By 2015, Proposition 2 in California forces farms to make
sure the animals are given enough room to move around.
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Voters in California are drawing
a line in the sand when it comes to the
factory farming of animals. They overwhelmingly
approved a ballot measure to ensure that
hens, calves and pigs are treated more
humanely. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Voters in California are drawing
a line in the sand when it comes to the
factory farming of animals. They overwhelmingly
approved a ballot measure to ensure that
hens, calves and pigs are treated more
humanely. Julie Grant reports:
Right now, in most states, calves raised for veal, pregnant
pigs, and hens that lay eggs are caged so tight they can
barely move.
By 2015, Proposition 2 in California forces farms to make
sure the animals are given enough room to move around.
Michael Markarian is a vice president with the U.S. Humane
Society, which spent millions to get the issue approved.
“You cram these animals into cages barely larger than their
bodies. They’re practically immobilized their entire lives. I
mean, what could be more basic than giving an animal some
freedom of movement?”
Opponents of the issue say this will cost farmers and
consumers. We’ll see more imports from countries that don’t
have these kinds of laws.
One environmentalist is arguing that hormones in cows may actually be better for the environment (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
The cow hormone known as rBST or rBGH
has taken a beating in the environmental community.
Injecting the hormone into cows makes them produce
more milk. But some people are afraid the hormone
can find its way from the cow, to the cow’s milk,
and into our bodies. The government insists that’s
not the case. Shawn Allee says one researcher
wants to change the debate about rBST – and convince
environmentalists to support the hormone:
Transcript
The cow hormone known as rBST or rBGH
has taken a beating in the environmental community.
Injecting the hormone into cows makes them produce
more milk. But some people are afraid the hormone
can find its way from the cow, to the cow’s milk,
and into our bodies. The government insists that’s
not the case. Shawn Allee says one researcher
wants to change the debate about rBST – and convince
environmentalists to support the hormone:
Before I introduce you to the researcher who supports rbst or rbgh, I want
you to understand what she’s up against.
It’s well-meaning people like Steve Parkes.
Parkes co-owns New Leaf natural food store in Chicago. He decides what’s
on the shelves.
“A lot goes into making that decision. First and foremost, is it something
I would eat myself?”
And as for milk produced with rbgh, Parkes won’t sell it.
“People have been drinking milk for thousands of years from animals
that didn’t have have rgbh in them, so, I think I’m a little more
comfortable drinking milk from a cow that didn’t have rgbh than I am
from something that is a very, very new technology.”
A lot of people distrust rbgh, and that’s changed the milk market.
For example, some retailers like Starbucks won’t buy milk from dairies that
use it. More and more dairies are asking farmers to pledge not to use the
hormone.
The trend has frustrated researcher Judith Capper.
“People aren’t questioning the science basis of it.”
Capper is with Cornell University. She argues environmentalists and
consumers should take another look at the hormone, and see it as part of the
solution to global warming.
Capper recently co-wrote a study that began with a simple observation – in a
few decades, there will be many more Americans.
“The US population will have gone up from about 300 million people to
377 million people and we wanted to look at the environment impact of
producing enough milk to feed all those people.”
That scares Capper – because producing milk can make the global warming
problem worse.
That’s because feeding cows, and the cows themselves, lead to more
greenhouse gas emissions.
“Okay, there are six major inputs and outputs in terms of carbon.”
I won’t go through six, but here are a few.
First, there’s the feed that cows eat. Tractors have to plant grain. That burns
fossil fuels. Greenhouse gasses. Then feed is trucked to the dairy farm.
More greenhouse gasses. More cows, more greenhouse gasses.
So, you want as much milk as possible from each cow.
“If you give rbst to a cow, it will produce an extra ten pounds per day,
that’s quite an increase.”
And then there’s the other greenhouse gasses. From, um, the ugly end of the
cow equation.
The manure puts off other potent greenhouse gasses. And Cows belch
methane. Cows that use rbst poop and belch, spare the atmosphere even
more carbon.
All this leads Capper to a startling conclusion.
She says if farmers gave a million cows the hormone –
“Using rbst would be like taking about 400,000 cars off the road, or
planting three hundred million trees. Those are really big numbers.”
Judith Capper says she expects scientists will challenge her research – and
she welcomes a good debate about rbgh and rbst.
She says that’s better than this vague idea that the hormone might somehow
be bad without understanding the whole story.
