<x-charset ISO-8859-1>Animal factories: So-called factory farms produce food efficiently, but raise a stink among environmentists and animal welfare advocates
They're big. They're often noisy. And they can really stink. A smell that will rot your socks. A smell that comes from the mountains of dung produced in animal factories that can poison the air you breathe and water you drink. Welcome to the world of modern intensive livestock farming, where calves, pigs and other animals that always look so cute on TV commercials spend their days getting ready to become a hamburger or chicken nugget. "The general public don't know what's going on," says Prof. Ian Duncan, an animal behaviour expert at the University of Guelph, Ontario's foremost academic agricultural centre. "If they knew, they would object." Estimates vary but about 650 million animals are raised each year across Canada on factory farms, otherwise known as intensive livestock operations or confined animal feeding operations. And they produce mountains of manure - about 164 billion kilograms annually. Manure, even in tiny amounts, can be dangerous to humans if it gets into their food or water. "It's very worrying," says Duncan. "There is a problem there." A pig produces several kilograms of waste a day. A cow five times as much. In the right doses and used properly, all that poop is a hugely valuable fertilizer that helps crops grow. Farmers have known that forever. But the massive amount of waste produced by modern factory farms in a relatively small area presents dangers to the environment and therefore to human health. The waste produced by animals in hog barns or intensive feedlots ends up not as a cow patty on a field but as liquid manure, a toxic soup that contains bacteria of the kind that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ont., in 2000. It can also be loaded with the antibiotics given to animals. Lots of exposure to anitbiotics can make bugs drug- resistant and treatment more difficult if people get sick. The dark brown ooze is usually stored in open-air ponds before being piped or taken by tanker truck to a field where it is sprayed or injected as fertilizer. If the pond leaks, the tanker truck is in a crash or too much is sprayed in the wrong place or at the wrong time, the guck can end up polluting underground water sources or streams, rivers and lakes. The agri-biz companies say there is no need to worry. Liquid manure is a valuable, natural fertilizer that is "absolutely safe," says Dick Wright, president of Community Pork Ventures and Quadra Group in Outlook, Sask. The company produces 300,000 piglets a year at 20 Prairie sites along with about 300 million litres of manure which is stored in large earthen tanks. When ready for use, it is piped to a tractor-mounted system that injects the slurry into 200 hectares of field around the barns. "There's not rivers of this stuff running along the ground," says Wright. "It's like one-third of an inch rainfall. It's almost nothing." Still, factory farms have caused a major stink in communities as far- flung as Ste-Marie-De-Kent, N.B., Paisley, Ont., and Tisdale, Sask. In Quebec, a lot of water pollution has been linked to intensive hog production. Pig barns have been blamed for pollution that has permanently closed five Ontario beaches on Lake Huron, although some farmers dispute that. It's not just the effect on water that is troubling. Decomposing liquid manure emits hundreds of chemicals including ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Studies show that people living near a factory farm or working there tend to have more breathing and lung problems. The Canadian Medical Association has warned about a serious risk to public health in rural areas. In Alberta, the Natural Resources Conservation Board dealt with almost 1,000 complaints against factory farms in its first year. About one-third related to water-quality issues; about 40 per cent related to smell and other "nuisance" problems. Regulating intensive farm operations and protecting the environment are provincial and municipal responsibilities, and the rules differ across the country. Critics of factory farms maintain that right-to- farm legislation generally trumps environmental concerns. "Provinces have regulations, but they're not always enforced," says Cathy Holtslander, an organizer with Project Beyond Factory Farming, a national coalition of farm, environmental and other groups. One problem is that there's no fixed definition for factory farm. Many in the industry simply say there's no such thing. The basic idea is that such operations keep large numbers of animals - more than 200 beef cows or 1,000 sows, say. The largest operations in the United States produce three million pigs a year. Size is not the only issue. Factory farms are also designed to produce suitably fattened slaughter-ready animals as quickly as possible or squeeze out as much milk or as many eggs from an animal. To do that, the animals are often confined to small stalls, crates or spaces, and may never see the light of day. Beaks, tails, horns and teeth are routinely cut off or ground down to prevent injury and male animals castrated. Anesthetics are not used. "It's known that these procedures cause pain," says Duncan. "If you were to do those things to a dog or a cat, you would be prosecuted." Another characteristic of factory farms is that they are usually owned by large corporations, perhaps from other countries. These corporations often produce the feed and run the slaughter operations as well, something known as a barley-to-bacon strategy. The move to intensify agriculture began about 50 years ago, but huge factory farms are only about 25 years old. They have mushroomed across North America. In part, they are part of a corporate world that wants to make as much profit as possible. In part, they are a response to a shrinking world in which Canadian farmers face global competition. But they are also a response to consumers who demand cheap food, either at the supermarket or from their favourite fast-food outlet. "Politicians and their governments in Canada want voters to have the cheapest possible food in the world," says Gary Struthers of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. "Only by expanding their farming operations can farmers survive and satisfy these objectives." Not all farmers agree bigger is better. They worry the mega-outfits are suffocating smaller, family-run farms along with the communities they support. "Can you just keep lopping off farming families out of rural communities?" wonders Don Mills, a spokesman for the National Farmers Union. "At what point does that community collapse?" What is certain is that the days when cows lazily munched their way across green fields or hens scavenged outside in large coops are fast fading into storybooks. Old McDonald's farm is no more. LIFE DOWN ON THE FARM A look at the process of turning animals into food: PIGS Sows spend lives in bare gestation stalls or farrowing crates, cages that are barely bigger than their bodies. Piglets, usually kept in a neighbouring crate, nurse from their mother for two weeks or less before being sent to feeder pens, where they are castrated and have their tails cut off, teeth ground and ears notched. At about 24 weeks, pigs are shipped to slaughter. CATTLE Dairy cows are forced into a cycle of pregnancy and birthing to ensure a steady supply of milk and calves. Cows are slaughtered after four to five years, generally becoming hamburger. Calves are taken from their mothers after a day or two. They're shipped to feedlots where they are castrated and de-horned. Veal calves are permanently confined to tiny, cramped stalls and fed iron-deficient diets. Slaughtered between one and three months of age. CHICKENS Confined indoors in highly cramped conditions. Beaks are cut off. Five or six laying hens spend lives in wire cages measuring about 40 centimetres by 45 centimetres. Broiler chickens live in darkened sheds with automated feeding and watering systems. Sources: University of Guelph, Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ </x-charset>
