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Press Release

For generations, Texans have raised cattle, poultry and hogs on the state's abundant land. But in recent decades, market forces and new technological advances have changed livestock production. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), since the 1970s the number of animals produced in the US has increased while the number of animal feeding operations has decreased, indicating significant consolidation within the industry.(1) Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) now raise hogs and chickens, densely stocked, in confinement from birth to slaughter.

More like factories than farms, these meat producers confine thousands of animals in long rows, supplying them with feed and collecting the manure in open lagoons or piles. Today's animal production facilities dwarf their predecessors in size and output. In the Texas cattle industry, small operations (less than 50 animals on site) still make up approximately 65% of all farms, but they only account for approximately 12% of total production. In contrast, the state's largest operations (those that house 500+ animals) comprise less than 5% of all farms, yet they now dominate the industry by controlling almost half of the state's total cattle production. (2)

These large facilities are geographically concentrated as well-almost 80% of the largest Texas feedlots are located in the Panhandle. Almost one third of the cattle produced in confinement in the U.S. are fed within a 150 mile radius of Amarillo. (3) Likewise, almost 75% of all hogs produced in Texas are also raised in the Panhandle, (4) concentrating enormous quantities of animal waste in one geographical area.

The new technologies and mass production promote an unsustainable farming system with too much waste for disposal, too many animals in a small space, and too much dust, gas, and bacteria for a healthy neighborhood and working environment. Industrial animal producers use antibiotics to promote growth and prevent disease even though studies find that such antibiotic use results in the spread of drug resistant bacteria. Factory animal production creates large quantities of industrial waste which may threaten the quality of local waters and the air as well as affect public health. The risks posed by CAFOs include environmental contamination with nitrogen, phosphorous, pathogenic bacteria, hormones, antibiotics, and ammonia; noxious odor; habitat loss; and groundwater depletion. (5)

A sustainable animal production system, by contrast, integrates human, animal and environmental requirements in a holistic way, substituting human labor and resources for capital and commercial inputs, weighing the costs of pollution against the economic benefits (i.e. profit) of the facility, and strengthening rural communities. Given the commitment and the will, livestock producers have the resources and knowledge to begin a transition to sustainability today. But until sustainable meat production can effectively compete with industrial producers, Texans also need strong environmental protections for air and water in the parts of the state where animal production is concentrated.

The Industrial Process

Feedlots are relatively simple operations. Animals eat food delivered directly to them and then defecate where they stand. They may be in enclosed barns or yards, and the manure may be piled up (dry system) or fall into a water-flushed channel which flows into a lagoon (wet system).

Producers bring beef cattle to feedlots when they weigh approximately 500 pounds. Operators use low dose antibiotics on a regular basis as a feed additive to enhance growth. Meanwhile, crowded and unsanitary conditions lead to a high incidence of death and disease, so operators again use antibiotics in higher doses to combat diseases in the herd. This strategy fails to adequately address animal health concerns, since cattle operations in Texas still lose over half a million cattle and calves to death each year.(6)

In these facilities, cows stand in pens on piles of their own manure and eat, putting on 3 or more pounds a day, for five or six months. Each animal that is fattened produces almost one ton of dry manure solids in an average 150-day feedlot cycle.(7) Every few days a workman enters the pen and piles manure into the middle to discourage cattle from churning it up with their hooves. Eventually the feedlot operator brings in a bulldozer to scoop the pile out of the pen and onto an even bigger stockpile-often near a lagoon-where stormwater runoff from the pile collects. Contractors haul the manure to farmers, while wastewater runoff either evaporates or is piped over crops for irrigation.(8)

Pigs, by contrast, are raised in closed barns, often from birth. They stand on slotted floors which allow their waste to drop below into a shallow tank which is flushed out with water. Below the floor, waste mixed with water flows either to a "separator" (separating liquid waste from solid waste) or directly to a lagoon. This is called a liquid waste system. As with cattle, close confinement in unsanitary pens leads to frequent illness and death, and workers must drag the dead pigs from the pens regularly. Texas hog producers report as many as 60,000 animal deaths per year or about 5% of pigs marketed from their facilities. (9)

Some dairy facilities operate both dry waste and liquid waste systems. Dairy cattle may be raised in open lots where manure is scraped and piled about twice a week and then hauled to farmland for disposal. Run-off from the manure piles is channeled to a lagoon system. Dairies may also keep cattle in small stalls lined with bedding. On one end manure is deposited into a waste gutter which is flushed with water and sent to a lagoon. Dairy systems usually have a second waste gutter in the milking parlors, where manure is also flushed through with water to a lagoon or first to a reception pit for solids separation. (10)

Large broiler farms may house close to 200,000 birds at a time, with as many as 32,000 chickens located in each windowless building. (11) Hanging heaters control the temperature and electric fans blow the accumulating ammonia and sulfide gases outdoors. The chickens eat from self-filling feeders and waterers. Most facilities use an 'all in, all out' stocking procedure, where thousands of chicks are reared together on a "litter" of accumulating manure and bedding material, such as rice hulls, straw, or sawdust, from one day old until slaughter at six weeks. (12) (In the case of egg production, laying hens are kept virtually immobile in individual cages until they no longer lay enough eggs to remain profitable.) During this time the birds are fed low-dose antibiotics in their feed to enhance growth and control disease.

