Cows burp methane gas and their manure also emits methane. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
(Photo courtesy of the USDA)
The US Department of Agriculture
is planning to give dairy farmers
more money to cut some of their
greenhouse gas emissions. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Transcript
The US Department of Agriculture
is planning to give dairy farmers
more money to cut some of their
greenhouse gas emissions. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Cows are gassy. They burp methane gas and their manure also emits methane. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
In Copenhagen, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions on farms. He said the government will be giving farmers more money for methane digesters. They’re machines that capture methane from manure.
Katie Feeney is with the environmental group Clean Air Council.
“If you can make it easy for them and cost effective for them to be sustainable, to reduce their emissions, then I foresee a lot more people participating in programs such as that.”
But some environmentalists say voluntary programs are not enough. They say big dairy farms should be regulated more.
Starting in the New Year, all kinds of businesses will have to report their greenhouse gas emissions. But there’s a big exception: large concentrated animal farms don’t have to.
It’s not uncommon for influenza viruses to be exchanged between pigs and humans
(Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)
The current swine flu outbreak was first detected in a region of Mexico with large confined animal feeding operations – factory farms. Many environmentalists wonder if there’s a connection. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The current swine flu outbreak was first detected in a region of Mexico with large confined animal feeding operations – factory farms. Many environmentalists wonder if there’s a connection. Lester Graham reports:
A US government brochure indicates it’s not uncommon for influenza viruses to be exchanged between pigs and humans.
Mark Wilson is a professor of epidemeology at the University of Michigan. He says factory farms can make that exchange easier.
“The combination of animals being confined in close quarters as well as the large number of animals is likely to lead to more transmission of infectious agents among them. And as people – workers – are in contact with these animals, the possibility of transmission from those animals to those workers is increased. Absolutely.”
But, Wilson says it’s anyone’s guess whether this strain of swine flu began at a factory farm.
“Completely unknown at this point.”
Health officials from Mexico and the US Centers for Disease Control are investigating the source of the virus.
Professor Albert Heber holds up one of the samples from the stinky study. (Photo courtesy of Purdue University)
Odor emissions from livestock farms like this one will hopefully be reduced using research from the sniffing study. (Photo by Mark Brush)
University students are sniffing manure samples in the lab. As Mark Brush reports, the
students are part of a research effort aimed at reducing odors near livestock farms:
Transcript
University students are sniffing manure samples in the lab. As Mark Brush reports, the
students are part of a research effort aimed at reducing odors near livestock farms:
Students are paid thirty dollars to take part in each sniff test. They tell researchers
which air samples smell the worst. Researchers are trying to figure out how to cut back
on smells coming from large livestock operations.
Al Heber heads up the research at Purdue University. He says the studies help determine
what practices cut down on smells – and it helps communities decide where to locate
these big livestock operations in the first place:
“We have used these odor emission studies to help develop a setback model. So that if
the farm is located far enough from the neighbor then we can avoid the problem because
we let the atmosphere dilute the odor down to where it’s not a nuisance anymore.”
Heber says using appropriate setbacks could cut back on the conflict between livestock producers and the people who live near them.
Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways.
(Photo by Mark Brush)
Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:
Transcript
Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:
The days of small farms with different kinds of livestock grazing in
the pasture are fading from the landscape.
They’re being replaced by farms that specialize in one kind of animal –
and raise thousands of them. They’re called concentrated animal
feeding operations, or CAFOs.
There are battles in several states right now over who should be keeping an eye
on the CAFOs. Usually, the state departments of environmental
protection have power under the federal Clean Water Act to enforce laws
and issue permits. But in the Midwest, in states such as Ohio and
Michigan, and in the West, in states such as Oregon and Idaho, they either have transferred or are working to transfer oversight power to the state agriculture departments – and get U.S. EPA approval.
Jerry Van Woerkom is a Republican state senator in Michigan. Right
now, the state Department of Environmental Quality – or DEQ – has the
oversight powers. But Senator Van Woerkom is sponsoring a package of
bills that would put most of the state’s big livestock farms under the
Department of Agriculture:
“Those people tend to be supportive and come with the attitude of we’re
going to try to work together to solve this problem. Whereas when they
work with the DEQ the attitude is more like we’re coming with a
hammer and if we find anything you’ve done that’s out of line, we’re
going to wop you with it.”
The CAFOs are in the spotlight because they can produce tens of
thousands of gallons of urine and manure each day. That liquefied
manure is eventually spread onto farm fields.
The Environmental Protection Agency says that waste can wash from
fields into streams and creeks. That can cause fish kills. Animal
waste has also gotten into drinking water and made people sick.
Lynn Henning runs a small farm. She says there are 13 CAFOs within a
10 mile radius of her Michigan farmhouse. She says the manure odors
are overwhelming:
“We can’t hang laundry when the emissions are in the air. We have
severe fly outbreaks. We’ve had family farmers that have been diagnosed with hydrogen
sulfide poisoning from emissions from the CAFOs.”
Henning says the current oversight system is weak. She says the
Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t have enough funding to
monitor the CAFOs. So that job often falls to residents like her. She
says putting the Department of Agriculture in charge of oversight would
make the problems even worse:
“The MDA has no enforcement authority and they promote agriculture in
Michigan. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
You can’t give authority to punish to an agency that’s promoting.”
But it could become a wider trend if the states that are proposing the
switch now actually make it happen.
Karla Raettig is an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project.
It’s a group that’s been critical of weakening environmental laws.
She’s been tracking trends in enforcement of livestock farms:
“I think the Farm Bureau and other really large industry advocates are
seeing a chance to get regulation that is perhaps more cooperative,
less regulatory and less on the enforcement side. It isn’t totally
nefarious but I think it could have outcomes that are not anticipated.”
Raettig says you have to wonder what will happen without the threat of
enforcement from an environmental agency.
But Senator Jerry Van Woerkom from Michigan argues that farmers are
more likely to do the right thing if they’re overseen by a friendlier
agency, as he proposes:
“I mean you’re not able to cover up problems that happen, it gets in
the newspaper, people know when problems happen. But I believe that the
agriculture department will work with people, especially if people are
getting a bad reputation. I think they will work with them and if
those people do get out of line, it’s back to the DEQ.”
Environmentalists and small farmers are worried about the idea of
states handing off oversight of CAFOs… from their environmental
watchdog agencies to their agencies in charge of promoting the business
of agriculture.
Cows burp methane gas and their manure also emits methane. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
