Cafo Aff (Adi)

ADI 08 Stables-Boyle-Henry
CAFO AFF Page 1 of 75
INDEX
INDEX............................................................................................................................. ...........................1
Aff – Ethical Framework........................................................................................................... ..................3
Aff – Ethical Framework........................................................................................................... ..................4
Animals Deserve Rights........................................................................................................ ......................5
Animals Deserve Rights........................................................................................................ ......................6
Ethics - A2 Animal Killing Inevitable...................................................................................................... ....7
Factory Farms = Inhumane............................................................................................................ ..............8
Factory Farms = Inhumane............................................................................................................ ..............9
Factory Farms = Inhumane......................................................................................................... ...............10
Solvency - Now is Key........................................................................................................... ...................11
Solvency - Small Farms Transition................................................................................................ ............13
Solvency – Reducing subsidies = better farming practices.................................................... ....................14
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................15
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................16
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................18
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................20
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................22
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................23
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................24
Solvency................................................................................................................................... .................27
Solvency - Economic Incentives......................................................................................................... .......28
Solvency - Economic Incentives......................................................................................................... .......30
Human Health Impacts........................................................................................................ ......................31
Disease Impacts......................................................................................................................... ................32
Disease Impacts......................................................................................................................... ................33
Disease Impacts......................................................................................................................... ................34
Disease Impacts......................................................................................................................... ................35
Disease Impacts......................................................................................................................... ................36
Disease Impacts......................................................................................................................... ................37
Disease Impacts - Economy................................................................................................................ .......38
Disease Internals – Antibiotics................................................................................................................ ...39
Disease Internals – Antibiotics................................................................................................................ ...40
Disease Ext - A2: Gov’t solves Disease...................................................................................... ...............41
Disease Ext - A2: Alt. Causality Superbugs................................................................................... ............42
Disease Ext - A2: Superbugs don’t cross species.......................................................................... .............43
Environment Impacts - Waste Lagoons 1/4.............................................................................................. ..44
Environment Impacts - Red Tides......................................................................................................... .....48
Environment Impacts - Biodiversity.......................................................................................... ................49
Environment Impacts - Biodiversity.......................................................................................... ................50
Environment Impact - Algae........................................................................................................... ...........51
Environment Solvency - Red Tides............................................................................... ............................52
AT: Cutting Subsidies Hurts Farm Economies................................................................................... ........53
AT: Cutting Subsidies Hurts Farm Economies................................................................................... ........54
Subsidies Don’t Affect Food Price....................................................................................................... ......55
Subsidies Don’t Affect Food Price....................................................................................................... ......56
Subsidies-Price relations are commodity specific........................................................................... ...........57

Reduce subsidies = Lower World Prices ....................................................................................... ............58
Reduce subsidies = Lower World Prices......................................................................................... ...........61
High Food Prices Good.............................................................................................................................. 63
Paternalism Bad (DA to Ban CPs)........................................................................................... ..................64
A2: Capitalism.................................................................................................................................. .........65
A2: OBJ........................................................................................................................................... ..........66
A2: Reform/Conditions C/P................................................................................................................... ....67
A2: GNA C/P........................................................................................................................................ .....68
A2: Good Neighbors C/P................................................................................................................ ...........69
AT: States Solve................................................................................................................................... ......70
AT: States Solve ................................................................................................................................. .......71
CAFOs Unpopular/Plan Popular............................................................................................................ ....72
Aff – Ethical Framework
Even in a utilitarian framework, where animal and human interests are weighted, we have
an obligation to end animal suffering.
Jason Gaverick Matheny - Ph Student @ School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins

University – 2006 (“In Defense of Animal”, Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2006,
pg 16 – 17)
By the principle of equal consideration of interests, interests matter, regardless of whose interests they
are. We can agree that we all have an interest, at a minimum, in a pleasurable life, relatively free of
pain. Pleasure and pain matter to all of us who feel them. As such, it follows that we are obliged to
consider, at a minimum, the interests of all those who are capable of feeling pleasure and pain – that is,
all those who are sentient. We can then say that sentience is a sufficient condition for having interests and
having those interests considered equally.
Are any nonhuman animals sentient? That is, are any nonhumans biologically capable of feeling pleasure and
pain? There are few people today, including biologists, who seriously doubt the answer is yes. For most of us,
our common sense and experience with animals, especially dogs and cats, are sufficient to let us answer
affirmatively. However, our common sense and experience cannot always be trusted, and so we should look for
further evidence that animals other than ourselves are sentient.
How do we know that other human beings are sentient? We cannot know for certain. My friend who shrieks after
burning himself on the stove could be a very sophisticated robot, programmed to respond to certain kinds of
stimuli with a shriek. But, because my friend is biologically similar to me, his awareness of pain would offer a
biological advantage, his behavior is similar to my own when I am in pain, and his behavior is associated with a
stimulus that would be painful for me, I have good reason to believe my friend feels pain.
We have similar reasons for believing that many nonhuman animals feel pain. Human beings evolved
from other species. Those parts of the brain involved in sensing pleasure and pain are older than
human beings and common to mammals and birds, and probably also to fish, reptiles, and amphibians.
For most of these animals, awareness of pain would serve important functions, including learning from
past mistakes.
Like my potentially robotic friend, these animals also respond to noxious stimuli much the same way
we do. They avoid these stimuli and shriek, cry, or jerk when they can’t escape them. The stimuli that
cause these behaviors are ones we associate with pain, such as extreme pressure, heat, and tissue
damage. These biological and behavioral indications do not guarantee sentience, but they are about as good as
those that we have for my human friend.
Whether invertebrates such as insects feel pain is far less certain, as these animals do not possess the same
equipment to feel pain and pleasure that we have; and, by their having short life-cycles in stereotyped
environments, the biological advantages of being sentient are less obvious. That some nonhuman animals feel
pain needn’t imply that their interests in not feeling pain are as intense as our own. It’s possible that
ordinary, adult humans are capable of feeling more intense pain than some nonhumans because we are
self-conscious and can anticipate or remember pain with greater fidelity than can other animals. It
could also be argued, however, that our rationality allows us to distance ourselves from pain or give
pain a purpose (at the dentist’s office, for instance) in ways that are not available to other animals.
Moreover, even if other animals’ interests in not feeling pain are less intense than our own, the sum of a larger
number of interests of lesser intensity (such as 100,000 people’s interests in $1 each) can still outweigh the sum
of a smaller number of interests of greater intensity (such as my interest in $100,000).
So it is possible, even in those cases where significant human interests are at stake, for the interests of
animals, considered equally, to outweigh our own. As we will see, however, in most cases involving
animals, there are no significant human interests at stake, and the right course of action is easy to
judge.
Aff – Ethical Framework
Humans owe infinite obligations to factory farm animals
Rod Preece - Professor of Political Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University - Lorna

Chamberlain - Executive Director, London Humane Society – 1993
(“Animal Welfare & Human Values”, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1993, pg. 215)
This does not simply accord humans the right to do with the farm animal as they wish. After all, if
we were to follow that line of reasoning, it would mean that parents would be entitled to treat children
in any manner they see fir merely because they had given their offspring life. Desmond Morris
suggests that we treat farm animals––and indeed all animals––on the basis of a social contract. He
claims that “we must ensure that the animals we kill for our food live the best possible lives
before they die. Anything less is a betrayal of the Animal Contract.” Most philosophers today agree
that social contract theory is inadequate either to explain or justify obligations. Nonetheless, to think
of ourselves as in a reciprocal contractual relationship with the animals we use may be considered a
valuable heuristic device. However, if we accept that philosophical approach, our obligation to the
farm animal during its lifetime is even greater than for animals we do not kill, since our use of the
animal deprives it of its life. The farm animal always makes the ultimate sacrifice. If we wish to
consider our relationship to animals to be of a reciprocal contractual nature, then our obligations to
farm animals during their short lives is of the highest possible order.
Ethics should be evaluated by the standards of pleasure and pain, not species

In fact what Singer’s words seem to imply is not at all that “All Animals are Equal” but that all
pain and suffering are equal. i.e., that X amount of suffering in a human is equal to X amount of
suffering in a horse. This would be equivalent to Bentham’s “felicific calculus” in which
appropriate action is determined by calculating projected amounts of pleasure and/or pain. The
appropriate action is the one which maximizes the former and minimizes the latter. But as John
Stuart Mill argued effectively in his Utilitarianism (1863), there are different quantities, not merely
quantities, of pleasure. Conversely, there must be different qualities of suffering. If, as Mill argued,
the cerebral pleasures are of greater merit, so the suffering of more vertebral beings are more
worthy of avoidance. In that case the sufferings of humans are worse than the sufferings of
chimpanzees which, in turn, must be worse than the sufferings of rodents. Unfortunately, Singer
never makes it clear in his writings where he stands on such issues.
Animals Deserve Rights
There are NO unique reasons as to why animals are denied moral considerations; their
interest in a painless and pleasurable life should grant them equal moral evaluation.

University - 2006
(“In Defense of Animal”, Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2006, pg 18 - 19)
It is not clear how these arguments could succeed. First, why would an animal’s lack of normal
human levels of rationality, intelligence, or language give us license to ignore her or his pain?
Second, if rationality, intelligence, or language were necessary conditions for moral consideration,
why could we not give moral preference to humans who are more rational, intelligent, or verbose
than other humans? Third, many adult mammals and birds exhibit greater rationality and
intelligence than do human infants. Some nonhuman animals, such as apes, possess language,
while some humans do not. Should human infants, along with severely retarded and brain-damaged
humans, be excluded from moral consideration, while apes, dolphins, dogs, pigs, parrots, and other
nonhumans are included? Efforts to limit moral consideration to human beings based on the
possession of certain traits succeed neither in including all humans nor in excluding all nonhuman
animals.
The most obvious property shared among all human beings that excludes all nonhuman animals is
our membership of a particular biological group: the species Homo sapiens. What is significant
about species membership that could justify broad differences in moral consideration? Why is the
line drawn at species, rather than genus, subspecies, or some other biological division? There have
been no convincing answers to these questions. If species membership is a justification for
excluding sentient animals from moral consideration, then why not race or gender? Why could one
not argue that an individual’s membership of the biological group “human female” excludes that
individual from moral consideration? One of the triumphs of modern ethics has been recognizing
that an individual’s membership of a group, alone, is not morally relevant. The cases against racism
and sexism depended upon this point, as the case against speciesism does now.
If a nonhuman animal can feel pleasure and pain, then that animal possesses interests. To think
otherwise is to pervert the sense in which we understand pleasure and pain, feelings that matter to
us and to others who experience them. At a minimum, a sentient animal has an interest in a
painless, pleasurable life. And if he or she possesses this interest, then he or she deserves no
less consideration of his or her interests than we give to our own. This view, while modern in its
popularity, is not new. The utilitarian Jeremy Bentham held it at a time when black slaves were
treated much as we now treat nonhuman animals:
Animals Deserve Rights
Humans and animals possess FOUR distinct fundamental rights

(“Animal Welfare & Human Values”, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1993, pg. 279-
80)
Paul Taylor has argued that Regan;s case for inherent value fails to demonstrate an equivalency
between human and non-human but that nonetheless the case for animal rights may still be rescued.
Taylor suggests that Regan’s respect principle subsumes a moral tight (belonging to inherent value)
which is tautological:
If this is how we are to construe what is owed to an individual as its due, the to accept the
respect principle is already to acceot the existence of a moral right, a moral tight belonging to
any individual that has inherent value. Consequently the respect principle cannot constitute the
validating ground for such a moral right. By laying down the normative requirement that
respect for an individual’s inherent value is owed it as its due, the moral right to such respect
is implicitly being asserted by the principle. According to Regan’s argument the respect
principle was supposed to be the rational basis for the moral right of any being having inherent
value to be treated with respect.
In place of inherent value, Taylor offers us “basic rights,” which consists of:
1. Security-rights (“the rights of each individual to be protected from being killed, raped,
assaulted, tortured, or otherwise made the victim of direct physical abuse”).
2. Liberty-rights (the right to be “unhindered by others in the pursuit of one’s legitimate [morally
permissible] interest”),
3. Autonomy-rights (including the right to privacy), and,
4. Subsistence-rights (“the right to biological survival and right to a level of physical health at
least sufficient to enable one to actively pursue one’s legitimate interests”).
According to Taylor these are rights shared by both humans and animals
Animals deserve an equal opportunity to a life that is free of suffering

It is quite compatible with both Singer’s and Regan’s claims, we shall argue, to conclude that all
animal life has inherent value but where the interests of one sentient being are threatened by the
interests of other sentient beings, some kind of preference is required, some kind of hierarchy has
to be introduced. The recognition of animal rights thus implies that all—or at least most—animals
have an inherent right to life and to the prevention of unnecessary suffering which will stand
unless countered by a stronger and incompatible claim, unless countered by a greater right. The
pertinent questions, then, are asking what stands as a legitimate counterclaim, and what criteria we
employ for distinguishing the levels of rights.
Ethics - A2 Animal Killing Inevitable
Stopping animal killing isn’t the point of our Aff; we are attempting to improve the
environment that factory farm animals engage in.
Lori Gruen - professor @ Wesleyan University - 2003

("The Moral Status of Animals", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/moral-
animal/)
Consider factory farming, the most common method used to convert animal bodies into relatively
inexpensive food in industrialized societies today. An estimated 8 billion animals in the United
States are born, confined, biologically manipulated, transported and ultimately slaughtered each
year so that humans can consume them. The conditions in which these animals are raised and the
method of slaughter causes vast amounts of suffering. (See, for example, Mason and Singer 1990.)
Given that animals suffer under such conditions and assuming that suffering is not in their interests,
then the practice of factory farming would only be morally justifiable if its abolition were to cause
greater suffering or a greater amount of interest frustration. Certainly humans who take pleasure in
eating animals will find it harder to satisfy these interests in the absence of factory farms; it may
cost more and require more effort to obtain animal products. The factory farmers, and the industries
that support factory farming, will also have certain interests frustrated if factory farming were to be
abolished. How much interest frustration and interest satisfaction would be associated with the end
to factory farming is largely an empirical question. But utilitarians are not making unreasonable
predictions when they argue that on balance the suffering and interest frustration that animals
experience in modern day meat production is greater than the suffering that humans would endure
if they had to alter their current practices.
Importantly, the utilitarian argument for the moral significance of animal suffering in meat
production is not an argument for vegetarianism. If an animal lived a happy life and was painlessly
killed and then eaten by people who would otherwise suffer hunger or malnutrition by not eating
the animal, then painlessly killing and eating the animal would be the morally justified thing to do.
In many parts of the world where economic, cultural, or climate conditions make it virtually
impossible for people to sustain themselves on plant based diets, killing and eating animals that
previously led relatively unconstrained lives and are painlessly killed, would not be morally
objectionable. The utilitarian position can thus avoid certain charges of cultural chauvinism and
moralism, charges that the animal rights position apparently cannot avoid.
Factory Farms = Inhumane
The fact that factory farms deny animals their pursue of “interest” makes such practices
unethical

University - 2006
(“In Defense of Animal”, Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2006, pg 20)
The principle of equal consideration of interests requires we count the interests of any individual
equally with the like interests of any other. The racist violates this rule by giving greater weight to
the interests of members of her own race. The sexist violates this rule by giving greater weight to
the interests of members of his own sex. Similarly, the speciesist violates this rule by giving greater
weight to the interests of members of his own species.
If an animal is sentient and if sentience is a sufficient condition for having interests, then we should
consider that animal’s interests equal to our own when making ethical decisions. The essays in this
book by James Mason and Mary Finelli, by Richard Ryder, and by Miyun Park show that we fall
far short. Animals are used in a wide range of human activities, including agriculture, product
testing, medical and scientific research, entertainment, hunting and fishing, the manufacture of
clothing, and as our pets. In most of these activities, we treat animals in ways that do not show
proper regard for their interests and thereby are unethical. I will limit discussion here to our
treatment of animals in agriculture, laboratories, and the wild.
Factory Farms are immoral – animals are denied their basic needs
Constitutional Rights Foundation - 2000

(“Bill of Right in Action”, Fall 2000, http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria16_4c.htm.)
Before World War II, animals meant for food usually lived outdoors, except in extreme weather.
Today, these animals live on what animal-rights activists call "factory farms." Chickens, an
important part of the American diet, live in small cages stacked one on top of another in
temperature-controlled, windowless barns. Often their beaks and claws are trimmed so they cannot
harm one another if they fight. They are fed a special diet that promotes their growth and includes
antibiotics to control disease. Other food animals--pigs, turkeys, and calves--live in similarly
controlled environments.
Animal-rights activists consider these environments unnatural, inhumane, and incredibly
exploitative of animals. They say that the food producers are treating the animals as machines,
ignoring their pain, frustration, and natural desires. The Humane Society of the United States says:
"Factory farms deny animals many of their most basic . . . needs. . . . Such artificial conditions
cause animals to suffer from boredom, frustration and stress, which often leads to abnormal
behavior, including unnatural aggression." The society claims hundreds of thousands of chickens
die every day due to these conditions, but the companies simply consider this a cost of doing
business.
Animals aren’t machines; they deserve the right to live
Harold D. Guither – 1998

(“Animal Rights: History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement”, Southern
Illinois University Press, Questia)
Most animal activists and their organizations condemn and oppose "factory farming" because they
view intensive production as inhumane, being carried out under unnatural conditions, and causing
suffering for the animals and poultry. Their reasons listed here are not intended to advocate these
positions or agree but to understand why they oppose intensive food animal production: 6
• Factory farming is capital intensive, and success is not achieved by direct care for the animals,
well-being of individual animals, or individual animal productivity.
• Animals are not machines -- they feel pain, suffer frustration and boredom, and have lives of
their own to lead. Do humans have the right to make animals live miserable lives just to satisfy
their taste for a diet so rich in animal products that it is bad for their own health?
• Animals are raised under cruel and inhumane conditions in intensely confined quarters without
freedom of movement.
• Intensive production systems use antibiotics and other drugs, and laws and regulations lack
defined standards for raising food animals.
• Intensive animal agriculture has devastating impacts on consumer health and environmental
quality.
• The life of a veal calf is one of deprivation, stress, and disease.
The total-confinement pig farm is specially designed for maximum exploitation of the pig's
reproductive and growth cycles.
Chickens are ranging foraging animals by nature that need plenty of fresh air, sunshine,
exercise, and fresh greens to stay healthy and feel good and will thrive best in small flocks with
a rooster, several hens, and groups of young chicks playing about, so confinement broiler
production, battery cage production, and associated management practices are opposed.
In crowded battery cages, the hen's most basic instincts are cruelly violated and the life of a
factory-farmed hen is one of intense suffering confined in a cage with barely room to stand or
stretch her wings.
Cattle are fed grain that should be used by humans. Beef is processed under unsanitary
conditions and is a source of fat in the diet that can cause health problems. The land and the
environment could be improved without vast acreage used for cattle production.
Cattle production is destroying the earth's remaining tropical rain forests, depleting fresh water,
causing organic pollution, exerting pressure on the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems,
edging species of wildlife to the brink of extinction, causing global warming, and threatening
the "chemical dynamics of the biosphere."
The Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) approved for use with dairy cows in 1994 is turning cows
into high-tech milk machines and may be harmful to the cows and require greater use of
antibiotics.
Animal agriculture causes soil erosion, rain forest devastation, and pollution.
Downed animals transported to auctions and stockyards suffer gross abuse and neglect.
The right to life is the most fundamental right of all animals, and killing is unnecessary and
detrimental to the welfare of humans.
Factory farms practices are legally “inhumane”
Environment News Service – 2008 (“New Jersey Court Rules Factory Farm Practices Not
Humane”, 7/31/2008, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-31-093.asp)
Factory farming practices cannot be considered humane simply because they are widely used, the New Jersey
Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, setting a legal precedent for further actions to end the worst abuses on factory
farms throughout the United States.
In a unanimous decision, the court struck down the New Jersey Department of Agriculture's regulations exempting all routine
husbandry practices as "humane," and ordered the agency to readdress many of the state-mandated standards for the
treatment of farm animals.
Many states have an exemption to their cruelty code for "routine" or "commonly accepted" practices which
leaves animals confined in factory farms unprotected from abuse.
In 1996, the New Jersey Legislature directed the NJDA to develop appropriate "standards for the humane raising, keeping,
care, treatment, marketing, and sale of domestic livestock."
Eight years later, on June 7, 2004, the agency finalized regulations that specifically authorized many cruel farming practices
and gave blanket protection to all common agriculture practices.
A coalition of humane organizations, farmers, veterinarians, environmental and consumer groups, led by Farm Sanctuary
filed the lawsuit in 2004, alleging that the NJDA failed to establish standards of treatment of farm animals that are "humane"
as required by the Legislature.
Instead, the plaintiffs claimed, the state agency sanctioned numerous inhumane practices, including all routine farming
practices, used to raise animals for meat, eggs and milk.
"This is a major victory for farm animals in New Jersey, and will pave the way for better protections of farm
animals nationwide," said Gene Baur, president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary.
"Setting a legal precedent in a unanimous vote that clarifies that commonly used practices cannot be considered
humane simply because they are widely used will build on our momentum in challenging the cruel status quo on
factory farms," he said.
In addition to striking down the agency's exemption for "routine husbandry practices," the Court further held that tail docking
could not be considered humane, and the manner in which mutilations without anesthesia including castration, de-beaking
and de-toeing could not be considered humane without some specific requirements to prevent pain and suffering.
The Court made clear that the decision to permit these practices as long as they are done by a "knowledgeable
person" and in a way to "minimize pain" could not "pass muster."
Said Katherine Meyer of the public interest law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, lead attorney for the
plaintiffs, "Having the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously recognize that the mutilation practices
commonly used in the industry - cutting off the beaks and toes of live animals without anesthesia - is painful to
these animals is an important milestone in educating the public at large about these practices and the need for
reform."
The New Jersey Supreme Court left in place regulations that allow the confinement of breeding pigs in gestation
crates and calves in veal crates, as well as the transport of sick and downed cattle.
Although the court noted that these practices are controversial and that downed animals "suffer greatly," it found
the record on appeal insufficient to warrant striking the regulations at this time.
The decision comes amid a nationwide campaign to phase out these practices. The plaintiffs will push the NJDA to
abandon them when the regulations are revised.
In April, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released the results of a two and a half year study that
supports a phaseout of common factory farming practices such as the use of gestation crates, farrowing crates, tethering,
forced feeding, tail docking, and other body-altering procedures that cause pain.
Florida and Oregon have outlawed gestation crates, and Arizona and Colorado have outlawed both gestation and veal crates.
An anti-confinement initiative on California's November 2008 ballot. If approved by voters, Proposition 2 would outlaw
gestation crates for breeding pigs, veal crates for calves and battery cages for egg-laying hens in the nation's largest
agricultural state.
"This decision will protect thousands of animals in New Jersey, and also calls into question some of the worst
factory farm abuses practiced throughout the country," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of animal
protection litigation for The Humane Society of the United States. "All animals deserve humane treatment, including
animals raised for food."
Solvency - Now is Key
It is now the crucial time to end all immoral animal treatments in factory farms
Peter Singer – Philosopher and Professor at Princeton University – 2006