At the end of each 6-week production cycle, workers remove the dirty litter, wash and disinfect the house and equipment, and bring in a new batch of chicks. Broilers generate about 5.8 tons of manure and litter per year per 1,000 birds, (13) while each laying hen will excrete up to 18 pounds of manure per year. (14) The litter contains high levels of bacteria and pathogens, including E. coli and Salmonella, as well as metals like arsenic, copper and zinc. After it is removed from the house, the dirty litter and manure are usually spread as fertilizer on agricultural land. (15) In fact up to 10 tons of litter per acre may be spread on Texas farm land in any given year. (16) According to a survey of its operations conducted by Pilgrim's Pride, growers raised about 99,000,000 birds in the Cypress Creek basin alone in 1997, generating 132,720 tons of litter. Growers applied 114,511 tons of this waste over 42,363 acres as fertilizer and sold the remaining litter as a cattle feed supplement. (17)

NOTES:

1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations (March 9, 1999), Sec. 2(1), p. 6.

2 Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, "Texas Cattle Operations by Size 1999." Internet source: http://www.io.com/~tass/size.gif (printed March 27, 2000).

3 Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, "Texas Cattle and Calves on Feed in 1,000+ Capacity Feedlots," (March 17, 2000). Internet source: http://www.io.com/~tass/tcatcofd.htm. Auvermann, Brent, T. and Arturo Romanillos, Effect of Stocking Density Manipulation on Fugitive PM10 Emisions from Cattle Feedyards, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, unpublished paper for conference presentation June, 2000.

4 Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, "1998 Hog & Pig District Estimates." Internet source: http://www.io.com/~tass/ctyhogs.htm (printed March 27, 2000).

5 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations (March 9, 1999), Sec. 2(2), p. 7.

6 Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, "Texas Cattle and Calves: Inventory, Calf Crop and Disposition, 1994-99," in: 1998 Texas Agricultural Statistics Bulletin, p. 32 (Compiled by Texas Agricultural Statistics Service).

7 Sweeten, John M., "Odor and Dust from Livestock Feedlots," Texas Agricultural Extension Service Report B-5011 (June 1991), p. 1.

8 Sweeten, John M., "Cattle Feedlot Manure and Wastewater Management Practices," in: Animal Waste Utilization: Effective Use of Manure as a Soil Resource, ed. J.L. Hatfield and B.A. Stewart (Ann Arbor Press: Ann Arbor, 1998), p. 134, 143-145.

9 Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, "Texas Hogs: Inventory, Pig Crop and Disposition, 1994-99," in: 1998 Texas Agricultural Statistics Bulletin, p. 64 (Compiled by Texas Agricultural Statistics Service).

10 McFarland, Anne M.S. and John M. Sweeten, "Odor Assessment of Open Lot Dairies," Presented at the 1993 International Winter Meeting of the ASAE, Paper No. 934553 (ASAE: St. Joseph, Michigan, December 14-17, 1993), p. 2.

11 Texas Natural Resource and Conservation Commission, Office of Water Resource Management, Water Quality Division, Poultry Operations Study: Report to the 76th Session of the Texas Legislature ( Publication SFR-65, January 15, 1999), Appendix B: pp. 60-61.

12 Bremner, Alan and Mac Johnston, ed., Poultry Meat Hygiene and Inspection (WB Saunders Company Ltd.: London, 1996), pp. 5-7, 10.

13 Barker, J.C., S. C. Hodges, and C. R. Campbell, "Livestock Manure Production Rates and Nutrient Content," in: 2000 North Carolina Agricultural Chemicals Manual, Chapter 10 (North Carolina State University, 2000), p. 2.

14 Poultry Water Quality Consortium, Poultry Water Quality Handbook (1994). Cited in: Texas Natural Resource and Conservation Commission, Office of Water Resource Management, Water Quality Division, Poultry Operations Study: Report to the 76th Session of the Texas Legislature (Publication SFR-65, January 15, 1999), p. 5.

15 Bremner and Johnson, Poultry Meat Hygiene and Inspection (1996), pp. 11-12; TNRCC Poultry Operations Study (1999), p. 8. Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), Poultry Operations Study (1999), p. 7; Young, J.L., M. Chang, M.C. Chochran, & L.L. Whiteside, Poultry Litter Land Application Rate Study Final Report-Executive Summary (Stephen F. Austin State University and Angelina & Neches River Authority, 1996), pp. 8-10.

16 TNRCC, Poultry Operations Study (1999), p. 7; Young, J.L., M. Chang, M.C. Chochran, & L.L. Whiteside, Poultry Litter Land Application Rate Study Final Report-Executive Summary (Stephen F. Austin State University and Angelina & Neches River Authority, 1996), p. 5.

17 TNRCC, Poultry Operations Study (1999), Appendix C, p. 4.