CAFOs: Environmental and Public Health Impacts Explained

Introduction: The Rise of Industrialized Animal Farming

In the past century there has been a substantial change in the way human beings raise and keep animals meant for food. While in the past there were great numbers of widely spaced small individual farms, today there are relatively few but extremely large industrialized farms. As the number of animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption increases, these industrialized farms — known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs — are having a growing impact on the environment and on the communities around them.

The concentration of animals causes a major problem with the waste products they produce, as well as the gases, chemicals, and other byproducts generated in the process. The increased use of antibiotics in livestock is beginning to have a profound effect on the health of not only the surrounding environment but also the communities near these industrialized farms. CAFOs and their secondary industries are also large consumers of oil, gasoline, and other fuels, which can have an indirect but devastating effect on the environment. Fortunately, some have begun to recognize these problems and have started informing the public of the dangers these farms pose. In response, the public is beginning to force changes in the way CAFOs operate and the impact they have on the environment and local communities.

Industrialized farms have all but replaced the local family farm when it comes to raising animals. In 1965, for instance, there were more than one million pig farms across the country, but in the 21st century the total number of pig farms has fallen to just over 65,000 (Sayre). Even as the number of farms decreased, the total number of pigs being raised increased from 53 million to 65 million. The net result of this change has been the increased concentration of larger numbers of pigs onto fewer farms. Pigs are not the only animals to see this transformation; it has also affected the production of chickens and cattle.

Waste Concentration and Environmental Contamination

Because so many animals are concentrated into a single location, their waste creates serious problems. Manure and urine are often collected in large waste lagoons, and when these lagoons break, leak, or overflow they send "dangerous microbes, nitrate pollution and drug-resistant bacteria into water supplies" ("Pollution from Giant Livestock Farms"). These lagoons are also the source of a number of toxic gases, including methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. Such gases can affect the environment not only in the immediate area but can migrate over large distances and harm other regions as well. Because industrialized farms produce far more waste than they can possibly dispose of responsibly, they often use this waste as fertilizer by spraying it onto surrounding land. The sheer volume of waste, however, means that industrialized farms frequently over-fertilize the land, causing runoff and contamination of both air and water.

Anyone who has come within a few miles of a CAFO can attest that the smell greets a person well before they get near it. This stench is merely a symptom of a greater threat: poisonous gases. When manure decomposes it produces a number of gases; hydrogen sulfide, for example, is dangerous even at small doses and can cause irreversible effects ranging from "sore throat to seizures, comas and even death" ("Pollution from Giant Livestock Farms"). Water supplies are also frequently contaminated by nitrates that seep from lagoons and over-sprayed fields into drinking water. These nitrates have been linked to infant mortality and to disease outbreaks in areas where drinking water has been contaminated.

When CAFO waste runs off into the broader environment, a range of chemicals enter the surrounding ecosystem and cause ecological disruption. Phosphorus and nitrogen — two byproducts of animal waste — can in large quantities "cause an explosion of algae that robs water of oxygen, killing aquatic life" ("Pollution from Giant Livestock Farms"). This has contributed to a significant increase in fish deaths in and around the areas where CAFOs operate.

Public Health Threats from CAFOs

While the continued operation of CAFOs causes problems for the environment, it also poses risks to the health of humans working and living nearby. Throughout human history, the vast majority of pathogens that infect people "are thought to have originated in animals" (Sayre). Diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, pertussis, and the common cold are all believed to have reached humans through interactions with animals. With the development of antibiotic technology, many assumed such diseases were a thing of the past. However, the overuse of antibiotics has driven bacteria and viruses to evolve into antibiotic-resistant strains that pose a significant threat to human populations. Medical researchers have found that "in some pathogens, selection for resistance also results in increased virulence" (Sayre). In effect, by gaining antibiotic resistance, some pathogens also become more likely to infect humans.

It is not only the areas directly surrounding CAFOs, and the people who live there, that are at risk. Industrialized farms lower the cost of producing meat and poultry, making these products more widely consumed by the general public. At every point along the supply chain — from the raising of animals to the slaughter facility, from packaging centers to transportation networks to local grocery stores — there is the possibility of contamination and public danger. For example, "Canada's largest waterborne disease outbreak, which infected 1,346 people and killed six, was traced to runoff from livestock farms into a town's water supply" (Sayre). Additionally, when Belgium was forced to remove all chickens and eggs from market shelves in 1999, there was a subsequent 40% decline in the number of Campylobacter infections in people (Sayre). Scientists are increasingly documenting the direct link between CAFOs and threats to human health.

Conclusion

The Earth can absorb a certain amount of waste from human activity, much like a filter, but only if that waste is introduced in small amounts and over time. The existence of CAFOs disrupts this natural filtering process because they produce too much waste material in too confined an area. As a result, there has been significant environmental damage from CAFOs and their byproducts. There is, however, an alternative. When people operate smaller, organic farms in their local areas, they can still obtain the agricultural and livestock products they need without the massive environmental and public health problems associated with large industrialized farms.

Works Cited

"Energy Use and Climate Change." GRACE Communications Foundation. Web. 15 April 2013. http://www.gracelinks.org/982/energy-use-climate-change

"Pollution from Giant Livestock Farms Threatens Public Health." NRDC. Web. 15 April 2013. http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/nspills.asp

Sayre, Laura. "The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness." Mother Earth News. Feb/Mar 2009. Web. 15 April 2013. http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/Meat-Poultry-Health-Risk.aspx#axzz2QeV74Xao