(“Factory Farming: A Moral Issue”, The Minnesota Daily, March 22, 2006,
http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/20060322.htm)
There is a growing consensus that factory farming of animals is morally wrong. factory farming
represents by far the greater abuse of animals. In the United States somewhere between 20 million and
40 million birds and mammals are killed for research every year. That might seem like a lot — and it
far exceeds the number of animals killed for their fur, let alone the relatively tiny number used in
circuses — but 40 million represents less than two days’ toll in America’s slaughterhouses, which kill
about 10 billion animals each year.
The overwhelming majority of these animals have spent their entire lives confined inside sheds, never
going outdoors for a single hour. Their suffering isn’t just for a few hours or days, but for all their lives.
With nothing to do all day, they become frustrated and attack each other. — also known as CAFOs, or
concentrated animal feeding operations —
The American animal rights movement, which in its early years focused largely on the use of animals in research,
now has come to see that
The numbers speak for themselves.
Sows and veal calves are confined in crates too narrow for them even to turn around, let alone walk a few steps.
Egg-laying hens are unable to stretch their wings because their cages are too small and too crowded.
To prevent losses, producers sear off their beaks with a hot knife, cutting through sensitive nerves.
Chickens, reared in sheds that hold 20,000 birds, now are bred to grow so fast that most of them develop leg
problems because their immature bones cannot bear the weight of their bodies. Professor John Webster of the
University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Science said: “Broilers are the only livestock that are in chronic pain
for the last 20 percent of their lives. They don’t move around, not because they are overstocked, but because it
hurts their joints so much.”
Sometimes their legs collapse under them, causing them to starve to death because they cannot reach their food.
Of course, the producers then cannot sell these birds, but economically, they are still better off with the
freakishly fast-growing breeds they use. As an article in an industry journal noted, “simple calculations” lead to
the conclusion that often “it is better to get the weight and ignore the mortality.” Another consequence of the
genetics of these birds is that the breeding birds — the parents of the ones sold in supermarkets — constantly are
hungry, because, unlike their offspring that are slaughtered at just 45 days old, they have to live long enough to
reach sexual maturity. If fed as much as they are programmed to eat, they soon would be grotesquely obese and
die or be unable to mate. So they are kept on strict rations that leave them always looking in vain for food.
and the author of “Dominion: The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.”
Scully’s writings have found support from other conservatives, like Pat Buchanan, editor of The American
Conservative, which gave cover-story prominence to Scully’s essay “Fear Factories: The Case for
Compassionate Conservatism — for Animals,” and George F. Will, who used his Newsweek column to
recommend Scully’s book.
No less a religious authority than Pope Benedict XVI has stated that human “dominion” over animals does not
justify factory farming. While head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, the future pope condemned the “industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to
produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds.”
This “degrading of living creatures to a commodity” seemed to him “to contradict the relationship of mutuality
that comes across in the Bible.”
Opposition to factory farming, once associated mostly with animal rights activists, now is shared by
many conservatives, among them Matthew Scully, a former speech writer in President George W.
Bush’s White House In Scully’s view, even though God has given us “dominion” over the animals, we
should exercise that dominion with mercy — and factory farming fails to do so. Some people think
that factory farming is necessary to feed the growing population of our planet. The truth, however, is
the opposite. No matter how efficient intensive pork, beef, chicken, egg and milk production becomes,
in the narrow sense of producing more meat, eggs or milk for each pound of grain we feed the
animals, raising animals on grain remains wasteful. Far from increasing the total amount of food
available for human consumption, it reduces it.
A concentrated animal feeding operation is, as the name implies, an operation in which we concentrate the
animals and feed them. Unlike cattle or sheep on pasture, they don’t feed themselves. There lies the fundamental
environmental flaw: Every CAFO relies on cropland, on which the food the animals eat is grown. Because the
animals, even when confined, use much of the nutritional value of their food to move, keep warm and form bone
and other inedible parts of their bodies, the entire operation is an inefficient way of feeding humans. It places
greater demands on the environment in terms of land, energy and water than other forms of farming. It would be
more efficient to use the cropland to grow food for humans to eat.
Factory farming, overwhelmingly dominated by huge corporations like Tyson, Smithfield, ConAgra and
Seaboard, has contributed to rural depopulation and the decline of the family farm. It has nothing going for it
except that it produces food that is, at the point of sale, cheap. But for that low price, the animals, the
environment and rural neighborhoods have to pay steeply.
Fortunately there are alternatives, including eating a vegan diet, or buying animal products only from
producers who allow their animals to go outside and live a minimally decent life. It is time for a shift
in our values. While our society focuses on issues like gay marriage and the use of embryos for
research, we are overlooking one of the big moral issues of our day. We should see the purchase and
consumption of factory-farm products, whether by an individual or by an institution like a university,
as a violation of the most basic ethical standards of how we should treat animals and the environment.
Solvency - Small Farms Transition
____ SMALL FARMS WILL PICK UP THE PRODUCTION SLACK LEFT BY CAFOs,
THEY ARE READY AND WILLING
ROSSET 1, Peter, Co-Director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, January 7 2001
[“Here’s the Beef” The San Francisco Chronicle <http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Factory-Farm-Peter-
Rosset.htm> Accessed 8/1/08]
On the independent family farm where both crops and livestock are raised, each supports the other. Livestock
graze on the parts of the crop plant that aren't harvested for human consumption, and their manure is a key
fertilizer for the crops. On factory farms, which concentrate thousands, or tens of thousands, of animals in one
place and buy their feed grain elsewhere, manure disposal has become a huge environmental problem.
Factory-farm odors make life unbearable in nearby communities. Spills from vast feces lagoons have
caused fish kills involving millions of fish, and poisoned soils, rivers, aquifers and public waterways.
It doesn't have to be that way. Family farmers are more than able and willing to raise livestock and
poultry without resorting to factory-style production. Four hundred farmers with 1,000 hogs each, together
with pasture and crops, can produce the same amount as one factory farm with 400,000 animals, and
do it in a more humane way that protects our health, the environment and the family-farming way of
life. That is what the growing anti- factory farming movement that has sprung up across rural America is all
about.
____ SMALL FARMS WOULD KEEP PRODUCTIONS LEVELS CONSTANT– OVERALL

YIELDS DIDN’T INCREASE WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAFOs
NEW YORK TIMES 2, August 30 2002 [The New York Times, Section A, Column 1, Editorial Desk, Pg.
18, Lexis, Accessed 8/1/08]
Unfortunately, the government has been putting its weight behind big business. The Environmental Protection
Agency has issued basically toothless rules under which the states give permits to any factory farm that
comes up with a plan for handling manure, mainly by building larger lagoons to hold it. The new farm bill
that President Bush signed in May adds further insult by paying farmers up to $450,000 apiece to help them comply
with regulations that don't mean much to begin with.
The regressive farm bill also continues the government's policy of throwing its weight behind the
already hefty industrial farms and helping to drive smaller farmers out of business. In Iowa, for instance,
the number of hog farms has dropped from 64,500 in 1980 to 10,500 in 2000, though the number of
hogs, about 15 million, remains the same. The public's money, in this fight, is going in the opposite direction
of the public interest.
Solvency – Reducing subsidies = better farming practices
Government subsidies to CAFOs have driven small farms out of business. Removing
subsidies would make small farms who don’t abuse antibiotics competitive again.
HFA 2007 “Factory Farming” http://www.hfa.org/factory/index.html (Humane Farming

Association, Founded in 1985, has over 190,000 members. In 1991, HFA created the Humane
Farming Action Fund (HFAF), the nation's only political lobbying organization founded to
protect farm animals.)
Family farms are being squeezed out of business by their inability to raise the capital to
compete with huge factory farms. Traditional farming is labor intensive, but factory farming is
capital intensive. Farmers who do manage to raise the money for animal confinement systems
quickly discover that the small savings in labor costs are not enough to cover the increasing costs
of facilities, energy, caging, and drugs. The increase in factory farms has led to a decrease in
the price independent farmers get for their animals, forcing thousands out of business. The
number of U.S. farmers dropped by 300,000 between 1979 and 1998. During a recent 15-year
period, hog farms in the U.S. decreased from 600,000 to 157,000, while the number of hogs sold
increased. Consolidation has resulted in just 3 percent of U.S. hog farms producing more than 50
percent of the hogs. Similarly, 2 percent of cattle feed operations account for more than 40
percent of the nation’s cattle. In the poultry industry, the number of “broiler” chicken farms
declined by 35 percent between 1969 and 1992, while the number of birds raised and slaughtered
increased nearly three-fold. The demise of small farms in the U.S. has been helped along by
actions of the federal government. Congress, influenced by strong lobbying groups, has
consistently passed federal farm programs benefiting the large agricultural corporations.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 1987 and 1996, the food industry made
campaign contributions of more than $41 million to federal lawmakers. The bias against small
farms continues despite the appointment of a special commission in the late 1990s by then-
Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to study how small farms have been displaced by factory
farms and how the trend might be reversed. The report from that commission, titled “A Time to
Act,” described the enormous social costs of the destruction of the American family farm, as the
economic basis of rural communities in the U.S. diminishes and rural towns are “lost.”
Solvency
Cutting Confined Animal Feeding Operations Would Reduce Federal Spending by Billions
Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/cafo-costs-report-
0113.html) April 24, 2008
Science Group Calls for Policies that Reduce CAFO Subsidies and Encourage Modern, Sustainable Meat,
Milk and Egg Production
Misguided federal farm policies have encouraged the growth of massive confined animal feeding operations, or
CAFOs, by shifting billions of dollars in environmental, health and economic costs to taxpayers and communities,
according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). As a result, CAFOs now produce
most of the nation's beef, pork, chicken, dairy and eggs, even though there are more sophisticated and efficient farms
in operation.
"CAFOs aren't the natural result of agricultural progress, nor are they the result of rational planning or market
forces," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist in UCS's Food and Environment Program and author of the
report. "Ill-advised policies created them, and it will take new policies to replace them with more sustainable,
environmentally friendly production methods."
"CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations" enumerates the policies that have
allowed CAFOs to dominate U.S. meat and dairy production. For example, it found that from 1997 to 2005
taxpayer-subsidized grain prices saved CAFOs nearly $35 billion in animal feed, which comprises a large
percentage of their supply costs. Cattle operations that raise animals exclusively on pasture land do not
benefit from the subsidy. (To read the full report, go to:
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/sustainable_food/cafos-uncovered.html)
The report also details how other federal policies give CAFOs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to
address their pollution problems, which stem from the manure generated by thousands, if not tens of
thousands, of animals confined in a small area. The report estimates that CAFOs have received $100
million in annual pollution prevention payments in recent years through the federal Environmental
Quality Incentives Program, which was established by the 2002 Farm Bill.
"If CAFOs were forced to pay for the ripple effects of harm they have caused, they wouldn't be
dominating the U.S. meat industry like they are today," said Margaret Mellon, director of UCS's Food and
Environment Program. "The good news is that we can institute new policies that support animal
production methods that benefit society rather than harm it."
Instead of favoring CAFOs, the report recommends that government policies provide incentives for
modern production methods that benefit the environment, public health and rural communities. The report
also shows that several smart alternative production methods can offer meat and dairy at costs comparable to CAFO
products.
For example, some livestock producers move beef and dairy cattle frequently to different areas of a pasture, enabling
them to spread out manure, prevent overgrazing, and take advantage of grass as a cost-effective source of animal
feed. Meanwhile, some hog farmers have built hog hoop barns—open-ended structures with curved roofs—as an
alternative to confining the animals in cramped buildings.
"Many farmers are succeeding when they work with nature instead of against it," said Gurian-Sherman. "These
savvy producers are proving that hog hoop barns, smart pasture operations, and other alternative methods can
compete with the massive CAFOs. And that's despite the fact that the cards are stacked against them."
In addition to steering taxpayer dollars away from CAFOs, the report also urges Congress to enforce laws
that encourage competition so alternative producers can get their meat and dairy to consumers as easily as
CAFOs. Making CAFOs, rather than taxpayers, pay to prevent or clean up the pollution they create is also
critical, Gurian-Sherman said.
Mellon noted that next week the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production is expected to issue its
final report that documents the effects of intensive animal production on humans, animals, and the environment.
"When taken together," she said, "the two reports paint a grim picture of CAFOs and make strong, practical
recommendations for new policies that can take us in a new, more efficient direction that will not fleece the
American public."
Solvency
____ CUTTING CAFO SUBSIDIES WOULD BRING DRAMATIC CHANGES TO

ECONOMY, AND ENCOURAGE SUSTAINABLE, ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND
FARMING PRACTICES
Ben Lilliston, Lilliston works on media outreach and the production of publications. He has a bachelor of philosophy
degree from University of Miami (Ohio). He is the former Associate Editor for the Corporate Crime Reporter, a frequently
published writer, co-author of the book Genetically Engineered Foods: A Guide for Consumers (Avalon), and former
associate at the Chicago environmental public relations firm Sustain.,
January 29, 2008 Think Forward (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,
http://iatp.typepad.com/thinkforward/2008/01/how-we-subsidiz.html)
Leveling the Playing Field
Much of the recent Farm Bill debate has focused on subsidies for rich farmers, but what about
government support for some of the largest multinational agribusiness companies in the world? Research
released last month suggests that stripping away direct and indirect subsidies benefitting meat and poultry
companies could bring dramatic changes to our farm economy.
Elanor Starmer and Tim Wise at Tufts University's Global Development and Environment Institute first looked at how
underpriced animal feed allows big poultry, hog and beef companies to undercut smaller, more diversified farmers. They found
that industrial livestock operations (hog, broiler, egg, dairy, and cattle) that contract with the big meat and poultry companies got
a $35 billion boost from under-priced animal feed from 1997-2005 - amounting to a 5-15 percent reduction in operating costs.
How did animal feed become so under-priced? The 1996 Farm Bill stripped away the last remaining production controls for most
major commodities. So, in the nine years following the 1996 Farm Bill, production rose (28 percent for corn and 42 percent for
soybeans), and prices fell (32 percent for corn and 21 percent for soybeans), according to Starmer and Wise. In the nine years
following the 1996 Farm Bill, corn prices averaged 23 percent below production costs and soybeans averaged 15 percent below
production costs.
And the big boys in the increasingly consolidated meat and poultry sectors cashed in. According to Starmer and Wise, the nation's
largest industrial broiler chicken company Tyson Foods saved $1.25 billion a year, or $11.25 billion over nine years, from under-
priced animal feed. And the nation's largest industrial hog company, Smithfield Foods, saved an estimated $2.54 billion over nine
years from under-priced feed. Starmer and Wise concluded: "taxpayers and farm families have, in effect, been subsidizing factory
farms' feed purchases."
The next step was to consider the various environmental costs associated with CAFOs that have been subsidized by taxpayers.
The New York Times' Andrew Martin reported this month about how the Farm Bill's Environmental Quality Incentives Program
(EQIP) has devolved from its original intent to help farmers with small scale conservation projects to providing a direct subsidy
to CAFOs to deal with the "mountains of excrement that their farmers generate." In 2006, taxpayers sent these mega farms about
$179 million for animal waste management, Martin reported. Early this year, Congress will renew the EQIP program as part of
the new Farm Bill and is actually considering expanding the program to provide more subsidies for CAFOs to clean up their
mess. IATP's David Wallinga has written on a number of problems CAFO operations can create through air pollution,
water pollution, and health risks to farmers and workers - all costs not accounted for in the price we pay at
the supermarket.
In focusing on hog production, Starmer and Wise calculated the additional cost to these operations if they
actually paid for environmental clean-ups and mitigation. They found that if CAFOs had to pay the cost
of alternative manure-management to protect the water and reduce over-application, it would raise hog
CAFO's operating costs by 2.4-10.7 percent. In a climate of full cost feed and environmental regulation,
CAFOs would see their operating costs rise by between 17.4-25.7 percent. This increase would eliminate
the apparent cost advantage CAFOs currently have over mid-sized diversified hog producers.
This new research is a blunt reminder that the U.S. agriculture market is massively distorted by misplaced
priorities. Our current system is no accident or the result of market forces. Rather, it is the deliberate
outcome of a U.S. farm policy geared toward fewer farmers and larger more industrial operations. U.S.
government leaders going back to President Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson,
have been telling farmers: "to get big or get out." And our policies have reflected that bias.
One bump in the smooth ride for the big meat and poultry companies is the recent rise in corn and
soybean prices. Corn prices have risen to over $5 a bushel, soybeans to over $9 a bushel. But what
happens if prices crash? Al Kluis of Northland Commodities told the Star Tribune that "the history of
commodity bull markets is that prices will drop twice as fast as they went up."
Unfortunately, neither the House or Senate versions of the Farm Bill address price volatility, despite a
number of proven policy tools that could help ensure prices don't go too high for consumers or too low for
farmers. A system of fair prices for farmers and consumers, combined with a full accounting of
environmental and health costs, would help level the playing field for farmers of different sizes. In that
alternative future, our farms and supermarkets might look a lot different.
Solvency
EQIP SUBSIDIES MAKE FACTORY FARMING POSSIBLE, AND MUST END NOW
ANDREW MARTIN, January 13, 2008 (New York Times,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13feed.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
IT may not surprise you to learn that much of the pork and chicken and beef and milk that you buy at the
grocery store comes from huge, industrial-size operations that bear little resemblance to the quaint family
farms that adorn many food packages.
But you may be surprised to learn that your tax dollars have helped pave the way for the growth of these
livestock megafarms by paying farmers to deal with the mountains of excrement that their farms generate.
All of this is carried out under the rubric of “conservation.” Congress is about to renew the program —
and possibly even expand it — as part of a new farm bill wending its way through the Capitol.
It’s called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, also known as EQIP — a name that suggests an
initiative to encourage farmers to improve environmental standards.
And, in fact, when the program was created as part of the 1996 farm bill, that’s exactly what it was. At the time, the
government agreed to pay a share — up to 75 percent — of a conservation project, and the payments were limited to
$10,000 a year. Farmers used the money for small-scale projects that had environmental benefits, like planting cover
crops to prevent erosion and soak up excess nitrogen or installing fencing to better manage grazing cattle.
But in the 2002 farm bill, the program was changed at the livestock industry’s behest, and funding for the
program was raised from $200 million a year to, eventually, $1.3 billion. Yearly payment limits were
scratched, replaced by a provision that farmers could get no more than $450,000 during the bill’s life.
Another change: large-scale livestock facilities that once were not eligible for EQIP money were
encouraged to participate under the 2002 bill.
As a result, many farmers are using their EQIP money for animal waste management practices, which
include helping to pay for lagoons to store manure. The lagoons are lined ponds that are used to keep the
waste until it can be pumped out for some other use, usually as fertilizer on nearby fields. In some
instances, manure lagoons have leaked or overflowed into the groundwater or neighboring streams.
They don’t smell very nice, either. So I’m sure families living downwind of the lagoons would be pleased
to learn their tax dollars helped to finance them.
For the 2006 fiscal year, for instance, the Department of Agriculture paid farmers about $179 million for
animal waste management practices, with Iowa, Wisconsin and North Carolina getting the most money.
More recent data was not available, nor were individual payments.
That compares with $125 million for soil erosion and sediment control, $139 million for irrigation water
management and $74 million for grazing land practices, according to Department of Agriculture records.
Livestock industry officials argue that farmers should be allowed to use EQIP money for animal waste to
help comply with environmental regulations for air and water quality.
Christopher Galen, spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, argues that bigger livestock farms
should be eligible for more EQIP money, not less, because they are the focus of the strictest regulations. (Farms with
more than 1,000 animal units, equal to 700 dairy cows, face tougher regulations.) “If larger farms are going to be
viewed — accurately or not — as part of the problem, then the resources necessary to implement the solution also
need to be available to those farms,” he said in a statement.
Others maintain that EQIP money has helped to stop runoff from farms that was polluting local and regional
waterways.
Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, says that while he doesn’t believe conservation funds
should be spent on industrial livestock farms, the money is a relatively small share of the EQIP total. He says that
most of it is spent on valuable environmental initiatives.
The questions, then, remain: Why should taxpayers foot the bill for manure lagoons, particularly under
the flag of environmental conservation? Why should taxpayers subsidize expansion of livestock farms?
And if livestock farms have created environmental problems, shouldn’t the polluters have to pay for the
mess that they created, rather than the taxpayers?
“Having a lagoon that doesn’t leak into groundwater, that’s the cost of doing business,” said Ferd
Hoefner, policy director of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “You shouldn’t be justifying that as a
conservation payment. You are building things that have been proven time and time again to cause severe
environmental damage when they misfunction.”
Much criticism of the proposed farm bill has focused on subsidy payments to farmers, particularly when
they are receiving sky-high prices for corn, soybeans and wheat. EQIP doesn’t get nearly the same level
of scrutiny, in part because environmentalists are split on the merits of using EQIP money to manage manure on
big farms.
THE Senate passed a version of the farm bill that includes about the same amount for EQIP in coming years. A
proposal to scale back individual payments to a $240,000 maximum was squelched in part by Senator Patrick Leahy,
Democrat of Vermont, who maintains that construction costs are higher in the Northeast and that EQIP money is
helping to clean up Lake Champlain.
Industrial dairies and manure lagoons in Vermont? Guess I’ll rent a cabin in New Hampshire next summer.
The House version of the farm bill would expand EQIP by taking money from another conservation program. The
House and Senate will work out their differences in conference committee. But I doubt that they will change the
payment formula for EQIP.
So if Congress is to keep sending taxpayer money to farmers to build manure lagoons, it may want to
consider a more honest name for the program.
How about “Factory Farm Incentive Program”?
Solvency
Subsidies are necessary for large scale farms, and CAFOs, and must end now.
Richard Oswald, Farmer, 09/12/2007, Daily Yonder (http://www.dailyyonder.com/letter-