“Choose organic, choose rbst-free, whatever, but base it on facts and
science, not on consumer perceptions that may not be factually correct.”
But, Capper’s got her work cut out for her.
Government statistics show consumer fear about rbgh has made farmers cut
the percentage of cows injected with the hormone.
Today’s cattle are much bigger than they were back in the 1920s. They’ve been bred to
big and beefy. But, it turns out, you can actually produce more meat with the smaller
cattle.
(Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)
Because of feed and energy prices,
some cattle farmers are scaling back.
They’re not reducing the size of their
herd. They’re reducing the size of their
cows. Kinna Ohman reports:
Transcript
Because of feed and energy prices,
some cattle farmers are scaling back.
They’re not reducing the size of their
herd. They’re reducing the size of their
cows. Kinna Ohman reports:
Today’s cattle are much bigger than they were back in the 1920s. They’ve been bred to
big and beefy. But, it turns out, you can actually produce more meat with the smaller
cattle.
Richard Gradwohl has been breeding miniature cattle for more than forty years. He
says with today’s larger beef cattle on five acres, you can produce 2400 pounds of
meat. He can raise as much as 7000 pounds of beef on that same five acres.
“It’s surprising to me how many large cattle breeders call me almost every day
because they’re interested in reducing the size of their animals to achieve more
feed efficiency.”
Gradwohl thinks the emphasis on breeding large cattle might be reversing.
The Getz’s think their cows can help make decisions on their farm.
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Steve and Karen Getz found out their cows prefer spending hot days in the shelter, instead of out on pasture. The cows will then graze during the night.
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Family farming is in trouble. The country has lost thousands
of small family-owned farms over the last twenty years. Some researchers
say that’s because the agricultural industry and government policy favor
corporate farms. That makes it difficult for smaller farms to survive.
So some small farmers are trying a different way of farming. Kinna Ohman reports that it can all start with a little ingenuity:
Transcript
Family farming is in trouble. The country has lost thousands
of small family-owned farms over the last twenty years. Some researchers
say that’s because the agricultural industry and government policy favor
corporate farms. That makes it difficult for smaller farms to survive.
So some small farmers are trying a different way of farming. Kinna Ohman reports that it can all start with a little ingenuity:
(sounds of farm)
Steve and Karen Getz run a dairy farm in central Vermont.
They’re the type of people who think outside of the box. Not only do they let their cows
out on pasture (and that’s rare among dairy farmers) they also let their cows be part of the
decision making on the farm. They think their cows have some pretty good ideas.
It all started on a hot summer day a couple of years ago. The Getz’s noticed after the
morning milking, their cows didn’t want to go out to pasture. Instead, the cows stood at
the gate that led into a large indoor shelter they call a ‘pack’.
The Getz’s built this ‘pack’ for the winter – so their cows could get out of the harsh
winds. They didn’t know why their cows would want to use it in the summer, but Steve
Getz says they gave it a try.
“And what we did was to open the gate to see what would happen. And what we
found was they’d come in and sleep in the pack in the blazing hot heat. And it
started to cool down in the afternoon. They went back out and grazed all night
long.”
Steve Getz says there’s been no loss of milk production. And all this makes a lot of
sense. But he says they never read about this in any book or farm magazine.
So Steve and Karen Getz thought they’d see if their cows had any more good ideas.
And the cows did.
Karen Getz says they were told their cows needed to give birth in an area separated from
the herd. So they built a fence around a corner area of their indoor shelter. But soon they
saw their cows didn’t like this – they wanted to be with the herd. So Karen Getz says
they let that happen too.
“She can go off into a corner somewhere and calve and have enough space. And
then she feels comfortable because she can get up and eat with the herd, she can be
nursing the calf. But she’s not separated. That’s less stress for the cow. You know,
we let them choose.”
It’s this kind of creativity that could help small farming come back to rural communities.
That’s what Martha Pickard thinks. She’s a grazing specialist.
She says many farmers only know the industrial model used by large farms. So when
they see families like the Getz’s grazing their cows, saving lots of money on feed, and
letting the cows make decisions on their own, it gives them other options.
“It’s such a huge deal to change your style of management. It’s like you getting up
in the morning and having a different job. So it takes a certain personality type,
someone who’s willing to think outside of the box, someone who’s willing to have
their neighbors stop by and say, ‘why are you doing it that way?’ It’s tough because
they’re usually on their own.”
