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Nikhil Jain
Dr. Ahlquist
Writing 101: Food, Agriculture, and Society
11/17/14
The Environmental and Human Costs of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
Strolling across lush green fields, feeding on bountiful amounts of grass while slowly
growing to maturitythis existence is what people think characterizes the average farm animals
life. In todays farms, however, most animals are robbed of the opportunity to live such a
serene life. Most farms are no longer the outdoor green wonderlands that most people imagine.
Crammed in tiny yards with barns with hundreds or even thousands of others, farm animals now
take part in high-intensity Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs. This unnatural
process not only causes unbearable suffering to farm animals, but it also causes large-scale
environmental devastation. Compounding this devastation is that the environmental effects are
felt disproportionately by low-income, minority populations who often live near areas in which
CAFOs function. By replacing traditional farming practices with Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations, the local environment has been destroyed and local communities have suffered as a
result, revealing the urgent need to restrict factory farm operations.
The Farm
The original farm was vastly different from todays factory farms. Most farms operated
as a combined hybrid between crop fields and animal barns. Such farms possessed large pasture
lands on which animals grazed to satisfy their hunger. Such pastures were often connected to
cropland which animals fertilized through their waste, stimulating healthy crop growth. This

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symbiotic relationship was strongly connected to the natural order: animals maintained their
regular diets while supporting the farmers crops around them.
Farm animals today, however, no longer live in such a biotic environment. In order to
expedite and streamline crop and animal production, farms underwent a substantial process of
industrialization which ultimately separated animals from crops. Animals no longer live natural
lives in which they eat their natural diets in an outdoor environment as farmers care for them.
Thousands of farm animalsfrom cows to pigs to chickensface a miserable lifestyle in which
they are crammed into tiny feedlots and force-fed dozens of pounds of grains like corn and beats.
Those who have witnessed the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations have vividly described
the barnyard as a sea of cattle, a mooing, moving mass of brown and white fur that goes on for
acres (Schlosser, 2001). CAFOs cram as many animals in a confined space as they possibly can,
resulting in a disease, infection, and widespread animal suffering as a result of such intense
industrial methods.
An Environmental Crisis
In addition to the negative effects on animals, the severed symbiotic relationship between
animal and crop has precipitated a potential environmental crisis. Because animals no longer
graze in natural pastures with wild grass and crops, their wastes have become dangerous
contaminants. CAFOs cram so many animals in one area and feed them large amounts of highcalorie grains, causing animals to produce large volumes of waste which quickly build up.
According to United States Department of Agriculture studies, confined US farm animals
produce almost one million short tons of manure every day. With such massive waste outputs,
industrial farms cannot afford to treat animal waste properly; instead, they externalize such costs

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onto the surrounding environment. Most CAFOs practice digging out massive lagoons that they
fill with all of their animal waste. By tampering with animals natural lifestyles so heavily,
CAFOs have created a destructive chain in which they must tamper with the earths natural
processes further in order to sustain their inherently unsustainable practices.
Although the lagoons create visible land pollution, the overlooked air pollution represents
the most catastrophic environmental consequence of CAFOs. The waste lagoons gradually
decompose and release hazardous ammonia and sulfur oxide molecules into the air. The rancid
gases are dangerous toxins, and in large quantities, they can cause sickness and even
permanently damage peoples nervous systems. Many local residents who live near CAFOs have
reported that the terrible smell permeates everything, gives them headaches, makes them
nauseous, [and] interferes with their sleep." (Schlosser, 2001) What makes this environmental
problem most pernicious is the location that these CAFOs are intentionally built near. Many food
companies base their CAFOs near communities that primarily consist of low-income, minority
populations. Such communities possess little to no political representation and thus lack the
agency or power to lobby the federal government to support them in face of these large, rich food
corporations, allowing companies to run rampant on the environment of these small towns with
minimal restraint.
Accompanying this environmental destruction are terrible, yet often overlooked social
consequences. Many local rural communities have a culture built around life in the outdoors, but
the unbearable odors emitted from such CAFOs turn the outdoors into an unhospitable, terrible
environment, forcing people to stay in their homes. For many communities, these odors deprive
them of something that is more than just a simple enjoyment or pastimethese CAFOs deprive
these rural communities of something fundamental to their identities. The outdoors represents a

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pure, unadulterated sense of freedom, but CAFOs rob these communities of their cultural centers.
Coupled with the deterioration of their physical health, this social disruption precipitates a
decline of peoples mental health and quality of life. Even if they hate their conditions, people in
local communities cannot simply pull up stakes and leave. When a CAFO moves into an area,
the property surrounding lands sharply fall in value because of the terrible local environment: no
one wants to live near a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. The only buyers are often
factory farm owners themselves which can take advantage of being the only buyer by offering
people unreasonably low prices for their land. People who live near CAFOs are left with two
choices: either sell their land for a minimal price or continue to live near CAFOs and allow their
health to deteriorate from the poor environment.
Motivation for Factory Farms
Considering the negative consequences of running CAFOs, one may wonder why they
became the mainstream method of producing animal products. Farming transformed into this
grotesque, inhumane operation because people sought to maximize efficiency. Almost all
humans eat animal products, and with such a high demand, traditional farming methods appeared
incapable of producing enough product at a cheap enough price to meet market demand. When
people came to discover new methods of farming that increased the production of animal
products despite being unnatural and inhumane, organic farming fell by the wayside. Our
capitalist economy prioritizes efficiency over all other considerations, so people were willing to
modify their practices even if they damage the environment and hurt a small population of
people. Today there are four major companies that produce over 80% of animal product, and
they do so entirely through CAFOs. Although we think that CAFOs have made food cheap, we
have really just externalized the costs involved in food production. Instead of paying for food at