langdon-trimming-trumpet-vine, The Daily Yonder is published on the web by the Center for
Rural Strategies., “Letter From Langdon: Trimming the Trumpet Vine”
At first it was great. Some farms grew very fast, and covered all the extra acres freed up by the 1996 bill, called
Freedom to Farm. Back then, before the recent rise in commodity prices, the rule of thumb was that a grain farm’s
net income was about equal to its federal payments. Farms with $70,000 in federal payments had net income of
$70,000. Farmers were producing at cost and the federal government paid our living.
But, the bigger the farm, the bigger the federal payments. Also, the bigger the farm, the cheaper the seed
and the other things a farmer buys. Aggressive farmers realized the system rewarded ever-larger
operations with lower costs and higher federal payments. All at little risk. So some farmers used that
advantage aggressively to gain control of an ever-growing segment of the available productive land,
either through attrition (as farmers gave up or retired), cash rent, or outright purchase. Farms got bigger as
smaller producers were consumed by a system driven by federal payments.
Low grain prices made corporate livestock operations flourish. Livestock operators couldn’t possibly
grow all the feed they needed, so as grain became cheaper, more and more government help flowed from
the Treasury to grain farmers while livestock feeders got the advantage of prices below the cost of
production. As agribusiness gradually replaced family farms, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and
many in Congress admired the way big business bloomed and covered the land.
Meanwhile, however, throughout the tenure of the 1996 and 2002 farm bills, the average American farmer has
continued to age to the point that he is now nearly 57 years old. That’s me. I’m an average farmer. But the
consequence of the last two farm bills is that young farmers have never been fewer than they are today. Young
farmers have been crowded away from the land.
The programs passed in the last two farm bills have had exactly opposite impacts on agribusiness and rural
communities. Large farms have grown larger under current policies. But our small rural communities have
continued to decline, struggling with basic issues like jobs and health care. The average rural per capita income [4]
now lags the urban average by nearly 28 percent.
The trouble in rural America is that our garden is being choked by one voracious plant.
The House version of the 2007 farm bill offers to rectify the situation by taking payments from millionaires. But
pulling Manhattan millionaires with legitimate Midwestern investments from the payment rolls is like pruning the
trumpet vine from where it belongs, on the trellis. After all, being in possession of money is no reason to curtail
payments aimed at stabilizing the farm economy. And, besides, taking payments from the wealthy whose prosperity
may stem from other sources doesn’t address the problem: the unlimited expansion of large farms paid for with
federal funds. Busting a few Upper East Side “farmers” may make people feel better, but it doesn’t confront the
effect the crop subsidy program has had on working farms and rural communities.
Through times of low prices, large farms have been well supported. Now that grain prices have improved, most of
the payments everyone is talking about are a moot point. (Grain prices remain well above USDA guarantees. [6])
Now is the perfect time to place reasonable limits on farm bill subsidies while working to strengthen crop
insurance protections that can act as a viable safety net for ALL agricultural producers.
The time is right for the Senate to clear some room in the economy so that family-sized farming operations can
thrive (and, perhaps, some younger farmers can get into the business). Over the last few years, the Department of
Agriculture has failed to enforce both the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, and the Agricultural Fair Practices
Act of 1967. This has led to a drop in competition in the livestock industry, depressing prices for small producers.
Some Senators are thinking of adding a section to the farm bill that would insure competitive prices for livestock, so
that small producers can be free to profit. That would be a good start.
Also, the Senate should question why the environmental quality incentives program (EQIP) picks up a
chunk of the cost of manure disposal systems built by huge confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Manure lagoons at CAFOs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why should the government
subsidize these environmentally dangerous and un-neighborly farm factories? Limits should be placed on
EQIP payments so that large animal confinements bear responsibility for their own cost of doing business.
Now is the time to prune the vine, so that the all the rest of the inhabitants of the garden can bloom.
Healthy plants need room to grow.
Healthy farms do too.
Solvency
Cafos Would Be Shut Down Without Subsidies
Elanor Starmer and Timothy A. Wise, December 2007 Tufts University (Living High on the
Hog, GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE, WORKING PAPER NO.
07-04), Pg 22
CAFOs lost their feed discount and diversified farms lost all subsidies, CAFOs would still
operate with costs between 3% and 7% lower than mid-sized operations. Of course, farmers would
not lose direct payments under the current farm programs, since those payments are not tied to prices,
so the continued receipt of direct payments could make mid-sized operations cost-competitive.
Additionally, the removal of CAFOs’ surface-water pollution externality would raise CAFO costs
further and tip the balance back toward mid-sized operations.
The enduring finding is that U.S. policy appears to have helped fuel the rise of hog CAFOs
by lowering feed prices and allowing them to externalize the costs of pollution. In a different political
and regulatory environment, mid-sized, diversified hog operations could compete with CAFOs on
cost.
Interestingly, the hog industry may now be entering just such an economic and regulatory
environment. The new market for corn-based ethanol has driven corn prices above production costs,
while soybean prices have climbed with the shift of soybean acreage into corn. On the regulatory
side, the EPA-mandated grace period for CAFOs to comply with Clean Water Act regulations by
completing CNMPs that include a plan for dealing with surface-water contamination expires in 2007.
Our estimates suggest that such regulations could raise hog CAFOs’ operating costs by 2.4%-10.7%
if they are properly enforced. Together, these changes could alter the cost structure for hog CAFOs.
According to the most widely cited production and price projections (FAPRI 1999-2006),
corn prices are expected to be above production costs for the next five years, while soybean prices
should be close to production costs. Applying our model for estimating the impact on hog feed prices
to these projections, we estimate that the price of hog feed should reach production cost as early as
2008. For the period 2008-2011, prices would exceed costs by about 3%. This would represent an
increase of about 29% in hog CAFO feed costs, and 17% in total operating costs, over their average
costs in the 1997-2005 period.
This scenario presents an unprecedented opportunity for new research examining whether the
elimination of the feed-price discount slows or reverses the trend away from diversified crop-
livestock farms and toward industrialized, specialized animal production. Diversified operations
that grow their own feed crops and raise hogs may begin to make greater economic sense and may
even come to out-compete industrial operations on cost. Such an outcome becomes even more likely
with the scheduled EPA enforcement of manure regulations on surface water.
Industrial livestock companies have been vocal about their concerns over rising feed
prices. Their fears are warranted. Our findings suggest that if current trends continue, the rise in
the price of feed could raise CAFOs’ operating costs significantly. Stricter environmental
regulations could raise costs further. Such changes could significantly impact the structure of hog
farming in the United States, slowing the trend toward large confinement operations. Further
research is needed to assess how these changes affect the relative competitiveness of CAFOs and
smaller-scale, diversified hog operations.
Solvency
Without Subsidies, Small To Medium Farms Take Over
Doug Gurian-Sherman, Doug Gurian-Sherman is a senior scientist in the Union of Concerned

Scientists (UCS) Food and Environment Program, April 2008, Union of Concerned Scientists
(CAFOs Uncovered), Pg 2
Better Options Exist

CAFOs do not represent the only way of ensuring the availability of food at reasonable prices.
Recent studies by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that almost 40 percent of
medium sized animal feeding operations are about as cost effective as the average large hog
CAFO, and many other studies have provided similar results. Medium-sized and smaller
operations also avoid or reduce many of the external costs that stem from CAFOs.
If CAFOs are not appreciably more efficient than small and mid-sized operations, why
are they supplanting smaller farms? The answers lie largely in farm policies that have favored
large operations. CAFOs have relied on cheap inputs (water, energy, and especially feed) to
support the high animal densities that offset these operations’ high fixed costs (such as
buildings). Feed accounts for about 60 percent of the costs of producing hogs and chickens and is
also an important cost for dairy and beef cows, and federal policies have encouraged the
production of inexpensive grain that benefits CAFOs.
Perhaps even more important has been the concentration of market power in the
processing industry upon which animal farmers depend. This concentration allows meat
processors to exert considerable economic control over livestock producers, often in the form of
production contracts and animal ownership. The resulting “captive supply” can limit market
access for independent smaller producers, since the large majority of livestock are either owned
by processors or acquired under contract— and processors typically do not contract with smaller
producers. Federal government watchdogs have stated that the agency responsible for ensuring
that markets function properly for smaller producers is not up to the task.
Hoop barns and smart pasture operations
Although there is evidence that confinement operations smaller than CAFOs can be cost-
effective and produce ample animal products, studies also suggest that sophisticated alternative
means of producing animal products hold even greater promise. For example, hog hoop barns,
which are healthier for the animals and much smaller than CAFOs, can produce comparable or
even higher profits per unit at close to the same price.
Research in Iowa (the major hog-producing state) has also found that raising hogs on
pasture may produce animals at a lower cost than CAFOs. Other studies have shown that “smart”
pasture operations such as managed intensive rotational grazing (MIRG) can produce milk at a
cost similar to confined dairy operations, but with added environmental benefits.
Properly managed pastures, for example, require less maintenance and energy than the
feed crops (such as corn and soybeans) on which CAFOs rely. Healthy pastures are also less
susceptible to erosion, can capture more heat-trapping carbon dioxide than feed crops, and
absorb more of the nutrients applied to them, thereby contributing less to water pollution.
Furthermore, the manure deposited by animals onto pasture produces about six to nine times less
volatilized ammonia—an important air pollutant— than surface-applied manure from CAFOs.
Solvency
Farm Subsidies Fund Consolidate Agribusiness, And Ensure The Destruction Of The
Family Farm
Brian M. Riedl, Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, April 30, 2002 The Heritage
Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/BG1542.cfm),
Still at the Federal Trough: Farm Subsidies for the Rich and Famous Shattered Records in
2001
Members of Congress who are poised to spend at least $171 billion on direct farm
subsidies over the next decade would be wise to examine newly released statistics detailing who
actually receives these subsidies. In 2001, Fortune 500 companies and large agribusinesses
shattered previous farm subsidy records, while small family farmers saw their share of the
subsidy pie shrink.
These subsidy programs tax working Americans to award millions to millionaires and
provide profitable corporate farms with money that has been used to buy out family farms. The
current farm bills1 would provide even greater subsidies for large farmers, costing the average
household $4,400 over the next 10 years, while facilitating increased consolidation and buyouts
in the agricultural industry.2
How Farm Subsidies Target Large Farms
Legislators promoting subsidies take advantage of the popular misconception that farm
subsidies exist to stabilize the incomes of poor family farmers who are at the mercy of
unpredictable weather and crop prices. If that were the case, the federal government could bring
the income of every full-time farmer in America up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level
($32,652 for a family of four in 2001) for just $4 billion per year.3 In reality, however, the
government spends nearly $20 billion annually on programs that target large farms and
agribusinesses.
Eligibility for farm subsidies is determined not by income or poverty standards but by the
crop that is grown. Growers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice receive more than 90
percent of all farm subsidies, while growers of most of the 400 other domestic crops are
completely shut out of farm subsidy programs. Further skewing these awards, the amounts of
subsidies increase as a farmer plants more crops.
Thus, large farms and agribusinesses--which not only have the most acres of land, but
also, because of their economies of scale, happen to be the nation's most profitable farms--
receive the largest subsidies. Meanwhile, family farmers with few acres receive little or nothing
in subsidies. In other words, far from serving as a safety net for poor farmers, farm subsidies
comprise America's largest corporate welfare program.
With agricultural programs designed to target large and profitable farms rather than
family farmers, it should come as no surprise that farm subsidies in 2001were distributed
overwhelmingly to large growers and agribusiness, including a number of Fortune 500
companies. Charts 1 and 2 show that the top 10 percent of recipients--most of whom earn over
$250,000 annually--received 73 percent of all farm subsidies in 2001.4 This figure represents an
increase above the 67 percent of all farm subsidies that they received between 1996 and 2000.
The next 10 percent of recipients saw their percentage of farm subsidies fall slightly from 17
percent between 1996 and 2000 to 15 percent in 2001.

The main losers in 2001 were the bottom 80 percent of farm subsidy recipients, including
most family farmers, who saw their collective share of the subsidy pie shrink from 16 percent
throughout the previous five years to 12 percent in 2001. This represents a decline of 25 percent
in the share of subsidies received by these farmers. At the same time, Chart 3 shows that the
number of farms receiving over $1 million in farm subsidies in one year increased by 28 percent
to a record 69 farms in 2001. Topping the list was Arkansas' Tyler Farms, whose $8.1 million
bounty was 90,000 times more than the median farm subsidy of $899--and nearly equal to the
total of farm subsidies distributed to all farmers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined.5
Why Farm Subsidies Will Continue to Target Large Farms
Although farm subsidies have targeted large farms for decades, the evolution of farm
subsidies into a corporate welfare program has accelerated in recent years for two reasons:
• Congress has siphoned record amounts of money into farm subsidies since 1998;
and
• Farm subsidies have helped large corporate farms buy out small farms and further
consolidate the industry.
Despite an attempt to phase out farm programs in 1996, Congress reacted to slight crop
price decreases in 1998 by initiating the first of four annual "emergency" payments to farmers.
Subsidies increased from $6 billion in 1996 to nearly $30 billion in 2000 even though farmers
have substantially higher incomes and net worths than the national average. Predictably, as
subsidies increased, the amounts of subsidies for large farms and agribusinesses also increased.
Although increased subsidies help explain why large farms are receiving more money,
however, they do not explain why they are receiving a larger portion of the overall farm subsidy
pie. Since 1991, subsidies for large farms have nearly tripled, but there have been no increases in
subsidies for small farms.6 Large farms are grabbing all of the new subsidy dollars from small
farms because the federal government is helping them buy out small farms. Specifically, large
farms are using their massive federal subsidies to purchase small farms and consolidate the
agriculture industry. As they buy up smaller farms, not only are these large farms able to
capitalize further on economies of scale and become more profitable, but they also become
eligible for even more federal subsidies--which they can use to buy even more small farms.
The result is a "plantation effect" that has already affected America's rice farms, three-
quarters of which have been bought out and converted into tenant farms.7 Other farms growing
wheat, corn, cotton, and soybeans are tending in the same direction. Consolidation is the main
reason that the number of farms has decreased from 7 million to 2 million (just 400,000 of which
are full-time farms) since 1935, while the average farm size has increased from 150 acres to
more than 500 acres over the same period.8
This farm industry consolidation is not necessarily harmful. Many larger farms and
agribusinesses are more efficient, have better technology, and can produce crops at a lower cost
than traditional farms; and not all family farmers who sell their property to corporate farms do so
reluctantly.
The issue of concern is not consolidation per se, but whether the federal government
should continue to subsidize these purchases through farm subsidies and whether multimillion-
dollar agricultural corporations should continue to receive welfare payments. When President
Franklin Roosevelt first crafted farm subsidies to aid family farmers struggling through the Great
Depression, he clearly did not envision a situation in which these subsidies would be shifted to
large Fortune 500 companies operating with 21st century technology in a booming economy.
Millions for Millionaires

A glance at some of the recipients of farm subsidies in 2001 shows that many of those
receiving these subsidies clearly do not need them. Table 1 shows that 12 Fortune 500 companies
received farm subsidies in 2001. Subsidies to the four largest of these recipients--Westvaco,
Chevron, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, and Caterpillar--shattered their previous record
highs.
Table 2 lists other rich and famous "farmers" who received massive farm subsidies in
2001. David Rockefeller, the former chairman of Chase Manhattan and grandson of oil tycoon
John D. Rockefeller, for example, received a personal record high of $134,556. Portland
Trailblazers basketball star Scottie Pippen received his annual $26,315 payment not to farm land
he owns in Arkansas. Ted Turner, the 25th wealthiest man in America, received $12,925. Even
ousted Enron CEO and multi-millionaire Kenneth Lay received $6,019 for not farming his land.
Chart 4 shows how these amounts tower over the amount received by the median farm subsidy
recipient, who has received just $899 per year since 1996.
Conclusion
The farm bills currently being considered by a House-Senate conference committee
would further accelerate the transformation of farm subsidies into corporate welfare programs.
Most of their enormous $171 billion cost would subsidize highly profitable Fortune 500
companies, agribusinesses, and celebrity "hobby farmers" and help fund their purchases of small
family farms, and the average American family would be left paying $4,400 in taxes and inflated
food prices to benefit millionaires--unless Congress or President George W. Bush finally puts an
end to this counterproductive waste of taxpayer dollars.
Solvency
- Policy Makers Should Cut Subsidies Supporting Corporate Broiler Industry, Which
Would Benefit Small And Diversified Farms
Elanor Starmer, Aimee Witteman and Timothy A. Wise Elanor Starmer is a Masters candidate in
Development Economics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and in Agriculture, Food and
Environment at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University. She is also a Research
Assistant at the Global Development and Environment Institute. Aimee Witteman completed a Master of Science
degree in Agriculture, Food and Environment at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and
Policy in June 2006. She is currently working as a policy analyst and organizer on the 2007 farm bill. Timothy
A. Wise is Deputy Director of the Global Development and Environment Institute.,
June 2006,GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE (WORKING

