationally - Methane emissions from manure increased by 26% between 1990 and 2004, attributes to large concentrated dairy cow and swine facilities2

  11. Oversaturated “spray fields” turn increased air emissions into increased water pollution

  12. “The world's livestock herds account for roughly 25 percent of anthropogenic emissions of methane - a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change… stagnant waste lagoons of factory-farm operations emit an additional 5 percent of human-induced methane, making livestock production the largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions” - Worldwatch Institute

  13. Antibiotics • 84% of all antibiotics consumed are used in livestock1 • 3 million lbs of antibiotics used annually in human medicine • cows, chickens pigs are administered 25 mil lbs/yr • 80% of antibiotics administered pass unchanged through the pig to bacteria rich waste lagoons2 • These sub therapeutic levels of antibiotics are given to ward off the effects of intensive confinement • On food animals as “a management tool to prevent infection and to facilitate the use of confinement housing…to improve animal performance”

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