Martha Pickard wants those small farmers to realize they’re not alone. And to know
there are others who are also rejecting the industrial way of farming.
Darrell Emmick, who’s with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, says he’s seen
progress.
Even though there’s been a net loss of small dairy farms in his region,
Emmick’s also watched farms with alternative grass based systems survive. He says
that’s hopeful.
“Twenty-five years ago, we’d pretty much gotten away from this. But today,
farmers putting cows on pasture. Finally, we have that on the radar screen. And if
I have a success story to share, that’d be it.”
Those small family farmers have realized the conventional wisdom pushed by the
agricultural industry might hurt more than help them. And people like Pickard and
Emmick want to help those farmers to learn from each other. They hope it means more
farms will survive being taken-over by corporate farming.
At Hawthorne Valley Farm, calves are raised with their mothers - unlike other dairy farms (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Hawthorne Valley Farm (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Some cutting edge farmers are stepping
away from concentrating on only production of
meat and milk on their farms. They’re starting
to focus on ways to give their animals healthy,
long lives. And they’re finding more benefits
than they ever imagined. Kinna Ohman reports:
Transcript
Some cutting edge farmers are stepping
away from concentrating on only production of
meat and milk on their farms. They’re starting
to focus on ways to give their animals healthy,
long lives. And they’re finding more benefits
than they ever imagined. Kinna Ohman reports:
The idea of dairy cows grazing out in a pasture is rare – even though advertisers use this
scene all the time to sell us cheese and milk.
The reality is, most dairy cows spend their lives inside big sheds. They’re pushed to produce a lot of milk. And
they often die a premature death.
(cows mooing)
So there’s something relaxing about a farm like Hawthorne Valley. Maybe it’s just
knowing places like these still exist.
The farm’s surrounded by the rolling hills of New York’s Hudson Valley. There’s a big
red barn. Cows graze out in green pastures. And this year? You’ll even see some little
calves hanging out with their mothers.
Steffen Schneider’s grinning because of those little calves. He’s the dairy farm manager
at Hawthorne Valley. He’s standing at a pasture fence. And he can’t take his eyes off the scene
in front of him.
“It’s a great sight to see a little herd of calves galloping like little kids right through
the herd and the mother looking, being very proud of their ones. This mother right
here we’re looking at Patricia, she has her eye exactly on her own baby there,
Pepper, he’s one of those guys lying right there. Yeah, it’s wonderful.”
Schneider started letting his cows bring up their calves around a year ago. But that’s
really rare in the dairy industry.
At most farms, they take calves away from their mothers within a day of being born.
That’s because farmers want to keep their cows in milk production. They don’t want to waste that
milk on the calves. That push for high milk production does take a toll on dairy cows.
Kent Anderson’s a veterinarian who works on these types of farms. He says he
understand the business needs of farmers. But he says its difficult seeing cows pushed so
hard.
“But one thing that distresses me a bit is that a normal bovine should have five, ten,
twelve, productive years. But as agriculture changes, the average dairy cow makes it
two and a half lactations, which means, she’s not even 5 years old, and she’s gone.”
Many farmers think that’s the best way to run their dairy farms.
But Steffen Schneider says he wants to balance business with the natural needs of his
animals. And letting his cows raise their calves is just one more step. He says the cows
are less stressed. And they’re seeing some great changes in the calves.
“Within a few weeks, it was amazing to watch how healthy those calves were, how
quickly they grew. They were like different animals than we were used to seeing in
our pens. And so much more awake in their senses, so much stronger limbs. Just
much more vibrant animals.”
Schneider wonders how these improvements will help the calves as they become adults.
And even how it could help the quality of their milk. But more than anything else, he just
seems amazed it took him twenty five years to take this step.
“It’s really crazy that through just greed we don’t just expose those calves to their
mothers. And think we need every single last drop of milk – forgetting the only
reason the milk even comes in is because the cow gives birth. I’m really very happy
I finally, we finally, did it.”
Only a small group of dairy farmers are letting their cows bring up their young. But they hope to show other farmers and consumers there is a way to combine business with a more natural life for their animals.