PAPER NO. 06-03)
We have demonstrated that below-cost corn and soybeans have been a boon to the corporate
broiler industry and that the financial benefits of U.S. policies that encourage high levels of
production and low prices have increased with the 1996 policy reforms. Those benefits are not small,
averaging $1.25 billion per year in the post-1996 period. Though rising demand for corn-based
ethanol may push corn prices up and narrow cost-price margins in coming years, there is no
indication that feed prices will naturally approach their true costs of production.
It is outside the scope of this project to discuss the various policy proposals that could secure
farmer and rancher livelihoods and reduce the burden on taxpayers from U.S. farm payments. Such
policies would in any case better balance supply and demand so prices could rise to above production
costs. It stands to mention that policy changes that raise the market prices of corn and soybeans
would negatively affect not just the agribusiness corporations who use U.S. farm products as a major
input, but also small and mid-sized farmers and ranchers who purchase corn and soybeans from the
market. However, those farm and ranch households selling corn and soybeans, or diversified farmers
and ranchers who feed their own grains or soybeans to livestock, would benefit from such policy
changes.
It is incumbent upon agricultural economists to analyze current U.S. farm policies in such a
way as to paint an accurate picture of their structural and economic impacts. Such an analysis is
especially important for those sub-sectors of the livestock industry, such as beef cattle and hogs, that
are moving toward but have not yet reached full integration and industrialization. This study helps
lay the groundwork for such research. Other analytical techniques may ultimately prove more
accurate. Regardless, it is clear that the development of sensible proposals for farm policy reform
hinges on a thorough understanding of the impacts of these policies, and on recognizing the true
winners and losers under the current system.
As policymakers turn their attention to the 2007 Farm Bill, they would do well to examine
the ways in which agribusiness firms in general, and industrial livestock operations in particular,
benefit from policies ostensibly designed to support family farmers. As this study suggests, most
diversified independent family farmers would be better served by policies that ensure market prices
in excess of production costs. To the extent such policies reduce the current cost advantages enjoyed
by industrial animal factories, they will further the stated goals of U.S. agricultural policy, and will
perhaps help reverse the trend toward concentrated industrial hog and beef cattle production.
Solvency - Economic Incentives
Profit-making is the root cause of factory farm existence
Jim Mason - author, lecturer, journalist, environmentalist, and attorney who

specializes in human/animal concerns - and Mary Finelli - animal rights activist -
2006
(‘Brave New Farms’, “In Defense of Animals”, Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell
Pub., 2006, pg 105-106)
Right under our noses agribusiness has wrought a sweeping revolution in the ways in which animals are kept to produce
meat, milk, and eggs. It began in the years before World War II, when farmers near large cities began to
specialize in the production of chickens to meet the constant demand for eggs and meat. By
supplementing the birds’ diet with vitamin D, they made it possible for them to be raised indoors
without sunlight. The first mass-producers were able to turn out large flocks all the year round. Large-
scale indoor production caught on fast around the urban market centers, but the new methods created a
host of problems. Nightmarish scenes began to occur in the crowded, poorly ventilated sheds. Birds pecked others to
death and ate their remains. Contagious diseases were rampant, and losses multiplied throughout the budding industry.
The boom in the chicken business attracted the attention of the largest feed and pharmaceutical
companies, which put their scientists to work on the problems of mass-production. Someone found that
losses from pecking and cannibalism could be reduced by burning off the tips of chickens’ beaks with a blowtorch. Soon an
automatic “debeaking” machine was patented, and its use became routine. Richer feeds made for faster-gaining birds and a
greater number of “crops” of chickens each year. Foremost of the developments, however, was the discovery that sulfa drugs
and antibiotics could be added to feed to help hold down diseases in the dirty, crowded sheds. Chickens themselves
were not entirely ready for mass-production, and the poultry industry set about looking for a better
commercial bird. In 1946, the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (now A&P) launched the “Chicken of Tomorrow”
contest to find a strain of chicken that could produce a broad-breasted body at low feed cost. Within a few years poultry
breeders had developed the prototype for today’s “broiler” – a chicken raised for meat who grows to a market weight of about
five pounds in seven weeks or less. The pre-war ancestor of this bird took twice as long to grow to a market weight of about
three pounds.
The egg industry went to work on engineering their own specialized chicken – the “layer” hen, who would turn out eggs and
more eggs. Today’s model lays twice as many eggs per year as did the “all-purpose” backyard chickens of the 1940s. Egg
producers also tried to follow the “broiler” industry’s factory ways, but they were faced with a major problem: confined hens
produce loads of manure each week. “Broiler” producers had the manure problem with their large flocks too, but the birds
were in and out within twelve weeks, and accumulations could be cleaned out after every few flocks. (Today, it can be years
between complete litter changes.) Egg producers, however, kept their birds indoors for a year or more, so they needed a
means of manure removal that would not disturb the hens or interfere with egg production. Unfortunately for the hens, they
found it: producers discovered they could confine their chickens in wire-mesh cages suspended over a trench to collect
droppings. At first they placed hens one to each cage, but when they found that birds were cheaper than wire and buildings,
crowded cages became the rule. Although crowding caused the deaths of more hens, this cost was considered “acceptable”
given the increased total egg output.
Having reduced chickens to the equivalent of living machinery, entrepreneurs and government
scientists began looking about for ways to extend factory technology to other farmed animal species.
In the 1960s they began developing systems for pigs, cattle, and sheep that incorporated the principles
of confinement, mass-production, and automated feeding, watering, ventilation, and waste removal.
The wire cage, which made everything possible for the egg industry, would not work for these heavier, hoofed animals. But
slatted floors – rails of metal or concrete spaced slightly apart and built over gutters or holding pits – did much the same job.
Now large numbers of animals could be confined indoors and held to rigid production schedules, for the laborious tasks of
providing bedding and mucking out manure had been eliminated.
The basics of factory husbandry had been established. Now the job of refining mass-production systems and
methods fell to husbandry experts, opening up a great new field for them. It opened up, as well, great
new markets for the agribusiness companies that could profit from the expanded sales of feed,
equipment, drugs, and the other products required by the new capital-intensive technology. Humanity
and concern retreated further as animal scientists – funded by these companies and by government
– worked out the “bugs” in the new systems.
Solvency - Economic Incentives
To factory farmers, economic incentives outweighs moral treatments for animals
Jason Gaverick Matheny - PhD student. Bloomberg School of Public Health. Johns
Hopkins University - and Cheryl Leahy - 2007
(“Farm-Animal Welfare, Legislation and Trade”, aw and Contemporary Problems, Vol.
70, 2007, Questia)
Animal agribusiness representatives often assert that it is in the economic interest of producers to
protect animals' welfare, as unhappy animals are unproductive. For instance, a vice president of the
National Pork Producers Council claimed, "farmers treat their animals well because that's just good
business." (16) There are some instances in which this is true, but many in which it is not. When
animal welfare competes with economics, economics usually wins: it can be cheaper for producers
to accept losses due to disease and mortality than to prevent those losses. As two poultry scientists
asked, "Is it more profitable to grow the biggest bird and have increased mortality due to heart
attacks, ascites [another illness caused by fast growth] and leg problems or should birds be grown
slower so that birds are smaller, but have fewer heart, lung and skeletal problems?" (17) The
researchers answer that it takes only "simple calculations" to find "it is better to get the weight and
ignore the mortality." (18) Indeed, because the animals themselves are less expensive than other
inputs, "[It is] more economically efficient to put a greater number of birds into each cage,
accepting lower productivity per bird but greater productivity per cage.... Chickens are cheap,
cages are expensive." (19) In other words, there is no longer a connection between animal welfare
and efficiency:
It is now generally agreed that good productivity and health are not necessarily indicators of good
welfare.... Productivity ... is often measured at the level of the unit (e.g. number of eggs or egg
mass per hen-housed), and individual animals may be in a comparatively poor state of welfare
even though productivity within the unit may be high. (20)
Moreover, when animals are no longer productive--that is, when animals are sick, injured, or
"spent"--there is no economic incentive for producers to care for them. It is typically cheaper to let
these animals die than to provide treatment. Most farm animals receive no individual veterinary
attention during their lives. In the United States, there are only 220 veterinarians responsible for the
care of more than nine billion farm animals. (21) The changes in farm animal production have
created a number of welfare problems on the farm, during transport, and during slaughter. Contrary
to the image of Old MacDonald's Farm, ninety-nine percent of U.S. farm animals never spend time
outdoors; (22) they spend their entire lives overcrowded with tens of thousands of other animals,
living in their own manure, in barren sheds. Most farm animals cannot engage in natural behaviors
such as foraging, perching, nesting, rooting, and mating, and many are not even able to turn around
or fully stretch their limbs.
Human Health Impacts
Factory Farm do not exist to fulfill market demands; Americans are better off without
them

Again, though, we return to the question of cost. Modern fanning methods have undoubtedly
decreased the cost of meat. Is that worth the great harm to the animals? Even if one were to argue that
animal interests don’t matter at all, the case against modern methods would still be insurmountable.
The great need for concentrated intensive meat production is because of the huge increase in meat
consumption. The annual per capita meat consumption in the U.S.A. is 111 kilograms. The Canada it
is 17 kilograms. In India it is 1 kilogram. While malnutrition was once a major problem in India it is
far less so today –without increasing meat consumption. Almost every nutritionist would insist that
North American meat consumption, especially red meat consumption, could be more than halved
without harming health. Indeed, most would insist that it would be highly beneficial to health to
reduce meat consumption by that much. As everyone is aware, Europeans and North Americans are
significantly overweight. Health considerations would again indicate a significant reduction in both
meat consumption and consumption of other less healthy foodstuffs. Eating lower down the food
chain, especially more fish, would be of dietary benefit. If meat consumption were drastically reduced,
the price of meat would rise – because intensive farming methods would be less beneficial to the
farmer — but the overall expenditure on food would actually decrease. Eating more sensibly would
actually save money, In fact, one could argue that a decrease in the cost of meat was precisely what
stimulated vast increase in meat consumption to the decided detriment of health in the Western world.
If prices were to increase and consumption consequently decrease, the benefits to health would be
substantial.
Disease Impacts
The horrifyingly unhealthy practices of Factory Farming accelerates the spread of disease
and hinders growth, which means that the animals in CAFOs are fed perpetual,
unnecessary doses of antibiotics.
HFA 2007 “Factory Farming” http://www.hfa.org/factory/index.html (Humane Farming

Association, Founded in 1985, has over 190,000 members. In 1991, HFA created the Humane
Farming Action Fund (HFAF), the nation's only political lobbying organization founded to
protect farm animals.)
Farm conditions result in severe physiological as well as behavioral afflictions in animals.

Anemia, influenza, intestinal diseases, mastitis, metritis, orthostasis, pneumonia, and
scours are only the beginning of a long list of ailments plaguing animals in factory farms.
By ignoring basic needs such as exercise, fresh air, wholesome food, and proper
veterinary care, factory farms are a breeding ground for stress and infectious disease.
It is all done in the name of increasing profits. Animals in factory farms are confined in
cages and crates to save on space and limit the number of workers required. The animals
are given antibiotics, hormones, and highly concentrated feed to accelerate growth and
weight gain. Factory farms attempt to counter the ill effects of this intensive
confinement by administering continuous doses of antibiotics and other drugs to the
animals. This “cost effective” practice has a significant negative impact on both the
animals and the people who consume them. Veterinarians and animal protection advocates
have long expressed concern over the conditions on factory farms, and now medical
doctors are warning that the tragedy of factory farming reaches well beyond the farm
animals themselves. In 1954, American farmers used about half a million pounds of
antibiotics a year in raising food animals. Today, about half of the 50 million pounds of
antibiotics produced in the U.S. each year is used for animals, 80 percent of which is
poured directly into feed to make animals grow faster. Among the most commonly used
antibiotics are penicillin and tetracycline. The squandering of these important drugs to
increase the profits of factory farms is wreaking havoc for physicians in the treatment of
human illness. Widespread overuse of antibiotics is resulting in the evolution of new
strains of virulent bacteria whose resistance to antibiotics poses a great threat to
human health. Doctors are now reporting that, due to their uncontrolled use on
factory farms, these formerly life-saving drugs are often rendered useless in
combating human disease. Conditions on factory farms and in slaughterhouses are
also responsible for a large proportion of food-borne illnesses reported in the U.S.
each year. Officials at the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
have referred to the current situation with food-related disease as an “epidemic.”
Most food-related diseases are caused by the contamination of food, milk, or water with
animal fecal material. Animals in factory farms are commonly infected with a number of
pathogens capable of causing food-related illness and death that are transmitted to
consumers in the flesh itself or through carcass contamination at the slaughterhouse.
Disease Impacts
CAFOs in the US are breeding hyper-resistant strains of bacteria that are immune to
nearly all medicine. Workers at CAFOs are over 30 times as likely to get infected as other
people.
Robinson, John December 11, 2007 “Gov. Blunt Overlooks CAFOs as Superbug Threat”
http://www.protectparks.org/Superbug.pdf (Robinson is former director of the Missouri Division
of Tourism)
In Missouri's battle against antibiotic resistant superbugs, Governor Matt Blunt appears
to be treating the symptoms, while ignoring one potential source: antibiotic overuse in
concentrated animal factory farms. In a recent news release, the governor directs the
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to increase efforts to send
prevention information to schools and communities. He urges Missourians to consult the
Missouri Department of Health's web site for more information about methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). That web site warns that crowding can be a facilitator for the
disease, but doesn't mention crowded factory farms as a potential source. Is Missouri
effectively monitoring these factory farms? This year, the Missouri Association of Osteopathic
Physicians and Surgeons passed a resolution supporting a moratorium on building any new
confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Missouri until the hazards to the health and
welfare of Missouri citizens can be resolved and citizen safety can be reasonably assured. The
physicians passed the resolution in response to growing medical and scientific evidence
documenting the harmful effects to humans, animals and the environment. Elsewhere,
evidence is mounting that factory animal farms may be a serious battleground in the
fight against superbugs: A new study released November 6, and published in Veterinary
Microbiology found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) prevalent in
Canadian pig farms and pig farmers. The study suggests animal agriculture is a source of
the deadly bacteria. Two new studies in the Netherlands suggest that farm animals may
be infecting people with a new superbug strain called non-typable MRSA, or NT-MRSA. The
strain resists tetracyclines, a group of antibiotics used heavily in livestock. The studies,
reported in The Economist magazine, suggest that such heavy farm usage has led to the
evolution of this strain, which has been passed to humans. “Are livestock farmers and farms
in the United States also sources? We don’t know for sure, because the U.S. government is not
systematically testing U.S. livestock for MRSA,” said Richard Wood, Executive Director of
Food Animal Concerns Trust and Steering Committee Chair of The Keep Antibiotics Working
coalition. The coalition of medical, agriculture, and environmental experts wants the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration to study whether using human antibiotics in animal agriculture
is contributing to the reported surge in MRSA infections and deaths in the United States. The
U.S. government may not be systematically checking, but a recent Johns-Hopkins
University School of Medicine study of poultry operations in Maryland and Virginia
found that poultry workers had 32 times the odds of carrying gentamycin-resistant E.
coli than the general community population. The poultry workers were also at
significantly increased risk of carrying multi-drug resistant E. coli. The study concluded
that worker "exposure to antimicrobial-resistant E. coli from live animal contact in the broiler
chicken community."
Disease Impacts
Just one superbug is already more deadly than AIDS.
Dellavedova, Chris and Sinead Nov. 13 2007 “Science Tuesday: The Superbug’s Superpower”
http://www.chrisdellavedova.com/2007/11/13/science-tuesday-the-superbugs-superpower/
(Chris has a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Missouri and until recently, worked as a
researcher for oxford. Sinead, is also a doctor holding a Ph.D. in Genetics.)
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) now causes more deaths per year
in the U.S. than AIDS. MRSA’s tendency to resist treatment by common antibiotics
has predictably earned it the nickname “Superbug” in the lay press. But beyond the
press hype is the foundation of a true epidemic. Staphylococcus species of bacteria are
fairly benign and are commonly found on the skin of healthy people. It only becomes a
problem when it enters the bloodstream - through an open cut for example - at which point
it can cause an infection. These infections are usually minor and if the body’s immune
system can not take care of it, then a short course of antibiotics will do the trick. Herein
lies the problem with MRSA, it’s resistance to antibiotics means that if the body’s
immune system can not respond then it is very difficult to get rid of the bugs.
Symptoms of infection can range from boils and abcesses to pneumonia.
Drug resistant bacteria cause people to be infected longer and therefore to spread the
infection to more people. Superbugs are becoming immune to all known treatments. Even if
new cures are developed, diseases will become immune to those too. We will soon face a
post-antibiotic era.
WHO, January 02 “Antimicrobial Resistance”

