And now a word from IEC:
Addressing CAFO Pollution Through Enhanced Waste Management and Research Initiatives
This blog comes from Cindy Bassil, a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering student at UCLA. She is currently a researcher where she studies environmental contamination, particularly air and water pollution, caused by industrial agriculture, coastal water clarity, and lead in urban soils.
After World War II, American meat production shifted towards industrial farms due to high demand, antibiotics, and the mechanization of agriculture. This increase in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), an industrialization of livestock production keeps large groups of animals in a small area and generates massive quantities of manure.
Waste is typically stored without treatment or aeration, leading to polluted water bodies with high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. The pollution worsens when waste is transported and sprayed on the ground, leading to polluted drinking water and public health problems such as cancer and respiratory disease. While eliminating these pollutants may cost around $333 million, it is a crucial change to protect long-term living conditions. Large-scale animal farms also pollute the air and give off a very strong odor, significantly reducing residents’ quality of life.
Aside from medical issues, CAFO pollution heavily damages the environment by polluting rivers and lakes, killing wildlife, and destabilizing ecological balance. Environmental degradation also kills native economies because it discourages tourism, activities, and recreation such as swimming and fishing. Iowa has been highly impacted as one of the states with the highest concentration of CAFOs.
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