Bion's proposed project would consist of 84,000 beef cattle (Photo by Bill Tarpenning, courtesy of the USDA)
Corporations are taking a new approach to farming. They’re combining ethanol production with feeding animals. The corporations need land, water, and a willing community. They turn to economically depressed rural communities and promise jobs. But some researchers think these rural communities could end up with more problems than benefits. Kinna Ohman reports:
Transcript
Corporations are taking a new approach to farming. They’re combining ethanol production with feeding animals. The corporations need land, water, and a willing community. They turn to economically depressed rural communities and promise jobs.But some researchers think these rural communities could end up with more problems than benefits. Kinna Ohman reports:
Bion Environmental Technologies is just like a lot of big businesses trying to capitalize on the ethanol trend.
Over the past year, people from Bion have been working with local officials in St. Lawrence County, a rural area of northern New York. Bion plans to build their first project there. It’ll be a huge indoor feedlot for eighty four thousand beef cattle and a large corn ethanol plant.
They have everything accounted for – they’ll ship cattle and corn in from the Midwest. They’ll use distiller’s grain from the ethanol plant to help feed the cattle. And they’ll even use manure from the cattle to power the ethanol plant.
Jeff Kappell is a manager with Bion. He says this kind of scale and integration is the future of agriculture. And he thinks it’ll be great for the community,
“Establishing a brand and establishing the ability, the knowledge in a consumer marketplace that there is value associated with activity in St. Lawrence County is a tide that can rise all boats. So we see this as symbiotic.”
But not everyone agrees. They wonder how much water the project will need. And they wonder about pollution from all those cattle.
Shane Rogers knows a lot about pollution from factory farms. He’s a professor of environmental engineering at Clarkson University in St. Lawrence County. He tests for certain pollutants in the water and soil around factory farms. Rogers often finds antibiotic resistant E-Coli and other pathogens. He says that type of discharge can happen every day – even at the best run facilities.
”And these are from operations with good practices. Or what we would call good practice because they’re following nutrient management plans. Because they’re treating their manures the way they’re supposed to be before applying them to land. Because they’re collecting and doing things the way they’re supposed to be. But they still can contribute pathogens to the environment and those pathogens still affect us.”
Rogers says factory farms don’t need to remove these pollutants. But people at Bion say their system will remove a lot of them.
James Morris is one of their engineers. He says they’re motivated to keep environmental impacts low,
“A facility of this sort wants to have the minimum possible environmental liability. Because that lowers the risk and raises the probability of profits. And we’re in the business to make money.
But researchers are still unconvinced. And some think there are better ways to provide meat and dairy products for the country.
Doug Gurian-Sherman’s with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He’s the lead author of a new report critical of large factory farms. He says small and medium sized farms can provide what people need without the risks to those in rural communities.
“When you spread these animals out, and you have smaller operations you have benefits to rural communities in terms of not as many problems with the pathogens, or the odors or the nutrient problems. What we’re talking about are sophisticated, smart alternatives that work with nature rather than against it.”
But Bion insists their large integrated project will work. And they expect to receive millions in taxpayer subsidies to help make it work. It’s unclear what the costs will be to the community. In the meantime, the trend continues. Bion plans to build at least five more of these projects throughout the country.
The Hill's cows getting a sip of water while waiting for milking (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
From left to right, Stephanie Hill, their daughter, and Ray Hill outside their new section of the barn where they make and sell yogurt (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Inside the Hill's barn during milking time (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
In many areas of the country, small farms
are now the exception, not the norm. Farming,
especially with livestock, can mean thousands and
thousands of animals, and often distant, corporate
ownership. Even the smallest farms are pressured
to get bigger. So when a family decides to make
their farm smaller, they’re rebels. Kinna Ohman
reports:
Transcript
In many areas of the country, small farms
are now the exception, not the norm. Farming,
especially with livestock, can mean thousands and
thousands of animals, and often distant, corporate
ownership. Even the smallest farms are pressured
to get bigger. So when a family decides to make
their farm smaller, they’re rebels. Kinna Ohman
reports:
It’s five o’clock in the evening on the Hill’s dairy farm. Ray Hill just finished cleaning
out the milking equipment and is moving into the barn.
(sound of milking equipment and door)
Cows look around curiously, and afternoon light streams through the windows. Hill
moves comfortably among these cows, calling each of them by name, and cleans their
udders for milking.
(Ray describing the process)
Ray Hill and his wife Stephanie are full time farmers. They milk ten cows, twice a day.