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/index.html
The consequences are severe. Infections caused by resistant microbes fail to respond to
treatment, resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death. Treatment failures
also lead to longer periods of infectivity, which increase the numbers of infected
people moving in the community and thus expose the general population to the risk of
contracting a resistant strain of infection. When infections become resistant to first-line
antimicrobials, treatment has to be switched to second- or third-line drugs, which are
nearly always much more expensive and sometimes more toxic as well, e.g. the drugs
needed to treat multidrug-resistant forms of tuberculosis are over 100 times more
expensive than the first-line drugs used to treat non-resistant forms. In many countries,
the high cost of such replacement drugs is prohibitive, with the result that some
diseases can no longer be treated in areas where resistance to first-line drugs is
widespread. Most alarming of all are diseases where resistance is developing for
virtually all currently available drugs, thus raising the spectre of a post-antibiotic era.
Even if the pharmaceutical industry were to step up efforts to develop new
replacement drugs immediately, current trends suggest that some diseases will have
no effective therapies within the next ten years.
Disease Impacts
Superbugs will cause human extinction.
BBC 23rd November 1999 “Extinction Level Events” http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A207415
An extinction level event is a catastrophic occurrence which has the potential to

terminate entire species of animals and plants: eg, to cause a mass extinction. Such
events are decidedly rare, but geological evidence shows that they have happened on many
occasions since multicellular life became abundant on the planet almost a billion years ago.
This Entry does not attempt to catalogue the great extinction events of the past, but
instead lists out the types of events that, were they to happen, could precipitate
extinctions on a massive scale, including perhaps the discontinuation of the human
race. Probabilities of occurrence are also included, lest we feel compelled to drill big
holes in mountains to minimise exposure to Gamma Ray Bursts. Human extinction, or for
us, the 'End of the World', has been a common theme in literature, religious and scientific
thought since time immemorial. Television documentaries revel in informing us of our
impending doom as a race, and extinction worries tend to follow fashions and fads which
are closely linked to the major preoccupation of society at any one time. Higher
Probability Events (Hundreds of Years) Nuclear War: Humanity is unique among the
Earth's fauna for its ability to have devised, through technological means, the ability to
wipe itself out quickly. The mechanism is nuclear fusion: ironically the exact same process
that powers the Sun - the ultimate source of all life on Earth. In the mid-20th Century this
power was harnessed and weaponised, and after World War II vast stockpiles of weapons
were built up by Russia, the USA and China as a means of maintaining an uneasy peace
between these world powers. In more recent times, many other countries have acquired or
amassed nuclear weapons. Nuclear bombs have been built1 that are 3,000 times more
powerful than the Hiroshima bomb of 1945. While death in the immediate vicinity of a
blast is nearly a certainty2 humanity itself could be threatened if a significant amount of
dust from the explosions and their resultant firestorms were blown into the stratosphere.
Less sunlight would reach the surface of the Earth, resulting in a 'nuclear winter' which
would devastate plant growth on a worldwide basis, collapsing the food chain as a result.
Worldwide Pestilence: One of humanity's greatest threats is from enemies we cannot
see, hear or smell; who can build up vast armies within days; and who can rapidly
take advantage of the weaknesses of their adversaries. These enemy are disease
microbes. In 1346, the Black Death arrived in Europe, quickly taking away nearly a
quarter of the population of the continent. It reappeared on a regular basis for centuries
afterwards, exacting huge death tolls each time. In 1918 a strain of influenza appeared,
killing 50 million people within a year. Diseases such as measles and smallpox had a
devastating effect on the native inhabitants of America after it was discovered by
Europeans. New diseases such as AIDS and Ebola have caused mayhem in recent times.
New strains of influenza and diseases such as variant CJD lurk threateningly in the
background. Even worse, old diseases of the past such as TB, are developing a
resistance to even our most powerful antibiotics. Certain diseases such as anthrax have
been weaponised and could be released in vast quantities should someone have the
inclination and means to do so.
Disease Impacts
Even if no superbug emerges that causes extinction, a poll shows that economic activity in
the US will cease almost overnight if people are threatened by a pandemic.
Adams, Mike April 27 2006 “Bird flu poll reveals U.S. economic collapse likely in the event of
a human pandemic” (Mike Adams is the author of numerous books and special reports on natural
health. He is an independent consumer advocate focused on helping people improve their health
through information about nutrition, diet, supplements, disease prevention and natural therapies.
He's the Executive Director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center)
That's not even the most alarming part of this study; here are more results that are actually
even more shocking. First of all, on the minor side of things, 46 percent of poll respondents
who eat chicken said they would stop eating chicken. Right there, we're going to see major
effects on the poultry industry. A lot of those people might turn to turkey, but turkey farms
might be infected very quickly, too. People might then turn to pork, beef or seafood, which
might be good for those industries, but it would certainly drive up prices for those products,
even while the poultry industry experienced severe losses. Seventy-five percent said that if
human outbreaks occurred, they would reduce or avoid travel. That number right there
would bankrupt every airline in the country. That would set off severe economic
consequences, going far beyond what we saw in the United States following the Sept. 11
attacks in 2001. If you recall, after Sept. 11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
grounded air traffic for a period of several days, which produced enormous economic
consequences for the country. Trade shows were canceled, businesses couldn't conduct
business, people couldn't visit their loved ones, travelers were stranded... it was a giant mess.
Now, imagine that effect multiplied by six months or a year. That's what we could see in
this country if human outbreaks of bird flu occur. Seventy-one percent of poll respondents
said they would skip public events. That's a very smart strategy. It means that people
understand how infectious disease spreads. During an outbreak, it's smart to stay home,
stay away from other people and try to ride out the pandemic in relative isolation. On the
other hand, I don't think these people have really thought it through. Sure, they can avoid an
outdoor concert, a picnic or a movie, but how are they going to buy food? Are they going to
avoid grocery stores? How are they going to get basic supplies? How are they going to
work? How are they going to get paid? What's really going to happen to these people
when they start thinking about other interactions they have with potentially infected
people? You see, these poll results indicate that 71 percent, seven out of 10 people, are
going to try to avoid contact with other human beings. The economic consequences of
this will be far-reaching and enormous.
Disease Impacts
US Econ Key to Global Econ
Freedomyou 07 (“USA's Future Economic Collapse” Freedomyou February 19, 2007 acessed
07/03/07 http://www.freedomyou.com/prophecy/USA_economic_colapse.htm)
America's unquenchable materialistic appetite is the machine that fuels a global
economy. Japan's economy would collapse if it were not for the billions of dollars per
year gained in trading with America. When America goes into a recession, the world
follows. When America's economy is booming, the world's economy strengthens.
America devours, yet, is never satisfied. Running out of money, she tells the waiter to put it
on her tab. He gladly complies making a tidy profit from the interest. He cannot serve her
quick enough. The more she eats, the hungrier she becomes. As time passes, less goes to
paying for food and more is needed to pay for the huge debt she is accumulating. Finally,
all of her resources are used up in paying for the interest she owes. America falls crashing
to the ground in economic ruin, so suddenly, it sends shock waves throughout the
world. She is incapable of paying for her massive imports. Merchant ships sit
offshore, heavy laden with cargo, weeping and wailing in horror for Babylon has
fallen.
The impact is extinction
Bearden 2000 Lt. Col, Tom, PhD Nuclear Engineering, April 25,
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/042500%20-%20modified.htm
Just prior to the terrible collapse of the World economy, with the crumbling well
underway and rising, it is inevitable that some of the wmd weapons of mass destruction
will be used by one or more nations on others. An interesting result then---as all the old
strategic studies used to show---is that everyone will fire everything as fast as possible
against their perceived enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass destruction
weapons are unleashed at all, the only chance a nation has to survive is to desperately try to
destroy its perceived enemies before they destroy it. So there will erupt a spasmodic
unleashing of the long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological warfare
arsenals of the nations as they feel the economic collapse, poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit
earlier. The ensuing holocaust is certain to immediately draw in the major nations
also, and literally a hell on earth will result. In short, we will get the
great Armageddon we have been fearing since the advent of the nuclear genie. Right now,
my personal estimate is that we have about a 99% chance of that scenario or some
modified version of it, resulting.
Disease Impacts - Economy
Economic collapse ends US hegemony

Nye 2002 (Joseph, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Dean of Harvard University's John
F. Kennedy School of Government, “The Paradox of American Power”)
Other things being equal, the United States is well placed to remain the leading power in
world politics well into the twenty-first century or beyond. This prognosis depends upon
assumptions that can be spelled out. For example, it assumes that the long-term
productivity of the American economy will be sustained, that American society will not
decay, that the United States will maintain its military strength but not become
overmilitarized, that Americans will not become so unilateral and arrogant in their strength
that they squander the nation’s considerable fund of soft power, that there will not be some
catastrophic series of events that profoundly transforms American attitudes in an isolationist
direction, and that Americans will define their national interest in a broad and farsighted way
that incorporates global interests. Each of these assumptions can be questioned, but they
currently seem more plausible than their alternatives. If the assumptions hold, America will
continue to be number one, but even so, in this global information age, number one ain’t
gonna be what it used to be. To succeed in such a world, America must not only maintain its
hard power but understand its soft power and how to combine the two in the pursuit of
national and global interests.
Hegemony prevents global nuclear exchange

Khalilzad 95, Defense Analyst at RAND (Zalmay, "Losing the Moment? The United States and
the World After the Cold War" The Washington Quarterly, RETHINKING GRAND STRATEGY;
Vol. 18, No. 2; Pg. 84)
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to
preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On
balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not
as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership
would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and
more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second,
such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major
problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states,
and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another
hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold
or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S.
leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a
multipolar balance of power system.
Disease Internals – Antibiotics
Decreasing use of antibiotics in farming will decrease cases of human infection with
superbugs. Restrictions in European farming prove.
Greeblatt, et al, Aug 24 2007 http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/cqr20070824c.pdf (Published by

Congressional Quarterly, which is a leader in providing coverage of the US Congress. has been
writing about politics and government in Washington and the states for more than a decade.As a
reporter at Congressional Quarterly, he won the National Press Club's Sandy Hume award for
political journalism.)
Europe has restricted use of agricultural antibiotics for the past decade. “We are never
willing to accept that you first have to create a lot of dead people before you intervene,”
said Henrik C. Wegner, director of both the World Health Organization’s Collaborating
Centre for Antimicrobial Research and Foodborne Pathogens and the Danish Institute for
Food and Veterinary Research. “From our perspective, this first and foremost a preventive
action. It is not acceptable to sit and wait for the next MRSA.” Moreoever, he added,
Denmark has had “fewer healthy people in the community who carry VRE in their guts
sicne we stopped using growth promoters” on farms. Many infectious-disease experts
want the United States to follow Europe’s lead in banning much antibiotic use on farms.
“It’s embarrassing that we’re way behind Europe,” says Columbia University’s Larson.
Others complain the impact of agricultural antibiotics on resistance gets an undeserved pass in
the United States. “Agribusiness is off the public radar screen,” says Currie of Montefiore
Medical Center. “We’ve had antibiotics developed where the resistance was high before the
drug was [even] released,” he says, because related drugs were already being used in
agriculture. At the very least, agricultural antibiotic users should release data on what drugs
farms are using and how, says Guidos of the infectious disease society. “the animal-drug
industry says [various] reported volume-of-use numbers are inflated,” he says, “but we say,
‘Prove it.’ We want to see what is really going on.”
Disease Internals – Antibiotics
Lowering antibiotic use in agriculture is empirically proven to lower superbug infections in

animals and humans.
ScienceDaily July 5, 2005 “Agricultural Antibiotic Use Contributes To 'Super-bugs' in Humans”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050705010900.htm
"Evidence suggests that antibiotic use in agriculture has contributed to antibiotic

resistance in the pathogenic bacteria of humans," say David Smith of the Fogarty
International Center, Jonathan Dushoff of Princeton University and the Fogarty International
Center, and J.Glenn Morris Jr. of the University of Maryland. Antibiotics and antibiotic
resistant bacteria are found in the air and soil around farms, in surface and ground
water, in wild animal populations, and on retail meat and poultry. These resistant
bacteria are carried into the kitchen on contaminated meat and poultry where other
foods are cross-contaminated because of common, unsafe handling practices. Following
ingestion, bacteria occasionally survive the formidable but imperfect gastric barrier to
colonize the gut - which in turn may transmit the resistant bacteria to humans. Smith and
colleagues say that the transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria from animal to human
populations is difficult to measure, as it is "the product of a very high exposure rate to
potentially contaminated food, and a very low probability of transmission at a given meal."
Nevertheless, based on the analysis presented in PLoS Medicine, the authors suggest that
"transmission from agriculture can have a greater impact on human populations than hospital
transmission." After first Denmark and then the European Union banned the use of
antibiotics for growth promotion, say the authors, the prevalence of resistant bacteria
declined in farm animals, retail meat and poultry, and within the human general
population. This provides evidence that antibiotic resistant bacteria can move between
animals and humans.
Disease Ext - A2: Gov’t solves Disease
The U.S. government’s plan in the case of a Pandemic is to do absolutely nothing.
Friel, Howard Feb. 27 2007 “Bird Flu, Martial Law, and the 2008 Elections”
www.commondreams.org/views07/0227-32.htm (Author of Dogs of War: The Wall Street
Journal and the Right-Wing Campaign Against International Law)
Last fall, Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell,
said about the Bush administration that “if something comes along that is truly serious,
something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a
major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that
will take you back” to the eighteenth century. (“Transcript: Colonel Wilkerson on US
Foreign Policy,” Financial Times, Oct. 20, 2005) The administration, in fact, seems
determined to sink beneath even this standard of expectation. Apparently eager to duplicate
the do-nothing response to Hurricane Katrina, presidential spokespersons have already
announced that the administration will do nothing in response to a bird-flu pandemic by
way of providing any help to cities, states, and hospitals. Michael Leavitt, Secretary of
Health and Human Services, has been saying this for months. Here is one such statement:
“Any community that fails to prepare [for a pandemic] with the expectation that the federal
government will throw them a lifeline is tragically wrong…. [E]very community will have to
take care of its own.” (“U.S. Health Chief Says Flu Pandemic Would Be Dramatic,”
Associated Press, Jan. 13, 2006) By way of heeding Wilkerson’s warning, it might be
prudent for every state, community, hospital, and citizen to assume that there will be no
help from the federal government in response to what may be the worst disease
pandemic in human history. This would be bad enough, but without immediate
congressional intervention, federal ineptitude isn’t the only thing that may accompany a
pandemic.
Disease Ext - A2: Alt. Causality Superbugs
Antimicrobial drug use in animals responsible for creating drug-resistant bacteria.
WHO, January 02 “Antimicrobial Resistance”

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/index.html
Veterinary prescription of antimicrobials also contributes to the problem of resistance.

In North America and Europe, an estimated 50% in tonnage of all antimicrobial
production is used in food-producing animals and poultry. The largest quantities are used
as regular supplements for prophylaxis or growth promotion, thus exposing a large number of
animals, irrespective of their health status, to frequently subtherapeutic concentrations of
antimicrobials. Such widespread use of antimicrobials for disease control and growth
promotion in animals has been paralleled by an increase in resistance in those bacteria
(such as Salmonella and Campylobacter) that can spread from animals, often through food,
to cause infections in humans.
70% of all antibiotics in the US are given to Factory Farmed animals. The low doses given
over extended periods of time make CAFOs the best breeding ground for Superbugs.
KAW 12/4/03 “Antibiotic Overuse in Animals”

http://www.keepantibioticsworking.com/pages/basics/overuse.cfm (website is endorsed by the
Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Institute for Agricultural and Trade policy, among other
organizations.)
Although no definitive data are available, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that
70% of antibiotics in the U.S. are fed to pigs, poultry and cattle – not to treat illness, but
rather to promote slightly faster growth and to compensate for crowded, stressful, and
unsanitary conditions. Recent studies, including one by the World Health Organization,
show that ending the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock and poultry can
dramatically reduce the levels of resistant bacteria present in those animals. Why Use
Antibiotics In Feed? Antibiotics have been put into animal feed since 1946, when experiments
showed low levels of antibiotics could help food animals grow faster and convert feed into
weight more efficiently. Antibiotics are used in 90% of starter feeds, 75% of grower feeds and
more than half of finishing feeds for pigs in the U.S. Despite their widespread use, no one
knows exactly how antibiotics work to promote growth in animals. Use of feed laced with
antibiotics is both routine and common in America's version of industrial animal
agriculture. Large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which often raise pigs,
poultry or cattle by the tens of thousands under crowded conditions, have replaced
small-scale farms as the chief producers of the nation’s beef, pork and poultry. They
depend on antibiotics in animal feed not only to promote growth but also to compensate
for crowded and often less-than-hygienic conditions, which stress the animals and make
them more prone to infection. Unfortunately, low-level use of antibiotics for extended
periods of time is one of the best ways to speed the development of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria.
Disease Ext - A2: Superbugs don’t cross species
Empirically proven that humans acquire drug-resistant diseases from Farm animals fed
with antimicrobials.
Angulo et al, 2000 “Origins and consequences of antimicrobial-resistant nontyphoidal

Salmonella: implications for the use of fluoroquinolones in food animals” Published by the
Centers for Disease Control http://www.cdc.gov/enterics/publications/22_angulo_mdr_2000.pdf
Several outbreak investigations of antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella infections in

humans have combined epidemiologic fieldwork and laboratory subtyping techniques to
trace antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella through the food distribution system to
farms and antimicrobial use on the farms was found to be associated with the
antimicrobial resistance. 16,22,27,38,39 One investigation, using a unique plasmid
profile, traced hamburgers contaminated with antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella
from supermarkets through meat processing to well beef cattle that had been feed
antimicrobial agents.22 Another investigation of approximately 1,000 persons infected
with antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella serotype Newport used an unusual marker --
chloramphenicol resistance. Chloramphenicol-resistant Salmonella Newport was traced
from ill persons through processing of contaminated hamburger to a dairy farm area.
Asurvey of dairy farms shows a significant association between isolation of
chloramphenicol-resistant Salmonella from manure lagoons and reported farm use of
chloramphenicol.38 A review of outbreaks of Salmonella infections investigated by
CDC between 1971 and 1983 demonstrated that outbreaks caused by antimicrobial-
resistant Salmonella were more likely to have a food animal source than outbreaks
caused by antimicrobial-susceptible Salmonella.
Environment Impacts - Waste Lagoons 1/4
____ CAFOs Require Massive Waste “Lagoons” To House The Millions Of Gallons Of
Excrement Generated By The Animals. History Proves Risk Of Huge Water
Contamination And Respiratory Diseases
PATEL 8 - Raj, PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University, June 22 2008
[“OFM: Is meat off the menu?: Yes says Raj Patel: growing food for animals is a waste of resources in an
overcrowded world: No says Joanna Blythman: with much of the world unsuitable for crops, meat is
essential” The Observer Food Monthly, Pg. 62, Lexis, Accessed 7/31/08]
And you've also got the problem of shit. Much of America's cheaper meat is produced on Concentrated Animal-
Feeding Operations (CAFO), huge lots on which animals are confined, fed and slaughtered within the same
vast facility. These operations produce the equivalent of five tonnes of waste for every US citizen. But the waste
isn't regulated in the same way. As researchers in a 2005 Johns Hopkins University study noted, a typical CAFO
has about 5,000 animals on it. That number of pigs produces as much waste as a city of 20,000 people, but
without any of the plumbing.
At one of the largest lots in the US, at the Harris Cattle Ranch in Coalinga, California, 100,000 cattle are housed
on a ranch roughly twice the size of Hyde Park. The waste from these animals is stored in a lagoon of shit
bigger than Wembley Stadium. Although such lagoons are meant to be insulated from the rest of the
environment, there are reports of effluent leaching into local water supplies. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd
caused 50 lagoons to flood in North Carolina, and one lagoon burst its banks, releasing 2 million
gallons of soupy red liquid.
For CAFO workers, who are some of the poorest in the country, respiratory disease rates are high. And
when the waste makes it to the sea, the results are even worse. The run-off is rich in fertilisers. As a
result of the run off in the Mississippi, CAFOs cause an annual 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico the
size of New Jersey. And yet CAFOs remain largely untouched by government.
____ CAFOs Magnify The Effects Of Natural Disasters – They are Unable To Adequately
Control The Animals’ Waste
LAVENDEL 1, Environmental Journalist, March 2000

[“Pigs and the Factory Farm” Animals, <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FRO/is_2_133?pnum=5&op
g=60129616&tag=artBody;col1>, FindArticles, Accessed 7/31/08]
When Hurricane Floyd hit the United States last September, the storm deluged North Carolina with 20
inches of rain, flooding 44,000 homes and causing the death of at least 49 residents.
But as if this weren't damage enough, the devastation extended to the region's factory hog-farming
operations. Estimates of the number of hogs killed in the storm range from 30,000 to 500,000, and 50 swine
waste lagoons were washed out. The flooded remains of North Carolina's factory-farmed swine
operations--feed, manure, and carcasses--will linger on, contaminating streams, rivers, and even the
shores and waters of Pamlico Sound on the Atlantic Ocean for the next year, say scientists.
In the wake of the hurricane, environmental and animal-welfare groups are calling for stricter controls on
factory farms. But the factory farms were "a disaster long before Hurricane Floyd came along," says
John Stauber, coauthor of Mad Cow U.S.A., a book that examines mad-cow disease in the meat industry. "The
problem is simply that factory farming is a way of raising animals as quickly and cheaply as possible without
any concern for the health and welfare of the animals or food consumers."
The dirty-laundry list of factory farm offenses is lengthy, encompassing environmental contamination as well as
adverse impacts on animal welfare, human health, and rural America's family farms.
A Natural Resources Defense Council report concludes, "As industrial-sized farms stagger under the
vast burden of manure they are generating, environmental disasters are inevitable. " Burden indeed: the
U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry calculated that confined animals produce 130
times the waste generated by humans in this country each year. Runoff and contaminants from factory
farms have found their way into streams, rivers, farm fields--even neighbors' drinking water.
____ PROXIMITY TO WASTE LAGOONS LEADS TO HEALTH PROBLEMS,

GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION, AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
MARKS 1 - Robbin, Policy and Promotion Officer for the National Resources Defense Council, July 2001
[Cesspools of Shame: How Factory Farm Lagoons and Sprayfields Threaten Environmental and Public
Health, Executive Summary, Pg. 1, Lexis, Accessed 7/31/08]
People living near factory farms are placed at risk. Hundreds of gases are emitted by lagoons and the
irrigation pivots associated with sprayfields, including ammonia (a toxic form of nitrogen), hydrogen
sulfide, and methane. The accumulation of gases formed in the process of breaking down animal waste is
toxic, oxygen consuming, and potentially explosive, and farm workers exposure to lagoon gases has
even caused deaths. People living close to hog operations have reported headaches, runny noses, sore
throats, excessive coughing respiratory problems, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, burning eyes,
depression, and fatigue. The pathogenic microbes in animal waste can also infect people. Water contaminated
by animal manure contributes to human diseases such as acute gastroenteritis, fever, kidney failure, and even
death. Nitrates seeping from lagoons and sprayfields have contaminated groundwater used for human drinking
water. Nitrate levels above 10 mg/l in drinking water increase the risk of methemoglominemia, or blue baby
syndrome, which can cause deaths in infants, and contamination from manure has also been linked to
spontaneous abortions. Moreover, the practice of feeding huge quantities of antibiotics to animals in
subthereapeutic doses to promote growth has contributed to the rise of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, making it
more difficult to treat human diseases. Scientists recently found bacteria with antibiotic resistant genes in
groundwater downstream from hog operations.
____ WASTE FROM LAGOONS IS SPRAYED AS FERTILIZER OVER FIELDS,

