Iowans swimming in manure? Posted by mitcka at 04/08/05 06:54 PM

Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are now the norm for raising pigs and chickens across the great plains states. A new report on Iowa CAFOs documents their effect on rural communities.

A few years back I had the pleasure--and it was a pleasure--of traveling around Texas to visit the hog farms of the panhandle, the huge cattle feedlots southwest of Amarillo, and the chicken operations of deep East Texas. From that trip and months of document research, we produced our own study of the effect of CAFOs on rural Texans.

At that time, Texas was Number One (we love to be Number One) in manure production--managing and disposing of 280 billion pounds of manure each year. Now that's probably because we are Number One in beef cattle, but the Iowa Policy Project finds that Iowa is now Number One in hogs. And liquified hog manure mostly ends up sprayed directly on fields as "fertilizer". Unfortunately, crops only need so much "fertilizer" and eventually the land reaches its limit--but the manure keeps coming.

The Iowa Policy Project recommends giving local communities greater control over the siting of CAFOs, along with limits on antibiotic use and better Clean Water Act enforcement. I would add that CAFOs can bring noxious odors and some serious particulate pollution (fecal matter dried and blowing up as red dust in the wind)--and these air issues remain an unresolved problem in most states as far as I know.

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