Super Eco

Photo credit: Soil-Science.info on Flickr

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, are facilities that house and feed a large number of animals in a confined area. The EPA defines CAFOs only as those that house animals at least 45 days per year, and has been regulating them since the 1970s to monitor and control the amount of manure they produce; which is estimated at more than 250 million tons a year, over half of the manure generated by American farms. CAFOs must carry a permit and develop nutrient-management plans designed to keep animal waste from contaminating surface water and groundwater.

Both Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver shone a spotlight on CAFOs in their recent books, The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The two authors write of the genetically-modified corn that is grown by large commercial farms and fed to cows, pigs and chickens in these confined settings. Because of the limited diet fed to animals who were bred to graze (cows) or eat a wide variety of foods, especially scraps from humans (pigs and poultry), the livestock must be fed "prophylactic doses" of antibiotics to prevent sickness; and growth hormones so the animals can more quickly reach a market rate and leave their place in the pen for another animal.

The Sierra Club writes that CAFOs pose a threat to both our water and air supply. The lagoons used to carry waste out of the confinement facilities are leak-prone, according to the environmental watchdog, and the air pollution produced by such intensive manure-producing operations has been shown to cause sickness, especially respiratory arrest, in farm workers and the populations of nearby towns. The "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico is said to have been caused by the effluence of CAFOs throughout the Midwestern United States (in addition to the chemical fertilizers used by large farming operations), carried by the Mississippi River to the gulf.

Meat from CAFOs is avoided by locavores, gastronomes, and other individuals committed to sustainable eating, both because of the poor nutritional profile of CAFO-raised meat and the highly superior flavor of livestock raised using traditional farming techniques.