INCREASING AIR POLLUTION
Another threat associated with lagoons comes from sprayfields. Once manure is stored in open-air lagoons, it
is periodically pumped out to be sprayed on fields surrounding the factory farm, ostensibly to be used as
fertilizer. The spray emits the same gases as lagoons. Spraying the wastes increases evaporation and
volatilization of pollutants into the air. Manure applied to crops is helpful as a fertilizer; however, factory
farms often produce too much manure for the amount of land available to use it. Manure is often over-applied
and misapplied to land, which causes it to run off the fields, polluting our rivers and streams with
pathogens and leaching into groundwater and poisoning our drinking water supplies. This poses a
problem even if the manure is applied in dry form; however, the likelihood of runoff increases when the
manure is in liquid form as it is with the sprayfield system.
____ WASTE LAGOONS EMIT SOME OF THE MOST DAMAGING TOXINS THERE
ARE, WHICH CAUSE SEVERE HEALTH PROBLEMS EVEN IN SMALL DOSES
Among the many feedlot emissions, hydrogen sulfide is one of the most threatening.14 Hydrogen
sulfide is a gas that can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, diarrhea, hoarseness, sore throat, cough, chest
tightness, nasal congestion, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, stress, mood alterations, sudden fatigue,
headaches, nausea, sudden loss of consciousness, comas, seizures, and even death.15 Even when exposure
is at a low level, health impacts can be irreversible.16 A recent study by the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency (MPCA) revealed that manure storage methods appear to affect the amount of hydrogen sulfide emitted
into the air. Earthen lagoons had the greatest hydrogen sulfide emissions, with averages greater than 30 parts per
billion, while stockpiling manure had a rating of 20 parts per billion.17 Another study by the same agency
evaluated hydrogen sulfide emissions from 42 animal feedlots that used lagoons and cement pits in a nine
township area targeted for hog-farm expansions. The study found that concentrations of hydrogen sulfide,
estimated by using a standard EPA approach to model emissions, exceeded the state standard significantly, even
as far away as 4.9 miles.
Air quality monitoring by the Minnesota Department of Health affirmed that toxic gas emanating from
the manure lagoon of ValAdCo in Renville County, one of the state’s largest operations for finishing hogs
for market, posed a potential threat to human health. After two years of testing the swine facility, the
state found hydrogen sulfide levels far exceeding the state standard (50 parts per billion), 53 times in 1998,
and 271 times in 1999 and 2000. The violations in 2000 occurred despite a 1999 settlement between the company
and state pollution officials designed to reduce odor and prevent health problems. The latest violations have
prompted a new agreement between the company and state officials, which includes a penalty of $125,000, new
technology to cover fourteen lagoons, additional air quality monitoring, and more expeditious resolutions of odor
problems. The facility is already required to install covers over some of its lagoons under the 1999 settlement
agreement.19 For most of the violations that have occurred over the last two years, the hydrogen sulfide reading
was 90 parts per billion. In 2000, Kathy Norlien of the Health Department’s Health Risk Assessment stated that
“without delay, actions should be taken to reduce the emissions for the protection and well-being of
human health.”20 The monitoring was done under a 1997 law by the Minnesota legislature that required the
MPCA to monitor hydrogen sulfide emissions from feedlots.
Environment Impacts - Red Tides
____ WASTE LAGOON RUNOFF FLOODS WATERS WITH NUTRIENTS, LEADING

TO ALGAE BLOOMS THAT KILL FISH AND THREATEN THE ECOSYSTEM
ADAMS AND ZHENRU 7 – Jonathan, Wang, Newsweek Writers, September 24 2007
[The Muck Is Coming;Something is out of whack in China's lakes and rivers. Algae blooms are making fresh
water undrinkable, ENVIRONMENT Vol. 150 No. 13, Lexis, Accessed 7/31/08]
Of course, most algae are harmless. In fact, they produce much of the oxygen necessary for animal life on earth,
absorb carbon dioxide, decompose into critical fossil fuels and are the base of marine food chains. Some algae
are naturally toxic to humans and other animals, possibly to ward off predators, scientists speculate.
Pollution has fattened the algal blooms to unprecedented proportions. Whereas red algae of the ocean
feast on nitrogen, the blue-green algae that inhabit fresh water munch on phosphorus--plentiful in
fertilizer runoff from farms, factory waste and untreated sewage. Both types of algae can also feed on nutrients
from the atmosphere--in acid rain, for example. The link between pollution and algae was speculative until
the early 1990s, when the former Soviet Union halted farming subsidies to the Black Sea area. Algae
blooms declined dramatically.
The ground zero of China's toxic-algae problem is Lake Dianchi, in the southwestern Yunnan province. The
situation is so bad that the nearby city of Kunming is now forced to gets its drinking water from upstream
reservoirs instead of the lake. For at least five years running, Dianchi's water has rated 5 or more on a key water-
quality index, meaning it's completely useless. One reason: officials can't divert river water into Lake Dianchi to
help flush out toxic algae blooms, as they can with lakes further downstream in the Yangtze River system. That's
because it's too high--nearly two kilometers above sea level--and fed by small mountain springs, or rivers that are
themselves polluted. Nitrogen and phosphorus pour in from all sides and accumulate, turning the lake into the
equivalent of a 200-square-kilometer clogged toilet bowl. Such pollution isn't the only cause of monster blooms.
In the Baltic Sea, the overfishing of cod has thrown the food chain out of whack in a way that leaves algae--
including the toxic kind—the big winner. Fewer cod has meant more herring and fewer tiny critters called
copepods, which are algae's natural predator. Add plentiful nutrients from decades of fertilizer use and
untreated runoff from countries surrounding the sea, and the result is goop gone wild: the largest-ever
algae blooms were recorded in July 2005 and July 2006, covering almost 150,000 square kilometers.
(This year wasn't as bad due to heavy rains.) The only real solution to China's freshwater algae problem is to
curb the amount of phosphorus-rich pollutants that enter the water. That won't be easy. At Lake Dianchi,
$660 million has been spent on reducing industrial pollutants, building sewage-treatment plants, intercepting
polluted water and banning detergents containing phosphorus. But the situation remains dire. One reason, say
environmentalists, is that the government hasn't been willing to crack down on fertilizer use. By one estimate,
40 percent of pollutants that pour into the lake come from agricultural runoff that continues unabated.
The farms on the lake's eastern shore produce massive crops of roses and other popular flowers for markets in
Asia and beyond. Farmers douse fields with fertilizer to increase yield. One elderly couple wrapping
bundles of flowers at a lakeside farm told NEWSWEEK That lake water was pumped up the banks to irrigate the
flower fields, and then drained-- untreated--back into the lake. Bright green algae floated in the drainage ditches
dug between fields lined with plastic hutches. Such farms provide livelihoods and critical growth for the local
economy--even as they dump noxious chemicals into the nearby lake. "We've been using too much fertilizer
in agriculture," says Liu Hongliang, a retired environmental-engineering expert.
Environment Impacts - Biodiversity
____ BIODIVERSITY IS KEY TO THE FUNCTIONING OF THE ECOSYSTEM

THE ECONOMIST 6 – Economist Staff, November 4 2006
[“Every little fish; Marine biodiversity,” The Economist, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Lexis, Accessed
7/31/08]
There are plenty of data to prove the importance of diversity on dry land. Until recently, however, there was little
evidence that the same was the case in the oceans, which make up 90% of the biosphere, and on which a billion
people rely for their livelihoods.
In order to establish whether diversity matters in the sea as well as on land, 11 marine biologists, along with three
economists, have spent the past three years crunching all the numbers they could lay their hands on. These ranged
from the current United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's database to information hundreds of years
old, gleaned from kitchen records and archaeology. The results of their comprehensive analysis have been
published in Science.
Marine biodiversity, they report, matters because it is variety per se that delivers services—such as
maintaining water quality and processing nutrients—to humans as well as the goods people reap from
the sea. It also ensures these goods and services recover relatively rapidly after an accident or natural
disturbance. The new work is silent on exactly how biodiversity protects these things—merely showing that it
does. Earlier work though has shown some possible mechanisms. One example from a study in Jamaica
showed that continuously removing algae-grazers from a reef allowed the algae to overwhelm the
coral.
The latest study, led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, gathered the available material
into four separate groups. The researchers found the same result from different pools of data, in different
types of marine ecosystems and at different scales.
In the first the marine ecologists re-examined 32 small-scale experiments in which researchers had altered the
variety of sea life and recorded what happened. Overall, each of the six ecosystem processes examined—which
included the maintenance of stability and improved water quality—worked better when there were more
species than when there were fewer.
This is not as obvious as it may seem. Until now, some scientists have thought that many individuals of the same
species with certain talents could perform specific tasks better than the same number of individuals from different
species. For example, one type of seagrass may process nutrients more effectively than other types, so a bed
devoted entirely to the talented seagrass might be expected to conduct this processing better than a mixed area.
The research suggests this is not so.
Second, Dr Worm considered estuaries. Marine extinctions are uncovered slowly on a global scale, but
local disappearances are much more rapidly apparent. They collected long-term historical records from 12
coastal areas in Europe and North America, including information on the Roman elimination of the Dalmatian
pelican from the Wadden Sea and the removal of the Atlantic sturgeon from the Chesapeake Bay and the
Delaware Bay.
Analysing these data revealed that estuaries and coastlines are less able to maintain, for example, water
quality, as the number of species found within them declines. Going back over several centuries, when
biodiversity falls, people desert the beaches, coastlines become more liable to flooding and blooms of
algae are more likely to gain a footing. That theory was tested on a third group of data—records kept by the
United Nations
Environment Impacts - Biodiversity
____ We Have A Duty To Prevent The Loss Of Marine Biodiversity – It Is Crucial To The
Survival Of All Species
WORLD PROUST ASSEMBLY 5 [“Biodiversity,” Last Updated March 30, 2005 01:30 PM, pg.
<http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2005/03/biodiversity.html> Accessed 7/31/08]
Biodiversity, or biological diversity, refers to the sum total of all organisms in an area, taking into
account the diversity of species, their genes, their populations, and their communities.
Biodiversity is crucial to human survival, because when we lose particular species, it affects the entire
ecosystem. Certain species of plants may contain cures for cancer, diabetes and other diseases,
and biologists may not yet have discovered those plant properties. Aside from this, World Proust
Assembly believes in the inherent existential value of all life forms. Hence it is our duty to protect
biological diversity in all parts of the earth, and to support other like-minded organizations who are
engaged in this important task.
Environment Impact - Algae
CAFOs’ waste flows coupled with nutrient overloads and Pfiesteria algae that contaminates
runoff
VDH in 8 (Virginia Department of Health, “CAFO Project” 1/04 online too:

http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/epidemiology/DEE/Waterborne/cafo.htm)
Over the last two decades, the consolidation of farms into larger and larger operations known as
concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has displaced small farms and has raised
public health concerns about groundwater and surface water pollution, air pollution and risk
of microbial pathogens found in animal waste. Other public health concerns include nutrient
overload of waterways leading to algal blooms, and the possible increase in organisms such
as piscicida and Pfiesteria shumwayae, the increase in antibiotic-resistant organisms due to
the broad application of antibiotics to farm animals, and questions about the quality of life of
community residents adjacent to CAFOs. Perhaps the most pressing questions center on the
contamination of groundwater and surface waters with runoff from land application of manure or
from waste storage and treatment. Threats to water quality come from both chemical and
microbial contamination. Excess level of nitrates and phosphorus are among a number of chemicals that are
seen in groundwater and surface waters in many agricultural areas in the United States. It has been hypothesized that
excess nutrients may be an important contributing factor for the growth and increase in dinoflagellates such as
Pfiesteria. Infectious organisms in ground and surface water also pose a potential risk to health. Many of the
infectious organisms that cause illness in animals can cause disease in people and can survive in water. Among the
most common pathogens that pose a health risk include Salmonella species, E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter,
Listeria monocytogenes, as well as viruses and protozoa such as Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia.
Pfesteria Piscidia kills massive amounts of fish and causes harmful algal blooms,
specifically in the Mid-Atlantic region
Mid Atlantic Sea Grant in 7 (Website run by the University of Maryland, “A Threat to Coastal
Waters” 1/17, online: http://www.pfiesteria.seagrant.org/)
Pfiesteria piscicida, a tiny marine organism identified in the last decade in estuaries in North
Carolina and Delaware and in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, has been blamed for
killing fish and causing health problems in humans. It has been the subject of national press coverage
and the cause of considerable confusion and speculation. While questions about its effects and impacts remain,
thanks to the diligent work of a number of marine scientists we now know much more about this complicated
organism. Many thousands of species of marine algae form the base of the world's marine food web. Pfiesteria is
one of only 80 to 90 of these species – a very small percentage – that produce toxins that can
affect human health. Under certain conditions, a dense growth of algae causes "blooms"
which color the water red or brown and sometimes produce harmful toxins. Called
Harmful Algal Blooms, they can cause serious disease and other chronic impacts on finfish,
shellfish and aquatic mammal health. An unusually problematic algal species – actually an
estuarine dinoflagellate – Pfiesteria has brought new attention to harmful algal blooms in the
Mid-Atlantic region. It differs from most known toxin-producing algae in that it does not produce a pigment and thus
gives no visual evidence of its activity. Among the indicators of potential toxin activity by Pfiesteria species are fish with deep
sores and fish kills, though laboratory tests are currently required to confirm their presence.
Environment Solvency - Red Tides
____ Now Is Key To Act- The Black Sea Proves Decreasing Farm Runoff Into Waterways
Also Decreases The Number Of Harmful Algal Blooms
HAWN 4 - Amanda, Evolutionary Biologist and Writer, 2004

[“Nutrient Trading and Dead Zones - Can they wake each other up?” The Katoomba Group’s Ecosystem
Marketplace<http://ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/article.news.php?component_id=607&component_ver
sion_id=629&language_id=12> Accessed 8/1/08]
The fact that the number of serious dead zones created by hypoxia has grown by some 800% during the past four
decades is an even more sobering statistic for concerned scientists. In the last century, "over-fishing was the
leading environmental issue affecting our seas," Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences
told Science News, "In the new millennium, it's going to be oxygen."
The good news is that - if caught in time - ecosystems seem capable of bouncing back from hypoxia. The
dead zone in the Black Sea, for instance, has largely disappeared in the last decade and marine biologists
report that hypoxia events in the region now are rare.
Scientists attribute this fortunate turn of events to the not-so-fortunate economic collapse of Eastern
European countries in the 1990s. As industrial and agricultural enterprises folded in places like Russia,
Bulgaria and the Ukraine after the fall of communism, nitrate run-off into the Danube and the Black Sea dropped
off sharply. While the environmental result was a good one, the economic forces that drove it are hardly of the type
that policy makers will willingly unleash elsewhere. And so - with dead zones on the rise around the world - experts
have been searching for another way to achieve the same environmental results without the crippling
economic costs.
AT: Cutting Subsidies Hurts Farm Economies
It's empirically proven that removing subsidies leads to increased prosperity amongst
farmers
Cato Institute. “CATO Handbook for Congress: POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE 108TH
CONGRESS” 1/16/03. < www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-30.pdf>
The experience of New Zealand in the 1980s shows that complete subsidy removal makes sense
economically and politically. In 1984 New Zealand’s Labour government took the dramatic step
of ending all farm subsidies. That was a remarkably bold policy action since New Zealand’s
economy is roughly five times more dependent on farming than is the U.S. economy. Subsidy
elimination in New Zealand was swift and sure. There was no extended phase-out of farm
payments, as was promised under U.S. reforms in 1996. Although the plan was initially met with
massive protests, the subsidies were ended and New Zealand farming has never been healthier.
The value of farm output in New Zealand has soared since subsidies were repealed, and farm
productivity has grown strongly. Forced to adjust to new economic realities, New Zealand
farmers cut costs, diversified their land use, sought nonfarm income, and altered production as
market signals advised. As a report by the Federated Farmers of New Zealand noted, the
country’s experience ‘‘thoroughly debunked the myth that the farming sector cannot prosper
without government subsidies.’’ Reformers in Congress should continue working to eventually
debunk that myth in this country.
No impact to protein/meat demand args- we’re in a surplus
Weida, prof of econ at Colorado College, in 4

(Dr. William J, Professor of Economics at Colorado College, Lecturer at The Global
Resource Action Center for the Environment, “The Rationales for Factory Farming”
presented at “Environmental Health Impacts of CAFOs: Anticipating Hazards - Searching
for Solutions”, March 29, 2004, Iowa City, IA, 3/5)
Industrial production of meat protein has regularly exceeded world demand. Protein
demand can be more efficiently met by non-meat products such as soy. Many areas of the
world (such as Mexico and Argentina) are better able to compete in the production of meat
protein than the US and Canada. The US is currently producing about the same number of
hogs as it did in 1920—with far fewer farmers. The price of pork has been flat and Canadian
pork producers have not made a profit since 1998. Global import substitution is increasing as
previous importers produce their own meat protein. US and Canadian meat markets are hostage
to health-related bans on their products by trading partners. The pressure for US and Canadian
producers to cut costs by polluting is increasing as they compete with other countries who have
few, if any, environmental regulations.
AT: Cutting Subsidies Hurts Farm Economies
Unsubsidized crops do not have wild price fluctuations; the only thing keeping subsidies in
place now is political pandering
Riedl, Brian M. Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation. “How Farm Subsidies Harm
Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too”
June 20, 2007. <http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/bg2043.cfm>
Two-thirds of all farm production—including fruit, vegetables, beef, and poultry—thrives

despite being ineligible for farm subsidies. If any of the five justifications were valid, these
farmers would be impoverished, near bankruptcy, or replaced by imports, and both the supplies
and prices of fruit, vegetables, beef, and poultry would fluctuate wildly. Clearly, this has not
happened. In this controlled experiment comparing subsidized and unsubsidized crops, the
doomsday scenarios described above have not occurred for unsubsidized crops.
The most logical explanation for the persistence of farm subsidies is simple politics. Eliminating
a government program is nearly impossible because recipients form interest groups that
relentlessly defend their handouts. The public paying the costs is too busy going about their lives
to challenge each wasteful program. Furthermore, supporters of farm subsidies often repeat the
five justifications, especially the myth that these policies aid struggling family farmers. The
difference between perception and reality in farm policy is large.
Subsidies Don’t Affect Food Price
Subsidies have little effect on higher corn prices, oil is the largest offender
Abbott, Hurt and Tyner. Phillip C, Christopher, and Wallace E. Economists, Purdue University. “What's Driving Food
Prices?"
July 2008. <http://www.farmfoundation.org/news/articlefiles/404-FINAL%20WDFP%20REPORT%207-28-08.pdf>
Most of the corn price increase is due to the higher oil price—not the subsidy. With no subsidy
or mandate, corn moves from $1.71 at $40 oil to $5.26 at $120 oil. With the subsidy, corn moves
from $2.26 at $40 oil to $6.33 at $120 oil. Put in round numbers, when crude went from $40 to
$120, corn went from $2 to $6, a tripling of both prices. About $1 of the corn price increase was
due to the subsidy, and $3 to the higher crude price. As oil has increased, corn-based ethanol is
demanded to substitute for gasoline. At high oil prices, this would happen with or without the
subsidy. However, the subsidy does increase the price of corn $1.07 over what it would be with
no subsidy in place. A dollar a bushel is important whether corn is $3 or $6. Whether the
subsidy should be maintained, removed or changed to a variable subsidy is a question for debate.
But removing the subsidy would not return us to corn prices seen over the past decade unless
crude oil prices fell as well.
Food Prices are stable with or without subsidies, removing them does nothing
Riedl, Brian M. Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation. “How Farm Subsidies Harm
Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too”
June 20, 2007. <http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/bg2043.cfm>
Some contend that food markets would fluctuate wildly without farm subsidies. In reality,
food prices of both subsidized and unsubsidized crops are relatively stable. Given that the
percentage of family budgets spent on food has dropped from 25 percent to 10 percent
since 1933, any potential price instability would have an increasingly small impact on
family budgets. Even if price stabilization was necessary, price support programs have
largely been replaced by commodity subsidies that stimulate overproduction rather than
stabilize prices.
Nor do farm subsidies contribute to lower food costs. Two-thirds of food production is
unsubsidized and thus relatively unaffected by subsidies. Of the remaining one-third,
price reductions caused by crop subsidies are balanced by conservation programs that
raise prices. Furthermore, food prices are based not only on crop prices, but also on food
processing, transportation, and marketing costs. Bruce Babcock, professor of economics
at Iowa State University, has calculated that eliminating farm subsidies would have
virtually no effect on food prices.
Subsidies Don’t Affect Food Price
____Cutting subsidies will not raise prices
Wise 05[Timothy Wise, GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE,

WORKING PAPER NO. 05-07, “Identifying the Real Winners from
U.S. Agricultural Policies,” accessed August 1, 2008, http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae]
There is little conclusive evidence that the removal of U.S. subsidy payments would
significantly reduce production or raise prices, though there is significant disagreement on this
point. While the prevailing view is that eliminating U.S. farm subsidies would reduce
overproduction and raise prices (see, for example, Sumner 2005), comprehensive economic
modeling suggests that this would be true only to a very limited extent for most crops, cotton
and rice being the most notable exceptions (Ray, de la Torre Ugarte et al. 2003; Wise 2004). Still,
even though there is little agreement about whether farm subsidies are the cause or effect of low farm
prices, there is wide agreement that U.S. farm policy – be it farm subsidies or the absence of effective
supply management policies – contributes significantly to lowering prices for agricultural
commodities.
Even with total removal of subsidies, only a marginal increase in food prices would occur
Oxfam America. “FAIRNESS IN THE FIELDS: A vision for the 2007 Farm Bill”
12/20/06 <www.oxfamamerica.org/resources/files/OA-Fairness_in_the_Fields.pdf>
Myth: Subsidies keep food prices low.

