Foul state of affairs found in feedlots

[nosmokes]

original-LAtimes

Foul state of affairs found in feedlots

Factory farms are harmful to the public and the environment, researchers report.
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer
November 17, 2006

Growing so large that they are now called factory farms, livestock feedlots are poorly regulated, pose health and ecological dangers and are responsible for deteriorating quality of life in America's and Europe's farm regions, according to a series of scientific studies published this week.

Feedlots are contaminating water supplies with pathogens and chemicals, and polluting the air with foul-smelling compounds that can cause respiratory problems, but the health of their neighbors goes largely unmonitored, the reports concluded.

The international teams of environmental scientists also warned that the livestock operations were contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant germs, and that the proximity of poultry to hogs could hasten the spread of avian flu to humans.

Feedlots are operations in which hundreds — often thousands — of cattle, hogs or poultry are confined, often in very close quarters. About 15,500 medium to large livestock feedlots operate in the United States in what is an approximately $80-billion-a-year industry.

Although the reports focused largely on Iowa and North Carolina hog and poultry operations, California has more than 2,000 facilities with at least 300 livestock animals each, half of them with more than 1,000, according to a 2002 estimate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Dairies, most of them in the San Joaquin Valley, dominate the industry in California.
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complete article here

[leftchick]

1. K&R

more outrages! :grr:

[hedgehog]

2. Gee, having tons of shit sitting around is bad for your health!

Who knew?

[acmejack]

8. Inconceivable...

Was it the first franken book that had the story about how you could smell the hog "lagoons" from 20,000 feet up? And they ask me why I don't eat meat!

[petgoat]

19. Actually, clean healthy hogshit, steershit, or chickenshit is

good fertilizer. But I heard an interview on the radio with Michael Pollan
about his new book "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/04/11_pollan.shtml

The guy is brilliant. And he said that feedlot manure can not be used
for fertilizer. It must be treated as toxic waste because it's so
full of hormones.

Have you noticed that doctors don't want to give your kids antibiotics?
They say excess use breeds supergerms.

Pollan says that if Congress outlawed giving antibiotics to cattle,
the feedlot industry would collapse overnight because it depends on
antibiotics.

So where's that at?

[mom cat]

23. Yet another reason to go vegitarian, vegan or to purchace any meat

from organic local growers. I say local growers, because much of what is now sold as "organic" comes from pastures clear cut in the Amazon.

[twilight_sailing]

3. Amarillo, TX

Several years ago I was with my Dad. For some reason we were visiting a feed lot in Amarillo.

A lady called the feed lot while we were there. She was complaining about the smell and she suggested sprinkling some baking soda around the place.

True story.

[catmandu57]

4. You can smell feedlots from miles away

Driving across Kansas and Colorado we could smell a feedlot long before we ever seen it. We drove through a fog of hog piss, I kid you not, talk about stink.

[twilight_sailing]

5. Omaha, NB and Lincoln, NB

stink.

[acmavm]

13. Yep. Just outside both cities. Pig farms.

A lovely welcome to Nebraska's capital and largest city on a hot summer day.

[hedgehog]

7. I can remember driving through farm country in southern Ohio

in the early spring when farmers spread manure across their fields. It's nowhere as bad as a feed lot and the smell fades quickly as nature takes its course. Spreading the manure on the ground that produced the feed grain seems to make a good balance. Even so, you could tell the pig farms from the dairy farms very quickly!

[KansDem]

10. Try driving Highway 54 that runs from Tucumcari NM to Wichita KS

..through the Texas panhandle. KYYYYYRIST! There's a feedlot there that'll turn your stomach!

Man, Oh man! I swear off beef everytime I drive that route!

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

[Benhurst]

6. If you can't trust Agribusiness, who can you trust?

Recommended #2

[LittleOne]

9. Read Fast Food Nation

and you will be even more disgusted.

[jpak]

11. Anaerobic methane digesters would solve much of the problem

especially odor/ammonia removal and sludge disposal.

The methane could be used directly for heat or to produce electricity (and heat).

They would eliminate fugitive methane (GHG) emissions and generate an additional revenue stream for the farm operators.

The digested sludge and nutrient laden separated water could be used locally for fertilizer.

http://www.epa.gov/agstar/

It should be mandated...

[nosmokes]

15. that doesn't do anything for the animal's health or welfare, so you would

still have meat that is full of antibiotics and hormones from sick swine or cattle. and still have the antibiotics and hormones in the waste. and that ultimately ends up in the water. that's why we have male fish producing eggs and other oddities already.

[formercia]

21. Just proves that deregulation doesn't work

I know a guy who is a dairy farmer and was water commissioner for two counties, so he understands the problems with runoff and pollution. He grows his own corn to make silage and uses the manure to fertilize his corn fields. It's a very efficient operation and his cows have one of the best milk production records in the state. When you go to his farm, you can tolerate the smell because there is no runoff, and that's because the manure is money he doesn't have to spend on fertilizer.
It can be done but people want to make a quick buck and don't want to spend any effort to mitigate the problem.

[CrispyQ]

12. Our heinous treatment

of our fellow inhabitants of this planet diminishes us every good thing about us.

[MazeRat7]

25. So true... Human "superiority" is measured by how we treat the lesser life forms

[Quantess]

14. People are addicted to cheap meat.

Sad state of affairs.

[dubykc]

16. I agree that the deplorable conditions of the feedlots...

wherever they may be, is a problem that should be addressed.

However the little reference to a majority in California being dairies is crap, dairy farmers cannot afford to keep their animals in the conditions of feedlots. They would go broke, so, comparing dairies to feedlots is definately like comparing apples and orages.

[nosmokes]

17. i'm afraid it's not *crap* dubykc

keeping dairy herds in feedlot type conditions is cheaper than allowing them free range pasturage and much les labor intensive. that's why the vast majority of dairy is not organic and there is such a price disparity between organic and conventional (although i don't know WTF is conventional about stuffing milk cows full of growth hormones and anti-biotics and locking them inside a barn or under a shed all day.) and why real organic dairies(yay organic valley co-op!) are fighting against the fake organic dairies like horizon and aurora. yeah they might, just might technically meet the USDA standard some days, but not on others. and surely standing shoulder to ass in a pen, even if it is open to the elements is not the intent of free pasturage.

[OneBlueSky]

18. like it or not, this country is going to have to give up its meat habit . . .

because of how inefficient, wasteful, and environmentally destructive meat production has become . . .

I'm not a vegetarian -- yet -- but I do see the writing on the wall . . .

[flvegan]

20. Yeah, but dead animals taste good, and the cheaper the better.

Screw the environment and our health. Screw the animals and their suffering. Screw the small farmer who can't compete. Screw those folks that work in the "meat" industry. "Most dangerous job" my ass. Screw the water supplies of both small towns and big cities. Screw our children. Teach them that antibiotics and growth hormone are good for you. To hell with all this "science" about how much water is used to create a pound of beef. Bollocks on the studies showing the inefficiency of converting a plant calorie into an animal calorie to be consumed by humans. But mostly, once again, damn those animals anyway. This is our planet and our dominion. If they want to stay, they're going to suffer for my tastebuds.

Like I said, they bloody well taste good, and like the keys to my Hummer, you can have my hamburgers, ribs and chicken breast when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Damn right it's :sarcasm: to me.

[Coventina]

22. Thank God/dess I'm not a party to that holocaust

anymore.

I don't miss eating cows and pigs one bit.

I feel better, and the world feels better.

[shanti]

24. everyone who's driven down I-5 in California

knows about the biggest feedlot in the state in coalinga. phew!