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the cash register, we force the Earths ecosystem and a small population of people to bear the
costs of factory farming. Today, factory farming has become so mainstream that the natural,
organic farming that was the only way to farm in the 18th and 19th century is now considered an
alternative type of farming. Although CAFOs have indeed succeeded in increasing the amount
of animal product available on markets, it has caused devastating environmental and human
consequences. Our current methods of industrial farming must be restricted and curtailed.
The Solution
People often advocate two possible solutions to curtail factory farming. One argument is
that all of society should become vegan. If our society shifted towards vegan practices, then
demand for animal products would plummet and the entire CAFO-driven meat and dairy
industries would cease to exist. Such a solution, however, is impossible to implement on a wide
scale. The vast majority of people will continue to eat meat and dairy, and there is no way to stop
wide-scale consumption. Even vegans often inadvertently use animal products, such as leather
and feathers. From dairy to meat to non-consumable products, we are simply too dependent on
animal products. As Patrick Martins explains in his book, The Carnivores Manifesto, trying to
stop evolution is ridiculous. We are carnivoresand have been hunting since we learned to walk
on two legs. No amount of singing, dancing, preaching, protesting, or proselytizing is going to
stop people from killing and eating animals (Martins, 2014). Meat and dairy are societally
established both from a cultural and evolutionary perspective, and there is no hope of getting rid
of humanitys inclination to consume animal products. Trying to advocate for an extreme,
utopian world where the majority of people embrace veganism can even be counterproductive.
By trying to advocate for veganism, we have taken everyone's eyes off the real enemythe
cruelty of corporate farming and the poisoning of our food chain (Martins, 2014). Vegan beliefs

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often cause people to associate humane, organic farming with CAFOs, undermining the organic
movement by replacing it with an unfeasible vegan movement. We must stop putting our
energies into this vegan movement, as such an extreme proposal will never gain enough traction
to make a real impact in curtailing factory farming.
Instead of supporting the vegan movement, we must invest our energies into another
cause: a shift back to organic farming and an end to CAFOs. Organic farming would allow
people to continue consumption of meat but would end the dangerous CAFO operations that
poison our environment and the local communities. Organic farming is something to many
would find societally acceptable and feasible. The federal government, however, must play a
substantial role in using current legal structures to curtail CAFOs in our society.
The first act that the federal government should legislate is implement stricter environmental
regulations and standards with regards to CAFOs. One method that is very commonly used with
national projects is the Environmental Impact Statement under the National Environmental
Protection Act, in which the Environmental Protection Agency makes several checks on an
operation to see if it meets sufficient criteria to be environmentally friendly. The use of such
impact statements is widespread and has substantial precedent, and the federal government could
easily expand the use of such impact statements to CAFOs. Furthermore, the impact statements
are unique because they survey and incorporate the opinions of people in local communities,
giving people a say in the impact statement process. As law professor Stephen Johnson explains,
public participation provisions, like those in National Environmental Policy Act, empower
communities and provide them with a voice in the decision-making process.Without such
provisions, the federal government may reach decisions that disparately impact minority and
low-income communities because the government fails to obtain input from the impacted

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communities. (Johnson, 1997) Currently, low-income and minority communities are
disenfranchised and have little to no political power. If we tie environmental impact statements
as a required prerequisite to building CAFOs, there will exist a built in mechanism to give lowincome communities political power to fight back against CAFOs and have a voice in the
political arena.
The second action that the federal government should implement is an end to all of its farm
subsidies. As factory farming has intensified, more inputs are required to keep operations
moving and maintain animal product production, causing their business model to actually
become unprofitable and unsustainable without government subsidies. Although factory farms
produce major amounts of animal product, they can only keep prices so low because the federal
government provides such massive subsidies to the industries. Eliminate subsidies, and CAFOs
would no longer be able to mass produce cheap dairy and meat, forcing them to shut down or
strongly reevaluate their business practices.
CAFOs are neither a natural or inevitable part of American food production. If the federal
government implemented stricter environmental standards on CAFOs and cut off all meat and
dairy subsidies, CAFOs would collapse on themselves, allowing organic farming to fill in the
void.. The only reason the CAFO business model is only capable of existing because the federal
government not only allows but actively supports their practices. We must lobby the federal
government to become an enemy rather than an ally on these operations. CAFOs are responsible
for such widespread environmental devastation and destruction that disproportionately affects the
most vulnerable communities. Even if CAFOs made animal products cheaper, no group of
people should be sacrificed at the altar of efficiency. Large corporations should not be allowed
to run rampant on populations, choosing select groups of people to be the disposable victims of

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their actions. Through the federal government, we can restore environmental justice and right the
inequities that the animal product industry has perpetuated.