Fact: Eliminating subsidies would lead to higher prices for some commodities, but the impact on
US consumers would be so small that most people would never notice.
This is because the raw products account for only a small portion of food prices, usually much
less than processing and marketing services added after the product leaves the farm. According
to the USDA, the share of food prices from the basic farm products ranges from a very high 49
percent for minimally processed foods like beef and poultry, which are not subsidized, to as little
as 3 percent for corn syrup. Since program crops are generally trans- formed into processed
goods, the farm value share of their final price is on the low end. According to a study done for
the National Corn Growers Association, for instance, if all subsidies for corn and soybeans were
eliminated, the price would rise at most by between 5 and 7 percent. This kind of increase in the
price of corn in turn would lead to, at most, a 1 percent increase in the price of meat. Put it
differently, consider the case of bread. Most consumers never buy wheat, they buy bread. Of the
$1.27 for a loaf of bread, only seven cents is the cost of the wheat in the bread—the rest covers
processing, milling, baking, packaging, transport, and marketing. If prices for wheat rose by 5
percent, that would mean bread prices would rise less than a penny a loaf. The impact of
reducing commodity payments on the consumer’s food bill is negligible.
Subsidies-Price relations are commodity specific
Subsidies have very little effect on corn, wheat and soybeans prices, but cotton and rice
would be hit hard
Babcock, Bruce A. Iowa State University.“Money for Nothing: Acreage and Price Impacts of U.S. Commodity Policy for Corn, Soybeans,
Wheat, Cotton,and Rice”
5/15/07.
<http://www.aei.org/research/farmbill/publications/pageID.1476,projectID.28/default.asp>
The analysis finds that the three major “program crops”—corn, wheat, and soybeans—received
an average of $7.3 billion a year from 2002 to 2005 from the three major subsidy programs:
direct payments, countercyclical payments, and loan deficiency payments. Despite this large
amount, there was virtually no effect on prices of the amount of crops produced, according to
econometric modeling estimates. Prices and acres planted would barely have changed if these
three subsidy programs had been totally abolished in 1999: less than a 1 percent price hike, and
less than 1 percent drop in acres planted, on average. Overall, farm programs have acted largely
as a wealth transferring mechanism to owners of land with eligible (base) acres for corn, wheat,
and soybeans.
Subsidies were a much larger percentage of the net income of cotton farmers and rice farmers
from 2002 to 2005. Not surprisingly, abolishing these programs would have had greater effect on
prices and production. The price effects would be particularly large for cotton. Had subsidy
programs for cotton been abolished in 1999, world cotton prices would be 10 percent higher and
U.S. cotton acres planted would be 10.8 percent lower than was actually the case. Given political
realities, a status quo farm program seems the most likely outcome for this year’s farm program.
Nonetheless, a more ambitious objective would be for Congress to pass a new set of commodity
programs that would integrate traditional commodity programs, disaster assistance, and crop
insurance into a more cost effective, non-duplicative, and transparent safety net for farmers.
Reduce subsidies = Lower World Prices
Without subsidies the US biofuels industry wouldn't exist, and corn prices wouldn't have
risen as high
Prices?"
Biofuels programs in the United States and European Union, which provide subsidies and
mandates for biofuels leading to greater use of corn and vegetable oil for biofuels, thereby
increasing the prices of these commodities. We agree that biofuels have significantly increased
the demand for corn and vegetable oils. We focus mainly on corn and the U.S. biofuels program.
The U.S. ethanol industry would not have come into existence in the 1980s without subsidies.
The same is true for the U.S. biodiesel industry, which occurred later. The EU biodiesel industry
was made possible by mandates and subsidies. Most of the global increase in demand for corn in
the past four years has come from the growth in United States’ use of corn for ethanol. Many of
the other studies blame U.S. subsidy and mandate policies for this increase. The reality is that
most of the increase in corn demand has been driven by the higher oil price and the fall in the
U.S.$. In round numbers, corn has gone from about $2 to $6 as oil has gone from $40 to $120.
About $3 of the corn price increase is due to the higher oil price and $1 to the ethanol subsidy.
The U.S. mandates have not yet been binding, so have not yet had any significant impact on corn
price. At lower oil prices the RFS would become binding and have an impact on corn price. The
bottom line: biofuels have had a major impact on corn prices, but in recent years, most of those
increases have been driven by oil. The subsidy increases corn price by about $1 per bushel,
which is significant. Eliminating the ethanol import tariff would serve to reduce pressure on
corn price.
Biofuel subsidies are a major cause of increased crop prices worldwide; ending these
policies would cause a decline in crop prices worldwide
Prices?"
The triggers and underlying factors for increasing grain prices include biofuels policies, bad
weather, high oil prices, speculative trading and storage behavior, rapid growth in demand by the
developing world, strong economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa, rapid income growth in
developing Asia, and underinvestment in agricultural research and technology. Biofuels policies,
in particular, have increased production of biofuels from corn, which have caused an increase in
the price of corn. High corn prices have caused consumers to shift their demand to rice and
wheat, while also making it more profitable to grow corn at the expense of rice and wheat. IFPRI
concludes that biofuels production accounts for 30 percent of the increase in average grain prices
and that both a freeze and a moratorium on biofuels production would result in a decline in corn,
wheat, oilseeds, sugar and cassava prices. IFPRI acknowledges that biofuels production is just
one contributor to rising food prices but labels it a major one. Recommended short-run policies
are focused on eliminating biofuels subsides and mandates, while recommend long-run policies
seek to increase agricultural productivity growth through research investment. In a sense, these
conclusions represent one of the failings of “black box” models in that the cross elasticities are
much higher than real world reality. No one else is concluding that biofuels policies cause
increases in commodity prices across the board.
The subsidies for ethanol drive the price of corn up as oil demand increases and actually
hurts the industry
Prices?"
Recently, the oil price part of the equation has changed dramatically. Oil moved to $60 (April
2006), then on to $120 (May 2008), and now higher. The combination of the high oil prices, the
fixed ethanol subsidy, and low corn prices has brought about a boom in investment in ethanol
production, and, consequently, a boom in ethanol demand for corn. There were strong incentives
to build ethanol plants to reap the gains induced by the high oil prices and other factors, leading
to a rush to construct new plants in 2006. The increased demand for corn for ethanol led to
higher corn prices. Essentially, the mechanism is higher crude leads to higher gasoline, which
leads to higher ethanol, which leads to more ethanol production, which increases corn demand,
which increases corn price. The effect of the subsidy today is to enhance the effect of the higher
oil price. This effect is in sharp contrast with the impact in the 1980s and 1990s—to permit the
industry to exist and grow slowly.
Without biofuel subsidies, prices in corn, soybeans and livestock would not have risen so
dramatically
Prices?"
We have been subsidizing biofuels in the United States for 30 years. Why has it only become a
major issue in recent years? The reason is that previously oil prices were low enough that the
industry could grow only very slowly even with the subsidies. But with oil prices five times
higher today than they were just a few years ago, the combination of high prices and subsidies
has led to a boom in growth of the sector. Because of this boom the cost increases faced by
domestic corn users for the 2007 corn crop will be $14.7 billion and $8.5 billion for soybeans.
These higher prices increase revenue for corn and soybean farmers but decrease revenue for
everyone else up the food chain. Treasury costs for the subsidies also increase substantially. The
model results show that corn prices would have increased anyway given the increase in oil
prices, but that they increase faster and higher with the subsidies and mandates in place. For
2007/08 the model results indicate that ethanol would have been $1.69 instead of $2.20 without
the subsidy, the difference being the value of the $0.51 cent subsidy. The results also show
declines in meat, egg, and milk production. The last section provides assessments on a number of
related issues. The author concludes, “The alarm bells on the unintended effects of U.S. biofuels
support policy are ringing loud and clear.”
Corn for Ethanol usage is a major boon to higher food prices in more than just the corn
market
Simpson, Jeffrey. Award winning columnist, The Globe and Mail. "Corn-based ethanol: The negatives outweigh the
positives" July 30, 2008.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080730.COSIMP30/TPStory/National/columnists>
As a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, corn-based ethanol is a poor option; as a farm subsidy
program, it's also a poor bet. Making matters worse, corn-based ethanol takes corn-for-food out of
production, and moves land from other kinds of production into corn, thereby adding to what are already
rising food prices.
Governments, here and in the U.S., thought they were doing great things for the environment and helping
farmers, too. Ethanol policy was, to quote the Harper government, a "win-win." Actually, it was a lose-
lose policy for all but corn producers, who, naturally enough, have rallied furiously to protect their good
fortune.
Many researchers have exposed the follies of subsidizing corn-based ethanol production, the latest being Douglas Auld, in an
extremely well-documented paper for the C.D. Howe Institute.
Mr. Auld has surveyed the research literature about the putatively beneficial effects of corn-based ethanol on replacing gasoline.
The theory is that such ethanol produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline from a vehicle engine.
Indeed, it does, but that simple statement ignores what energy is required to produce a litre of ethanol. When the so-called
"lifecycle" of ethanol production is counted, Mr. Auld concludes (as have many others) that ethanol doesn't lower GHG outputs.
Remember, too, that ethanol delivers less energy per litre than gasoline, so more litres of production are required to move a
vehicle a certain distance.
Mr. Auld, therefore, correctly concludes, "It is clear from the evidence to date that there is no consensus regarding the efficacy of
corn-based ethanol either to reduce GHGs or reduce overall energy demands."
But we aren't dealing with "evidence," rather with political optics from governments wanting to look "green" and from a desire to
help farmers.
And so, the Harper government replaced the previous special tax exemption for ethanol to a producer credit that will cost the
country about $1.5-billion. To this sum were added loans, biofuel research grants plus mandatory ethanol content requirements.
In other words, the government pushed up the supply of corn-based ethanol through subsidies, then pushed up the demand
through regulation.
Provinces got in on the act, offering producer credits and mandatory ethanol content requirements. Putting the provincial and
federal policies together produced whopping advantages for ethanol of about $400-million a year.
For such money, Canadians might expect at least some decline in greenhouse gas emissions. They will be disappointed. There
will be few reductions, and Mr. Auld estimates that these might cost $368 a tonne - way, way higher than other per-tonne costs
for eliminating carbon dioxide, the main climate-warming gas.
By contrast, one part of the Harper government's proposed climate-change policy would see big companies that do not meet their
intensity-based reduction targets paying $15 a tonne into a technology fund. World prices for carbon offsetting these days are
about $30 a tonne.
However, even if this form of ethanol is a climate-change bust, at least it's great for farmers. Not so fast. It's a boon
to the corn producers, but to supply all the additional demand for ethanol, up to half the current
farmland for corn will be used. As more land is diverted to corn for ethanol, there will be less
corn for human and animal consumption.
So whereas corn producers will gain, livestock producers will suffer. As their costs rise, so will
the price of their products to consumers.
It's wrong to blame the rush to ethanol for rising food prices here and abroad. Let's just say the
rush contributes to the problem. Mr. Auld estimates that if you take the direct subsidies for
ethanol production of $400-million a year, and add the costs of higher food to consumers, the
wealth transfer to corn-based farmers could soon be about $800-million.
It's the classic case of subsidies distorting markets: One group gains and mobilizes all of its
resources to protect its gains, insisting these gains reflect the public good; whereas in reality
almost everyone else loses but doesn't complain.
High Food Prices Good
Increasing food prices decrease the extreme poverty in developing countries by aiding rural
family farms
Raj M. Desai, Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institute. “Will Rising Food Prices Reduce Poverty? (They Can, but They Won’t)”
July 30, 2008. < http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0619_food_prices_desai.aspx>
Most generalizations about the effect of food prices on poverty fall apart when examined at the
household level in developing countries, where several patterns are evident. First, urban
households tend to have higher average incomes than rural households. Second, net buyers of
food tend to be richer than net sellers of food. Third, net consumers of food in rural areas derive
large shares of their income from farm work. A recent World Bank study shows that in Ethiopia,
one of the most food-stressed countries on the planet, more than 50% of rural households
(compared to about 4% of urban households) are net producers of food. In Vietnam, where more
than 70% of the population is rural (and where 90% of rural residents own their own land) 57%
of rural households vs. 9% of urban households are net food sellers. Of the poorest 40% of rural
households in Vietnam, 56% are net producers.
These gaps imply that—all things being equal—a rise in food prices will transfer wealth from
urban households to rural households and from higher-income food consumers to lower-income
food producers. In other words, higher food prices may reduce the extreme poverty often found
in rural areas, where about three-quarters of the world’s poorest live today. Depending on the
concentration of rural and urban populations, higher food prices may also reduce income
inequality in some countries
Lowering US subsidies would increase crop prices all over the world
Oxfam America. “FAIRNESS IN THE FIELDS: A vision for the 2007 Farm Bill”
12/20/06 <www.oxfamamerica.org/resources/files/OA-Fairness_in_the_Fields.pdf>
Nearly 3 billion people around the world rely on farming to make a living. Farming is a critical
livelihood—especially for the world’s poorest people. US farm subsidies affect millions of
people in developing countries by distorting global markets. As US farm production is
subsidized, farmers produce more than they otherwise would. The bigger the surplus, the more
commodities are exported to the global markets. This surplus lowers world prices and displaces
farm products from developing countries. US cotton subsidies lower the world price of cotton by
about 10 percent. Millions of poor farmers in Africa grow cotton, struggling to survive on less
than $1 a day. A decline in the world price of cotton increases poverty among these struggling
African cotton farmers. Lower commodity subsidies in the US would mean better prices for
African farmers. In the long run, African cotton farmers would have a better chance of making a
decent living.
Paternalism Bad (DA to Ban CPs)
All government attempts to alter the free choices of citizens is paternalism.
Watkins III, Don 2007, Oct 4 “Anti-Smoking Paternalism: A Cancer on American Liberty”
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5036 (Don Watkins is the publisher of Axiomatic
Magazine, an online magazine for Objectivists.)
This state is well on its way: from trans-fat bans to bicycle helmet laws to prohibitions
on gambling, the government is increasingly abridging our freedom on the grounds
that we are not competent to make rational decisions in these areas--just as it has long
done by paternalistically dictating how we plan for retirement (Social Security) or
what medicines we may take (the FDA).Indeed, one of the main arguments used to
bolster the anti-smoking agenda is the claim that smokers impose "social costs" on non-
smokers, such as smoking-related medical expenses--an argument that perversely uses an
injustice created by paternalism to support its expansion. The only reason non-smokers
today are forced to foot the medical bills of smokers is that our government has virtually
taken over the field of medicine, in order to relieve us inept Americans of the freedom to
manage our own health care, and bear the costs of our own choices. But contrary to
paternalism, we are not congenitally irrational misfits. We are thinking beings for
whom it is both possible and necessary to rationally judge which courses of action will
serve our interests. The consequences of ignoring this fact range from denying us
legitimate pleasures to literally killing us: from the healthy 26-year-old unable to
enjoy a trans-fatty food, to the 75-year-old man unable to take an unapproved,
experimental drug without which he will certainly die.
A2: Capitalism
____ CAFOs are aberrations of capitalism-they’re set up to suck up subsidies
Weida, prof of econ at Colorado College, in 4

Most factory farm production is controlled by a small number of

vertically integrated or vertically coordinated companies. In the US these
companies routinely violate the Stockyards and Packers Act and they buy from
and sell to themselves.22 They set prices at whatever level drives competitors
out of the market and then recoup their costs in the final sale of the product to
the consumer. Competition is limited or, through contracts with retailers,
totally eliminated.23 Factory farms are organized to capture subsidies and their
success is often less related to capitalistic ideals than it is to government
payments.24 As a result, prices to consumers do not reflect the true cost of
production because many costs are shifted to taxpayers and to the local
community. Result: Most conventional producers are driven out of the market and
consumers are faced with limited sources of supply most of which uses methods
of production that rely heavily on antibiotics, unnatural feed supplements, and
unsafe processing. Vertically integrated firms make large profits from
consumer sales while prices for agricultural products remain at historically low levels.
A2: OBJ
Subsidies Distort the free market- they allow inflated prices with tax dollars and crush
market and consumer freedom
Weida in 4
The case for subsidies is that the alternative to subsidies is higher food prices or farmers going
out of business and the amount of US agricultural subsidy per acre is far less than that in either
the EU or Japan. However, subsidies don’t lower food prices if the money for subsidies comes
from substituting higher taxes for higher food prices. When the federal government gives subsidies to
food producers each taxpayer gives up the right to choose who gets his/her food dollars. As a result, the
people who get our food money are often not those we would choose if we could spend our money the
way we would like. In today's market, where all phases of food production and marketing are controlled
by a few large corporations, most farm subsidies are simply "pass throughs"--they go immediately to the
seed company, the fertilizer company, the fuel distributer, etc. Each of these businesses can charge more
to farmers because subsidy payments make up the difference. If agricultural subsidies stopped, the
number of customers for these supplies would decline unless the suppliers dropped their prices. Thus,
while subsidies mainly enrich those whom the consumers might not choose to patronize, they also
endanger small family farmers. The threat to these struggling operations is used to ensure that subsidies
continue to flow, even though data show most subsidies go to big producers. The fact our farmers get
fewer subsidies per acre that those of the EU or Japan only shows US farmers are more efficient or they
simply have more acres to farm. The object of economic policy is not to be the least stupid--it is to try to
develop intelligent solutions to economic problems. And the only intelligent way to run a market is to
allow consumers complete freedom of choice in their purchases. Subsidies remove that freedom.
A2: Reform/Conditions C/P

