Animal Factory: The Looming Threat

“Warning: The raising of your food may cause the following: Swine flu, Mad Cow Disease, MRSA, Asthma, E-Coli, Pollution, Animal Cruelty…”

At last we are waking up to the facts. We have Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Meet Your Meat, Food, Inc., Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and now Animal Factory among some of the great books, films and series to thank for enlightening us on the true provenance of our food.

The latest book, and the subject of this post, is Animal Factory by David Kirby,  author and investigative reporter. This book is an outstanding, voluminous piece of research into the inhumanity (in every sense of the word) of agribusiness. Its focus is not so much on the aberrant treatment of farm animals as much as a look into the actual cost of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) on human health, air, water and ground pollution.

Here’s an excerpt of the book that peels the cover on the dirty “little” secret of the huge impact that animal factories and animal waste has on humans, wildlife and communities. Consider this:

• Each year, the United States produces more than one ton of “dry matter” (the portion remaining after water is removed) animal waste for every resident, and animal feeding operations yield one hundred times more waste than all U.S. human sewage treatment plants.
• While human sewage is treated to kill pathogens, animal waste is not. Hog manure has ten to one hundred times more concentrated pathogens than human waste, yet the law would never permit untreated human waste to be kept in vast “lagoons,” or sprayed onto fields, as is the case with manure.
• Manure can contain pathogens, antibiotics, drug-resistant bacteria, hormones, heavy metals, and other compounds that can seriously impact human health, aquatic life, and wildlife when introduced into the environment, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
• The eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay produces one million tons of manure a year, enough to fill a football stadium “to the top row, including all the concourses, locker rooms, and concession areas.”
• Agricultural waste is the number-one form of well-water contaminants in the United States, where at least 4.5 million people are exposed to dangerously high nitrate levels in their drinking water.
• A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study of well water in nine Midwestern states showed that 13 percent of the supply had nitrate levels above the EPA standard of ten milligrams per liter.
• Feedlot odors contain some 170 separate chemicals, many of them known to cause respiratory ailments, diarrhea, depression, violent behavior, and other health problems.Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than cars, a UN report warns.

Kirby states:

What I see happening is a slow-burn consumer revolt — one that is already under way and profiled in my book — in which big producers are obliged to make more and more concessions in terms of animal welfare, antibiotic use, environmental controls, fair labor practices, and so on. Public pressure comes in many forms: at the ballot box, the statehouse, the courthouse, the White House, and the supermarket. Consumers have more power than they realize. If they demand an even playing field that allows smaller, independent local producers to enter the food supply chain, it will happen, and those farms will flourish.

Let’s spread the word. As Kirby mentions, the following clichés work: As consumers, we get a say, a vote with every dollar that we spend. Time to tell Big Agra how we feel about all this. READ THE BOOK(S) & PASS IT ON!