Seth Slabaugh has a very good article in the Muncie Star Press about the rise of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operation) in Indiana, east central Indiana in particular, under the Daniels administration. Gov. Daniels had hoped to double pork production, but that hasn’t happened. He has dialed down the goal to 3% per year increases.
The short version is that we don’t want to be like North Carolina. Apparently they allowed unfettered growth without regulation (libertarian paradise!) which caused all manner of environmental problems. The response of local regulators is (and I paraphrase), “pshaw! couldn’t happen here. We’re much smarter than those dupes in North Carolina, and our soil is better for this kind of thing. Apples and oranges!”
Under the Daniels’ administration philosophy, I think what has saved Indiana from a lot more environmental problems from increased CAFO pig production is that the hog market has been in the toilet for the past few years. There are good operators out there who want to do things the right way, but the fact is they won’t survive for very long if the economic advantages, even if those advantages are short-term, are stacked in favor of the guys who take short cuts.
I toured Fair Oaks Farm in Newton County Saturday. I was surprised at what a big operation it is, the relative humaneness of their animal husbandry, and their conversion of – ahem – byproducts into methane. It’s not perfect (they’re feeding the cows things that cows weren’t designed to eat), but it way better than it might be.
CAFOs flunk the humaneness test right out of the gate.
I’d better stop as I’m reaching the outer limits of my competence in agriculture.
Correction: there are no regulators in Indiana. In any industry. We don’t need to enforce no stinkin’ laws.
Stories about CAFOs and related issues are why my family has transitioned to eat only meat from local organic farmers. And I mean only. I haven’t bought beef, pork or lamb in a supermarket or grocery store in three years now. (In restaurants we ask where the meat comes from.) Better for us, better for the animals, better for the environment. Way better. And we get to know the people who provide our food and whose farms we are supporting. Yes, more expensive by the single purchase but very competitive is bought in bulk. But the price is the least of it. This isn’t hard to do: just visit your nearest farmers market.
Knowledge of CAFOS and the enormous amount of inputs to create animal cadaver protein from vegetable protein turned me to a vegetarian almost ten years ago.