Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Their effects on the ecosystem
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Their effects on the ecosystem
Bryan Tangney 696781
Environmental Studies 148
Dorothy Daley
October 10th 2001
You have just bought the house of your dreams on an 80-acre tract of land in beautiful Northeastern Kansas, and you are thinking that life is perfect. But soon your life is being taken over by a repulsive, intruding smell. This smell is emanating from a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), which is a corporate farming operation that houses thousands of hogs in a confined area. CAFOs have many disadvantages, such as air pollution, water pollution, decline of the independent farmer, and animal cruelty to name a few.
CAFOs cause a massive amount of damage to an area's ecosystem. The damage is done in the form of fecal waste. These hogs are alive for one basic reason, to eat in order to grow large and be slaughtered. This cycle causes a hog to produce a mass amount of fecal matter in its lifetime. "One hog factory produces fecal waste equivalent to a city of 360,000 people" (Mallin). This waste is generally stored in lagoons, or large ponds made specifically for the purpose of fecal storage. These lagoons are the foundation for many environmental headaches.
CAFOs are definitely a current environmental issue in the farming community, and many different people and organizations have devoted time to writing about these tragedies. However, different authors provide different viewpoints of CAFOs and that is what is being examined here. Six different sources, ranging from a scientific journal to a personal website, were researched and compared in order to examine the different sources of information one uses to learn about current environmental issues.
The first form of media that was used was a scientific journal named Biocycle. The article, "300,000,000 tons of manure" by John Glenn, was about the effects of waste management at CAFOs. This piece was mainly composed of chemical equations for the processes of manure decompositions, as well as many other statistical reasons for the disadvantage of these operations. The author makes no attempt to appeal to the feelings of his readers. His status as a scientist gave verification of his knowledge on the given subject, as well as reinforces the fact that he would write an unbiased ...
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The first form of media that was used was a scientific journal named Biocycle. The article, "300,000,000 tons of manure" by John Glenn, was about the effects of waste management at CAFOs. This piece was mainly composed of chemical equations for the processes of manure decompositions, as well as many other statistical reasons for the disadvantage of these operations. The author makes no attempt to appeal to the feelings of his readers. His status as a scientist gave verification of his knowledge on the given subject, as well as reinforces the fact that he would write an unbiased article.
The next source was taken from a well-known scientific magazine by the name of The American Scientist. This article discusses namely "The Impacts of Industrial Animal Production and Estuaries." Simply the name of this article gives a chilling sense of boredom. Michael Mallin, the author, gives several examples of how a CAFO can endanger the health of those people surrounded by it, while citing the majority of his information to other studies. Overall, he delivers an objective view of the situation. Besides the presence of full-color pictures this article was much like the scientific journal.
The third example of media is a popular national magazine. In the U.S. News and World Report, "Hog heaven-and hell" by Michael Satchell paints a grim picture of life on or around a CAFO. The article begins with a large picture of cute-looking baby piglets, in order to derive emotion from his reader once he vividly describes the slaughter of these pigs. This article is a much more colorfully written piece, because its target audience is the general public. Satchell writes with much more conviction than any of the previous authors, solely for the purpose of intriguing readers.
All of the previous sources have been directed to a large, national audience, but now we are examining a local newspaper. The Pitch is a local weekly magazine, with a flare for the cutting-edge and the radical. "Pig Out" by Joe Miller is an informative article that is veiled in the form of a pig's life cycle. This arrangement makes for an organized, easy to follow piece. One thing that Miller does is to target a few businesses, and expose the harsh underbelly of these types of operations. This story was an interesting combination of the scientific and journalistic forms of environmental media.
Websites are an overflowing fountain for environmental news. However, there are two main types: Government and Non-Government. One EPA website contained an article telling of how a Boise-area Hog Farm had to pay $6,250 to settle a waste discharge complaint. Once again, this was written in a stoic, professional manner, with no colorful language and a plethora of statistical figures. This article was very comparable to the article from the scientific journal, both having little journalistic value and a wealth of scientific significance.
The other website belonged to an organization named "The Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy." The article that was written by Margaret Halverson contained many radical ideas pertaining to the elimination of all CAFOs. In her article she harshly reprimands the federal and local governments for their inactivity in the case of CAFOs. Her radicalism is possible because of the fact that this article was written solely to voice her opinions, not be read by a national audience.
In reading these articles, it is apparent that CAFOs are a detriment to the ecosystem. After studying six different references, it is clear that there are differences in environmental media. The differences are mainly because of one subject, the reader. If it is being written for a scientific audience, then it will be less colorful, with more statistics and scientific vocabulary. On the other hand, if an article is being written for a general audience, then it will contain more emotion, stories, and vibrant language.
Works Cited
Glenn, Jim, "300,000,000 Tons of Manure." Biocycle v. 38. (Jan 1998):47-51
Mallin, Michael A., "The Impact of Industrial Animal Production on Rivers and
Estuaries." American Scientist. January -February 2000. 26+
Satchell, Michael, "Hog heaven-and hell." U.S. News and World Report.
22 January 1996: 55+
Miller, Joe. "Pig Out". The Pitch Weekly. 7 September 2000: A1
Ryan, Mark. "Boise-Area Hog Farm Will Pay $6,250 To Settle Waste Discharge
Complaint." Environmental Protection Agency. www.epa.gov/r10/homepage.nsf 10 October 2001
Halverson, Margaret. "The Price We Pay for Corporate Hogs." Institute for Agriculture
And Trade Policy. July 2000. www.iatp.gov/hogreport/indextoc.html 10 October 2001
