Alternative to pork factory farms garners support. (EH Update).

The Problem

The environmental and humanitarian problems associated with industrial livestock operations are causing growing concern. Factory farms have largely replaced traditional family farms; over the past 15 years, the number of hogs raised in the United States has remained about the same, but the number of hog farms has decreased from 600,000 to 157,000.

A typical hog factory farm has several metal barns, each containing hundreds to thousands of animals confined cheek to jowl. The animals may never see sunlight and spend their lives standing on slatted meal floors, beneath which their feces and urine are flushed. The manure is piped into open-air manure lagoons, where it is stored until it can be pumped out to irrigate fields. A lagoon may be the size of several football fields. Industrial-scale pig farming thus entails enormous increases in the concentration and quantity of manure generated at single sites. Because the scale of factory farms is so great, enormous quantities of excess manure are now being spread on farmlands, posing threats to drinking water and fisheries.

Runoff and spills from factory farms have precipitated water pollution disasters in many states. In Maryland and North Carolina, pollution from chicken and hog factory farms is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, a contaminant that kills millions of fish and causes skin irritation, short-term memory loss, and other cognitive problems in humans. Pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform bacteria can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. Another threat to water quality comes from ammonia, which causes algal blooms and fish kills. Ammonia released from feedlot lagoons and spray fields into the air can be deposited more than 50 miles away.

Factory farms also pose threats to air quality. They emit methane gas, a factor in global climate change (U.S. EPA estimates that methane emissions from livestock manure constitute about 10 percent of total emissions in the country), and hydrogen sulfide, which causes flulike symptoms in humans and, at high levels, leads to brain damage.

The State of Regulation

The Clean Water Act (CWA) identifies feedlots as an industrial source of pollution and requires that they be regulated like other industries. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), however, reports that U.S. EPA has not fully enforced this requirement; in 1992, only 30 percent of the 6,600 farms large enough to be subject to federal permit requirements actually obtained a permit under the CWA.

NRDC also cites many problems with regulation on the state level, including the following:

* State programs fail to deal adequately with the siting of lagoons. Lagoons are still allowed to be located on land sitting above water sources, in floodplains, in coastal and wetlands, and near wildlife refuges.

* Local control is restricted or underused. Some states have significantly restricted the authority of local governments to control the problem.

* States have not allocated adequate staff resources for enforcement of existing regulations. There simply aren't enough inspectors.

* Factory farms generally receive fast-track permits, known as "general permits" under the CWA. The permits are not site specific, do not provide citizens with notice of a proposed factory farm, and do not require monitoring.

* Only a handful of states have regulated air pollution associated with factory farms.

An Alternative: Free-Range, Family-Sized Farms

On traditional family farms, pigs live in spacious barns with straw bedding that absorbs manure, or they root about outside and leave their manure to decay in a pasture or open lot. The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has established a set of Pig Husbandry Standards that codifies these advantages, and an increasing number of small farms are subscribing to the AWI standards. The standards include the following requirements:

* Sows must be able to build nests, and pigs must be able to root, explore, and play.

* Well-managed pastures are recommended. When animals are sheltered in barns, they must be given straw or materials suitable to be used as bedding.

* Animal factory practices--such as intensive confinement of animals in crates and cages--are prohibited.

* Large-scale animal factory owners or operators who commit only a portion of their operation to humane management are not accepted into the program.

* The routine use of antibiotics to promote growth or productivity or to control or mask disease is prohibited.

* Each farm must be a family farm--one on which an individual or family owns the hogs, depends upon the farm for a livelihood, and participates in the daily physical labor of caring for the animals and managing the farm.

The small-farm approach to pig farming has recently gained momentum because Chipotle, a national chain of quick-service burrito restaurants, has decided to serve free-range pork at all of its 180 locations. Chipotle has an agreement with Niman Ranch, a cooperative of family farms that follow the AWI Pig Husbandry Standards. Because Chipotle orders a high volume of shoulder and leg cuts for its burritos, other cuts have become more readily available to high-end restaurants, creating a widening market for freerange pork. The consequence has been a significant increase in demand for free-range pork, and 75 more family farms have joined the Niman cooperative. There are now 170 small farms participating, and more farmers are being recruited.

Chipotle made the agreement not only for ethical reasons, but also because, according to founder and CEO Steve Ells, who is a classically trained chef, free-range pork tastes better.

(Portions of this story are adapted, with permission, from America's Animal Factories: How States Fail to Prevent Pollution from Livestock Waste, a report developed by NRDC. For more information, please visit the NRDC Web site at <http://www.nrdc.org>.)