They sell raw milk and yogurt directly from their farm. But getting to this point hasn’t
been easy. To survive, they’ve had to step away from the conventional approach to dairy
farming.
When the Hills got into farming eight years ago, they listened to the advice of farm
experts. They had more than forty cows, a tractor, and were selling their farm’s milk to the
regional processors.
But within a couple of years, they were deep in debt. Hill says the experts told him to get
more cows. He says he couldn’t see how that would help.
“Financially it just didn’t work. There wasn’t money to hire help. I had a couple of
kids and my wife and we were all running ragged and it just wasn’t fun. And there
were many days where I threatened to sell every cow in the barn.”
It’s common for farm experts and even bankers to push family farmers like the Hills to
‘get big or get out.’ Darrell Emmick’s with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
He says he’s seen regions lose more than fifty percent of their dairy farms when using
this conventional standard.
“Getting bigger or get out really didn’t help a lot of the farmers. They got bigger
and they still went out of business.”
For a farm to get bigger, farmers confine hundreds or even thousands of dairy cows inside
large barns. That means farmers spend a lot of money and time bringing food to their
animals and hauling manure away.
Darrell Emmick says that model of agriculture started
in the 1940s when fuel was pretty cheap. But these days, it makes good economic sense
for farmers to go back to letting their milk cows out of the big barns to eat grass.
“Nothing can harvest a ton of feed any cheaper than the cow or the sheep or the
horse can by itself. Bringing food to animals is something I think we’re going to see a lot
less of, especially here and now with fuel prices going over four dollars a gallon.”
The Hill’s have made that switch on their farm. Ray Hill says his cows are healthier. He
believes their milk is better quality, too. And he’s excited about providing healthy
food for his community. Ray Hill says he wants their farm to be a place where people
come to buy quality food, and definately let him know if they have concerns.
“I want to have control over how I take care of my animals. I want to have control
over how I process or don’t process my milk. I want to have control over the price,
the quality. If there’s a quality issue, it’s up to me to take care of it, not say ‘let me
call so and so.’ I don’t think you can find anyone who’d that would tell you I’d
rather talk to a corporate person than the person who produced my food.”
But bucking against the system is not easy. There are days when no one comes to their
farm to buy their milk or yogurt. The Hills know they’re taking a risk. But they feel, at
least they’re not at the mercy of the industry, the banks and the whims of the market.
Hallway family farm in NY. (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)
A federal plan to exempt livestock farms from
reporting on air pollution has environmental groups upset.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
A federal plan to exempt livestock farms from
reporting on air pollution has environmental groups upset.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
More farms are getting bigger. With the larger numbers of cows, chickens and
other animals, come sizable amounts of gasses such as ammonia and hydrogen
sulfide.
The EPA wants to change an emergency response law to exempt farms from
reporting large airborne emissions connected to animal waste.
Barry Breen is a Deputy Administrator with the EPA. He says the regular release
of animal gases is not the kind of thing that should trigger a rapid response from
his agency.
“Even if one of our folks showed up, we wouldn’t quite know what to do. It’s not any
different today than it was yesterday or last week or any other time.”
Breen says the EPA or states could take clean up action, if need be, under other
rules. But environmental groups say the current reporting requirement is very
helpful to neighbors and communities that want to know what’s in the air at
nearby farms.
This dairy is known as a "Confined Animal Feeding Operation" or CAFO. It will soon hold 1,500 dairy cows. The animals are kept indoors and are milked three times a day. (Photo by Mark Brush)
Liquefied manure is taken out of the lagoon and injected into nearby farm fields. Neighbors say the sharp smell this practice leaves behind has forced them indoors. (Photo by Mark Brush)
Neighbors are organizing to oppose the practices at these large dairies. (Photo by Mark Brush)
Taking the corn off. Liquefied manure is spread onto these fields. (Photo by Mark Brush)
The way milk is produced has changed. A lot of
dairy farms are much bigger and more efficient. They’re
often called factory farms. Mark Brush reports, neighbors
of these farms say they’re paying a high price for the cheap
dairy products on your store shelves:
Transcript
The way milk is produced has changed. A lot of
dairy farms are much bigger and more efficient. They’re
often called factory farms. Mark Brush reports, neighbors
of these farms say they’re paying a high price for the cheap
dairy products on your store shelves:
More than 50 cows trudge single file into this big, new building. There’s a bright
white tile floor and lots of light. The animals are herded into individual metal stalls. The
gates close over their heads, kind of like how the bar comes over you’re head when
you get on a rollercoaster. At the other end of the cow, workers insert its udders into
suction cups – and the milking starts:
“They’re milked three times a day – then they go back to the free-stall barn, so we’re
currently milking 1,000 cows.”