Enforcement of reforms efforts fails
Weida, Econ Prof @ Colorado College, in 4

Insufficient enforcement personnel, limited enforcement budgets, and a generally

insufficient will to enforce agricultural regulations combine to create an environment
where little or no enforcement occurs. As a result, industrial agriculture is generally left to
police its own activities.
Result: Polluting activities by factory farms go unchallenged and, when they are monitored, are
stopped only after major spills or incidents occur. Enforcement personnel who are too zealous
are reassigned. Rural residents and neighbors of factory farms grow discouraged and stop
reporting problems and incidents.
____ Regulation Destroys Competitiveness – Canada Proves
BERTIN 92 – Oliver, Agriculture and Food Reporter for the Globe and Mail (Canada), April 21 1992
[“Fruit, vegetable industry hamstrung, study concludes Government regulations hinder competitiveness”, The
Globe and Mail, Lexis, Accessed 8/3/08]
Canada's fruit and vegetable industry is hampered by a host of government regulations that make it
difficult for the industry to compete, a recent study by the George Morris Centre at the University of Guelph
has found.
"Horror stories about how technical regulations grind competitiveness to a halt are abounding in the agri-
food industry," said the study's author, Erna van Duren of the university's Department of Agricultural
Economics and Business.
"Anecdotal information . . . leaves one with the initial impression that Canada's inspection regime is conducting a
systematic harassment of Canada's food industry and simply welcoming imports from the U.S."
Dr. van Duren then listed a host of examples where Canadian firms waste considerable time and money
to comply with regulations that she described as rigid, arbitrary and inconsistent.
Worse, the regulations are often not applied to imported goods, she said, thereby putting the local farmers and
food processors at a disadvantage in relation to imported produce.
The report, titled "The impact of technical regulations in Canada's agri-food industry: Results of a pilot study
with horticultural processors," was prepared for presentation to the House of Commons finance committee. The
committee is reviewing federal regulations in an attempt to improve the competitiveness of the agri-food industry.
A2: GNA C/P

No Solvency for Community Engagement-CAFOs Cheat contracts
Weida in 4
Resource Action Center for the Environment, “The Rationales for Factory Farming” presented at
“Environmental Health Impacts of CAFOs: Anticipating Hazards - Searching for Solutions”,
March 29, 2004, Iowa City, IA, 3/5)
These factors create an agreement (contract) between a CAFO and the residents of the
region based on non-enforceable promises of jobs and economic development, but for which
most of the information needed to validly assess the impact of the CAFO on the physical, social
and economic environment is withheld from the public and is available only to the
owners/operators of the CAFO. The result is that the permitting agency has inadvertently
created what economists call a moral hazard where one party is better informed than the other
about the characteristics of the transaction. By definition, a moral hazard leads to lower
efficiency and to higher costs to the party that is least informed (in this case, a higher cost to the
region that hosts the CAFO). This moral hazard is not uniformly spread across the region. Instead, it is
concentrated on those rural agricultural landowners who are closest to the CAFO—and who have less
political power in the permitting process. This moral hazard will manifest itself in loss of the right of
exclusive use and it will create an incentive for these property owners to maximize the short term gains
from their property by moving out and selling to other CAFO owners. Rural agricultural property owners
are likely to find willing buyers because, having
created a moral hazard, the region is now faced with a second economic condition called adverse
selection. This provides an incentive for additional producers who also want to shift costs to the
residents of the region to migrate to the area (Milgrom and Roberts, 1992).
Since the CAFO can only be trusted to act in its own self interest, the only way out of this
situation is for the region to have knowledgeable regulators monitor the CAFO. Unfortunately,
CAFOs use laws based on loose, conventional agricultural standards to avoid pollution controls
that would more fully assign the costs of waste to the CAFOs. In addition, the factors that make
it difficult to get information on proposed CAFO operations during the permitting process also
complicate attempts to monitor CAFOs. This leads to a condition called low separability “...the
feasibility to see who has done the work. With low separability, the principal [in this case, the
region] will face either high control costs or intense cheating" (Sauvee, 1998, p. 55, 56)
A2: Good Neighbors C/P

Community/CAFO relations fail- the relationship is always asymetrical
Weida in 4
This occurs because the information held by the two parties to the agreement to host a
CAFO—the CAFO and the residents of the region—is asymmetrical. This invariably leads to
the creation of a moral hazard and the incentive to shift costs from the CAFO to the region.
A proposed CAFO will hide most important information about its planned activities from
the rural residents of the region it is entering. Among the residents of the rural region, the rural
residential community usually has more say than those living in rural agricultural areas—both in
terms of numbers (votes) and in terms of the influence of business interests. When a CAFO
enters a rural region, it strikes a bargain with the rural residents. This implicit contract is usually
formed around stated, but not legally enforceable, promises of jobs and economic impact on the
region. The CAFO promises these things in return for land, water, access, power and the other
factors that are required for the CAFO to operate. This contract also implies a certain physical
relationship with the region that manifests itself in the presence (or lack) of pollution, traffic,
resource consumption, etc., that arise from the operation of the CAFO.
AT: States Solve
____CAFO control and regulation already differs across states
Koski 07 [Chris, Political Science Professor at James Madison University, 'Examining state
environmental regulatory policy design', Journal of Environmental Planning and Management,
50:4, 483 -502, Acessed July 29,2008]
The American states are increasingly involved in environmental regulation. There is a federal-
state dimension to studying environmental policy in the states (Lowry, 1992) in which the federal
government has many edicts to which states have been resistant. However, states are allowed to
implement federal policy should they so choose, indeed, most do, even if they do not always
agree with federal goals. Some states will take control of federal policy in an effort to mitigate its
effects through loose interpretation and lax enforcement; others use the federal policy as a
baseline onto which to add further legislative requirements. This variation in state motivations and
attitude toward federal policy fosters variation in policy designs in many areas of environmental
regulation. The research presented in this paper analyzes state regulation of animal feeding operations
(AFOs) with attention to state environmental policy designs. Of particular interest are the manners in
which states regulate concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) as extensions of the Clean Water
Act. This paper uses CAFO regulatory policy as the setting in which to address the characterization of
policy design for substantive and methodological reasons. Substantively, concentrated animal feeding
operations are acute environmental polluters regulated by states that contribute to a national
problem. Methodologically, concentrated animal feeding operations present a good research case because
of variations in CAFO policy design and implementation across states. Some states mirror the
federal program by adopting these standards, while other states go far beyond. Some states let the
federal government administer CAFO regulations, while others have petitioned the federal government
for the authority to implement federal policy. In the Status Quo states must all adhere to the same federal
regulations concerning CAFOs Using a single regulatory context across states offers two additional
advantages. First, the area of state discretion is well defined. Concentrated animal feeding operation
regulations all have the same regulatory ‘backbone’ as dictated by the code of federal
regulations. In contrast, studies across multiple regulatory contexts must consider the impact of different
ranges of state regulatory freedom within the context of federalism. Second, the specific tools,
requirements, and regulatory actions in a single regulatory context are geared toward the same entity; thus
they share common units. Because most provisions address the same units, regulatory differences lie in
the quantities and emphasis a state places on each tool. This allows a more refined impression of the
emphasis states have on a particular regulatory tool set or design type.
AT: States Solve
____States have radically different CAFO regulations based upon need
Koski 07 [Chris, Political Science Professor at James Madison University, 'Examining state
environmental regulatory policy design', Journal of Environmental Planning and Management,
50:4, 483 -502, Acessed July 29,2008]
The results presented in the cluster analysis figures and Table 3 yield three broad and interesting results.
First, states differ with respect to regulatory policy choices for CAFO facilities. Immediately
clear upon first glance of the bivariate cluster plots is a distinction between strong regulatory states
and weak states. Further inspection also yields distinctions within strong states and weak states,
but most important to take away from the analysis is the basic point that some states aggressively
address CAFO regulation while others do not exceed federal requirements. Second, states employ a
mix of regulatory strategies that cross clusters. Some strong states emphasize strictness and breadth, but
they differ along the dimension of prescription. Some moderate states place their regulatory efforts in
spelling out the limitations and directions of each policy, but do not offer much in the way of specific
practices. Third, speaking directly to the central point of the argument, regulatory policy design can be
classified along the three dimensions presented here. This multidimensional classification scheme is a
better method with which to examine policy design than by looking at stringency alone.
CAFOs Unpopular/Plan Popular
Even though it is constantly reintroduced to Congress, CAFO bills either fail or get struck
before voting
BUCHANON, JOLINDA. St. Joe Valley Green Party. "New Attempt to Exempt CAFO Toxics"
August 16, 2007. <http://www.sjvgreens.org/current/cafo_Alert.shtml>
The bill to exempt CAFO waste (technically the toxic substances in CAFO waste, ammonia, phosphorus
and hydrogen sulfide) from the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) is back again.
After failing over the last two years to attach it to appropriations bills and, more recently, the energy bill,
the livestock and poultry industries and their Congressional allies are aiming to tack it on to the Farm Bill.
Although the Ag Committee, which does the Farm Bill, does not have authority to address this legislation, its
members are among the most ag-friendly in Congress, so this is their best shot, and they are going for it.
Please help defeat this awful legislation!
Here's what this legislation would do:
1. CAFOs would no longer be financially responsible for cleaning up the damage their waste cause to rivers, lakes
and drinking water supples. If CAFOs cause pollution, it's up to cities, states, drinking water suppliers and taxpayers
to clean it up.
2. CAFOs would no longer have to report their toxic air emissions, which can be significant.
The House passed the Farm Bill in July. The House Ag Committee, ever faithful to its corporate funders,
tried to include the exemption, but Rep. Dingell (MI) forced them to take it out because it falls under the
jurisdiction of his committee.
Taxpayers disagree with the cost of CAFO subsidies

Shapley 08 [Dan, “Why Do You Pay Factory Farms $115 Every Year for Grain?”, The Daily
Green, 4/25/08, http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/factory-farm-
subsidies-47042504]
Industrial scale farming costs a lot. You can measure the costs in the health of animals and
humans both, the health of the rivers and streams that run by the farms, by the air quality near
farms ... and, you can measure it in the misspending of taxpayer dollars. That's according to a
new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which argues that the current state of
agriculture in America is a product of neither farming innovation nor market forces, but – quite
simply – bad federal policy. Here's an example. Lawmakers took $35 billion from taxpayers
(about three months' worth of Iraq war spending, or $115 for every man, woman and child in the
United States) and gave it to farmers to pay for feed. But it only allowed those with confined
animal feeding operations, not those who put cattle out to pasture, to benefit from our generosity.
Would you pay $115 a year for that? Once taxpayers have subsidized the gathering together of thousands of animals
in small spaces, which causes massive pollution from stockpiled manure, we help pay farmers to clean up the
pollution – to the tune of more than $100 million annually. A relative bargain next to the grain subsidy, it costs each
of us (even the newborn) about 33 cents per year. That type of manure pollution, incidentally, has been implicated in
the bacteria contamination of spinach that sickened 200 and killed three in 2006. "If CAFOs were forced to pay for
the ripple effects of harm they have caused, they wouldn't be dominating the U.S. meat industry like they are today,"
said Margaret Mellon, director of UCS's Food and Environment Program. "The good news is that we can institute
new policies that support animal production methods that benefit society rather than harm it." Expect this report
to be part of a rising tide of criticism of factory farms.
The plan is popular with the religious right

Curslow 08 [Pat, “Morality should guide life choices,” Chicago Daily Herald, 7/9/2008]
In November 2002 the evangelical Environmental Network asked the question "What Would
Jesus Drive?" It caused a lot of debate and was severely criticized. "No one should questions what I
drive," opponents said. "The church has no right to judge vehicles as sinful." However, it is a moral
choice. It affects air quality and the quality of all communities. They might have also asked the
question "What would Jesus eat?" We know that tens of millions die annually from starvation-
related causes and close to a billion suffer from malnutrition. Thirty-seven percent of the world's
harvested grain is fed to animals raised for slaughter. In the United States the figure is 66 percent!
Forty percent of the world's agricultural lands are seriously degraded. "Factory farms" in the United
States run by corporations kill tens of billions of animals yearly. Counting sea animals you can add
another 15 billion per year! They live a horrific life and die a terrifying and most painful death. Many
are still alive when torn apart, thrown into boiling water or scaled. You may not have realized this:
meat-eaters and fur-, leather- and wool-wearers are paying others to kill and torture animals. Our
wonderful creator loves animals and Bible verses confirm this. God is concerned about how
they should be cared for and specifically forbids cruelty. Most certainly he would not condone
the "Factory Farms" we have in modern societies. The harm done to the earth, to the health of
all people and the extreme cruelty in the way animals are raised and slaughtered happens
because "majority opinion" can be indifferent to what occurs and even good and faithful
followers of Jesus "can be stone-blind to the cruelties in their midst." St Francis of Assisi
included animals in his ministry. He preached love, peace and compassion for all. "If you have people
who will exclude any of Gods creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity you will have people
who will do likewise with other people." If Jesus was alive today he certainly would be speaking out
against animal abuse, and yes, he would most likely be a vegetarian!
Consumers favor alternatives to CAFOs

Lewis 08 [Bea, “A Natural Farmer, The Citizen of Laconia, July 6, 2008,
http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080706/GJNEWS02/71096864/-
1/CITNEWS]
While some families don't like to connect the cute pig in the pasture to the center cut pork chop
on their plate, Mayo said, others find comfort in knowing their meat doesn't contain artificial
growth hormones and wasn't raised under inhumane conditions. Factory farms hold large
numbers of animals, typically cows, pigs, turkeys or chickens, often indoors, typically at high
densities. The aim of the operation is to produce as much meat, eggs or milk as possible, at the lowest
possible cost. Food is supplied in place and a wide variety of artificial methods are employed
to maintain animal health and improve production, such as the use of antimicrobial agents,
vitamin supplements and growth hormones.
Farm families and environmental groups oppose the government’s policy toward CAFOs
Kennedy-Schaeffer 03 [Robert and Eric, “An Ill Wind From Factory Farms”, New York Times,
September 20,2003,
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE3DC103AF933A1575AC0A9659C8B63]
These farms emit an enormous amount of pollutants that taint air, land and water. Their noxious gases,
studies suggest, contribute to respiratory problems, gastrointestinal diseases, eye infections, depression and other
ailments. Department of Agriculture research has shown that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are carried daily across
property lines from corporate hog farms into homes and small farms. The thousands of animals crowded together on
each giant feedlot produce waste that pollutes waterways and contaminates drinking water. For decades, the
agribusiness lobby in Washington has invoked the small family farmer in its campaign to expand
subsidies and fend off regulation, but it's mainly big producers that benefit. In 1998, the top four producers
marketed 57 percent of all hogs in the country, and large corporations have cornered the market for chickens, cattle
and dairy products as well. Much of this production is handled through contract farms whose corporate owners
dictate how animals will be raised, housed and fed while disclaiming any environmental responsibility -- and living
far away from the consequences. These operations pollute the air with the gases released from huge barns and waste
lagoons and by processes that ''air out'' manure before it is applied to fields. Under the Clinton administration, the
E.P.A. began ordering farms to measure emissions and apply for Clean Air Act permits just as factories do. Early
results showed that Buckeye Egg Farm, an egg-laying operation in Ohio, released hundreds of tons of particulate
matter every year. But the Bush administration ordered such enforcement investigations stopped two years ago. The
Department of Agriculture studies on bacteria were suppressed at industry's request, prompting the resignation of the
study's author, James Zahn. Earlier proposals to make corporate owners responsible for wastewater discharges at
contract farms were shelved. Now the E.P.A. is considering a request from the pig and poultry
conglomerates to be shielded from Clean Air Act enforcement for a few more years while industry begins to
measure its own emissions. The amnesty agreement would not require a corporate farm to clean up air pollution
even if the agency found that pollution was at dangerously high levels. And no agreement should be signed that
does not require companies to clean up their operations when their emissions are too high. A coalition of
environmental groups and farm families have petitioned the E.P.A. to end its moratorium on enforcement,
and exercise its authority to order air monitoring at some of the most notorious factory farms. We hope
the E.P.A. will remember its mission to protect public health and act on this simple request. Governor
Leavitt should know something about this problem. Nine workers were hospitalized in 1998 after they were
overcome by fumes working at a giant hog operation in Utah, and a more recent state study found high levels of
respiratory illness among nearby residents. But Utah has made it much harder for people to sue such operations and€
for officials to regulate them. Perhaps Congress should ask Governor Leavitt how long the victims of pollution from
factory farming will have to wait before they can breathe clean air again.
Food prices and health concerns make plan popular

Kane in 8 (Mary, "End of Cheap food?", 4/23, accessed online on 8/3/8 @
http://washingtonindependent.com/view/soaring-food-prices)
Food has been cheap in America for nearly 60 years, and Americans set aside less of their incomes
for food than any other country in the world, devoting just 11 percent of disposable income to it,
compared to double that percentage in Europe. Keeping food costs low has been one of the great
economic achievements of the last century. The low food costs, combined with rising incomes,
"have been two of the primary sources of prosperity for American consumers," said John Urbanchuck,
an agriculture industry analyst for LECG, a global consulting firm. Until now, Americans had the
luxury of worrying about food due to its abundance. Concerns have centered on childhood obesity
and an epidemic of diabetes. But new problems with food are already surfacing, as rising
prices begin showing up at the grocery store. More expensive corn means people pay more for
eggs and poultry, and still higher meat and milk prices are on the horizon. Record high oil
prices are adding to price pressures, since transporting food costs more. If prices stay high for a
long time, the poor will be hit the hardest, since they spend the largest percentage of their incomes on
food. Efforts to reduce hunger, like food stamps and free and reduced lunch programs, will become
more costly, said Otto Doering, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University in Indiana.
Asking taxpayers to pay more for them won't exactly be politically popular, since food prices
could also take a greater bite out of middle-class budgets. And paying more for food will mean
having less to spend on things like big-screen television sets and iPods, putting a dent in the kind of
consumer spending that has kept the economy growing for the past two decades.

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CAFO AFF Page 1 of 75

Subsidies-Price relations are commodity specific........................................................................... ...........57

Aff – Ethical Framework

Jason Gaverick Matheny - Ph Student @ School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins

Aff – Ethical Framework

Humans owe infinite obligations to factory farm animals

Rod Preece - Professor of Political Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University - Lorna

Rod Preece - Professor of Political Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University - Lorna

Animals Deserve Rights

Jason Gaverick Matheny - Ph Student @ School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins

Animals Deserve Rights

Humans and animals possess FOUR distinct fundamental rights

Rod Preece - Professor of Political Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University - Lorna

Animals deserve an equal opportunity to a life that is free of suffering

Rod Preece - Professor of Political Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University - Lorna

Ethics - A2 Animal Killing Inevitable

Lori Gruen - professor @ Wesleyan University - 2003

Factory Farms = Inhumane

Jason Gaverick Matheny - Ph Student @ School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins

Constitutional Rights Foundation - 2000

Factory Farms = Inhumane

Animals aren’t machines; they deserve the right to live

Harold D. Guither – 1998

Factory Farms = Inhumane

Factory farms practices are legally “inhumane”

Solvency - Now is Key

Peter Singer – Philosopher and Professor at Princeton University – 2006

Solvency - Small Farms Transition

____ SMALL FARMS WOULD KEEP PRODUCTIONS LEVELS CONSTANT– OVERALL

Solvency – Reducing subsidies = better farming practices

HFA 2007 “Factory Farming” http://www.hfa.org/factory/index.html (Humane Farming

____ CUTTING CAFO SUBSIDIES WOULD BRING DRAMATIC CHANGES TO

ANDREW MARTIN, January 13, 2008 (New York Times,

Richard Oswald, Farmer, 09/12/2007, Daily Yonder (http://www.dailyyonder.com/letter-

Cafos Would Be Shut Down Without Subsidies

Without Subsidies, Small To Medium Farms Take Over

Doug Gurian-Sherman, Doug Gurian-Sherman is a senior scientist in the Union of Concerned

Better Options Exist

percent between 1996 and 2000 to 15 percent in 2001.

Millions for Millionaires

June 2006,GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE (WORKING

Solvency - Economic Incentives

Profit-making is the root cause of factory farm existence

Jim Mason - author, lecturer, journalist, environmentalist, and attorney who

Solvency - Economic Incentives

To factory farmers, economic incentives outweighs moral treatments for animals

Human Health Impacts

Rod Preece - Professor of Political Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University - Lorna

HFA 2007 “Factory Farming” http://www.hfa.org/factory/index.html (Humane Farming

Farm conditions result in severe physiological as well as behavioral afflictions in animals.

Just one superbug is already more deadly than AIDS.

WHO, January 02 “Antimicrobial Resistance”

Superbugs will cause human extinction.

BBC 23rd November 1999 “Extinction Level Events” http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A207415

An extinction level event is a catastrophic occurrence which has the potential to

US Econ Key to Global Econ

The impact is extinction

Disease Impacts - Economy

Economic collapse ends US hegemony

Hegemony prevents global nuclear exchange

Disease Internals – Antibiotics

Greeblatt, et al, Aug 24 2007 http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/cqr20070824c.pdf (Published by

Disease Internals – Antibiotics