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CAFO’s

CAFO’s. Challenges and Perspectives. Dr. Edwin R. Squiers Earth & Environmental Science Taylor University Upland, IN USA. What are CAFO’s?. C onfined The animals are kept tightly enclosed in buildings during the entire process. A nimal Pigs, Cattle, Poultry F eeding

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CAFO’s

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  1. CAFO’s Challenges and Perspectives Dr. Edwin R. Squiers Earth & Environmental Science Taylor University Upland, IN USA

  2. What are CAFO’s? • 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

  3. CAFO’s are not farms… Farm NOT Farm

  4. CAFO’s are industrial scale operationseach with as many as 200,000 animals

  5. Feed grain & supplements Live pigs to the slaughter house Manure and other waste products Antibiotics Hormones & other additives Odor and other air pollutants Dead pigs Water Inputs and Outputs “Everything comes from somewhere.” “Everything has to go somewhere.” “Nothing goes away.”

  6. Inputs 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?

  7. Outputs 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. • The same amount of waste as a city of 280,000 people • Petrozavodsk has a modern sewage treatment plant, CAFO’s do not. This is not a swimming pool

  8. Outputs 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.

  9. Outputs 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.

  10. Outputs 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”

  11. Outputs 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?

  12. Outputs 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”

  13. Outputs 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”

  14. “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.

  15. Inputs 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…

  16. When these bacteria cause diseases in humans, they do not respond to treatment with antibiotics. While the antibiotics kill most of the bacteria, the resistant ones survive and reproduce ultimately ending up in the manure… Campylobacter , one of many common disease organisms found in CAFO operations. It causes pneumonia in pigs… and humans . So… CAFO’s produce meat, but they also produce new types of disease organisms that are resistant to antibiotics.

  17. Normally E. coli has been controlled by antibiotics, but new resistant types, whose origins have linked to CAFO’s, have caused major health problems in the general population. 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. 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)

  18. CAFO Travel Guide 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

  19. The Pattern of Events 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?

  20. The Pattern of Events 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?

  21. Questions? “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…

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