That’s Mark van de Heijning. He runs this dairy along with his family. They moved
here from Belgium. And they started milking their cows last year. They just built
another facility – and soon they’ll have 1,500 cows. van de
Heijning says back home in Belgium they had a small dairy farm, but wanted to
expand:
“But in Belgium the land is expensive and there was a quota system so its expensive
to expand there, and there are already a lot of people so that’s why we moved over here.”
It’s a fairly common story. Farmers from Belgium and the Netherlands move here to
build huge livestock operations – operations that would be too costly to run in
Europe.
van de Heijning says they produce more than 8,000
gallons of milk per day. But that’s not all they produce. The cows also make more
that 10,000 gallons of manure a day. And it’s the manure that concerns people most
living around this dairy in northwest Ohio.
The manure is held in huge lagoons out back and eventually it’s spread onto
nearby farm fields. It smells. On some days the smell is intense. Some of the
people who live around these fields say the new mega-dairy has made life pretty
unpleasant:
“I just live a quarter of a mile east of them and wind the wind blows it’s bad.”
“Regular cow manure, when they used to clean the barn – it stunk. But it was a
different… this is sometimes a really vile… like bleach or medicine in it.”
“It just sometimes takes your breath away. One day I tried to work in the garden and
within probably 10 or 15 minutes I was so nauseated I thought I was going to
throw up.”
Dub Heilman, Judy Emmitt, and Jane Phillips have lived in this rural community all of
their lives. None of them had experienced the sharp smells until the dairy began
operating last year. With the operation expanding, Judy Emmitt says she fears the
problems will only get worse:
“I mean we’re all getting older and we’ve already had health issues – how’s
this going to affect us? It’s scary – I mean sometimes it’s a scary feeling – what’s this
going to do to us?”
Exactly what the foul air does to people’s health is debated. The van de Heijnings
think it’s much ado about nothing. But health experts are concerned about a couple
of chemicals generated by the stored manure: hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. Two
studies have found that people living near these mega farms report more
headaches, respiratory problems, nausea, burning eyes, and depression.
The US Environmental Protection Agency regulates hydrogen sulfide and requires reports for ammonia releases from industries,but not for farms. The EPA says it’s looking into the problem with a new, two year
study. But the WAY the study was set up has angered a lot of people. The agency struck a deal with more than 2,000 livestock producers. These
producers represent around 14,000 individual farms. All of them will get
immunity from prosecution for breaking air pollution laws. Each of the producers
paid a small fine, and in exchange, the EPA will study air emissions on 24
of the farms.
The study just started. And it will be three and half years before the EPA makes any
decisions. Jon Scholl is with the EPA. He says right now, if neighbors have any
problems, unless they can prove imminent danger, they shouldn’t look to the EPA
for help. They should call their state agency:
“In terms of anything concerns that they would want to seek redress for at this
current time, EPA certainly encourages residents impacted by those operations to work with their respective state agencies.”
The neighbors we talked to say they’ve tried contacting the state agency responsible
for overseeing these mega-farms. But they were told there’s nothing the agency
could do.
Jane Phillips says the EPA study is just a delay tactic:
“The science is already there. There’s no reason for this study. And I think, you
know, no matter what the science says somebody is gonna dispute it and there’s going to have to be another study, and it’s just
gonna go on and on and on.”
“Farm Bureau will dispute it and they’ll just keep the whole mess goin’ and I don’t
think it’ll end.”
The van de Heijning’s dairy operation is one of the livestock farms that was granted
immunity by the EPA. Mark van de Heinjing says he’s doing what he can to cut
down on the odors and air pollution. Instead of spraying the fields with manure,
they’ve been injecting it into the soil. And next year, he says, they’ll build a new
manure treatment lagoon. But with five hundred more cows scheduled to arrive at
the dairy soon, his neighbors don’t expect the air around their homes to improve in
the coming years. And they don’t hold out much hope that the government will help
either.
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.
By 2015, Proposition 2 in California forces farms to make sure the animals are given enough room to move around. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
