Factory Farming's Long Reach

The impact of factory farming upon the American land and native biodiversity is seldom discussed, but animal protein production has a significant impact upon the Nation’s land and water. The direct environmental problems like air or water pollution associated with large factory farming operations may be clear, but less obvious are the environmental impacts associated with the agricultural production of feed crops and other consequences associated with large factory farming operations.

According to the Animal Feed Manufactors’ Association, one third of the world’s grains are fed directly to animals. In developed countries the percentage of grains fed directly to livestock rises to 60%, with 80% of the grains in the United States fed to livestock.

Since the United States is the leading producer of beef cattle in the world, it is also the top animal feed producer in the world, with more than double the acreage in animal feed production than its closest rival China . This means the majority of cropland in the United States is not growing food for direct human consumption as many presume, but is used to grow forage crops for domestic livestock, including chickens, hogs, and cattle. In fact, in the United States, domestic livestock consume 5 times as much grain as the entire American population.


It takes a huge amount of grain crops to support livestock production. For instance, to produce 1 kg of beef requires 7 kg of feed grain. Though chickens are more efficient at converting grain to meat, the ratio is still two to one with 2 kg of grain required to produce 1 kg of meat.

According to Cornell University’s David Pimentel, if the cropland currently used to grow grain fed to livestock were directed towards growing crops for human consumption, we could feed 800 million additional people or more likely provide a descent meal for those whose diet is inadequate.

In order to feed concentrated, confined animals, huge acreages of America’ s best farmland have been converted into monocultures of often genetically modified crops that stretch for miles. The major feed crops are corn, soybeans, and hay/alfalfa with smaller amounts of other grains like oats, barley and even wheat.

For instance, 22% of all wheat grown in the US ultimately ends up as animal feed, rather than in food products like bread or cereal consumed directly by humans.

While it’s difficult to determine how much of any crop is used to feed confined animal operations as opposed to diverse small farming operations, the total impact of animal agriculture of any kind is significant. Consider these statistics.

Globally, production of livestock feed uses a third of the Earth’s arable land In the United States farmland production is even more skewed towards animal feed. In 2008 American farmers, primarily in the Mid-west, planted 87 million acres to feeder corn.

Part of that acreage figure was due to demand for corn created by ethanol, but the bulk of the corn acreage is used for animal feed. By comparison, farmers only planted an average of 234,000 acres across the entire country to fresh market sweet corn, the plant we consume directly for corn on the cob, and other food.

To give some comparison, Montana , the fourth largest state in the Nation is 93 million acres in size. So imagine nothing but corn stretching east and west across Montana’s 550 miles and north and south by 300 miles. This is a huge area to be plowed up, and planted to an exotic grass crop that requires huge inputs of pesticides and fertilizer to sustain.

Similarly the acreage devoted to soybeans is huge. According to the USDA, some 74.5 million acres was planted to soybeans in 2008. And despite the popularity of tofu and other soy based food products, less than 2% of the soybean crop is used for production of food for direct human consumption—with most of the annual soybean crop going for animal feed.

Hay and/or alfalfa are yet another significant crop for confined livestock production, primarily dairy cows and beef cattle. In the United States, approximately 59 million acres are planted to hay/alfalfa annually.To put this in perspective, Oregon is 60 million acres in size.

Though slightly better than a row crop like corn or soybeans as wildlife habitat, hay/alfalfa fields still represent a net loss in native biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Hay/alfalfa replace native vegetation, and often require excessive amounts of fertilizers, and are cut frequently destroying even their temporal value as hiding and nesting cover for many wildlife species.

Taken together these three animal feed crops cover a minimum area over 200 million plus acres. To put these figures of animal feed cropland into perspective, the amount of land used to grow the top ten fresh vegetables in the US ( asparagus, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, head lettuce, honeydew melons onions, sweet corn, and tomatoes) occupies about a million acres.

If you fly over or drive across Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and other Mid-western states, you’ll pass mile after mile of corn and/or soybean fields. Growing these crops has led to the near-extirpation of native plant communities like the tall grass prairie . Less than 4% of the native tall grass prairie remains and in some states like Iowa which has less than 0.1% of its original tall grass prairie left, tall grass prairie is functionally extinct.

Plus “clean” farming eliminates what little natural vegetation used to remain as woodlots, fenceline strips, wetlands, and other natural areas that in the past supported native species with the agricultural matrix.

Destruction of native plant communities has had serious impacts on native biodiversity. Agriculture, including livestock production as well as crop production combined, is the number source for species endangerment in the country , and this number would be higher if you were to add in the species that are negatively impacted by exotic species, many of which increase due to habitat modification by agricultural production.

Agriculture is also the largest user of US water resources, with confined animal operations the largest per capita consumer of water.

Grain fed beef production uses 100,000 gallons of water to produce every kg of food. By comparison, a similar kg of water-hungry rice uses only 2000 gallons of water, while potatoes require a mere 500 gallons. The primary mission of most western reservoirs is water storage for irrigated agriculture. Even in California which grows the bulk of the Nation’s vegetables and fruits, the largest consumers of irrigation water in the state by acreage is irrigated hay/alfalfa production.

Thus the environmental impacts associated with these dams and reservoirs such as barriers to salmon migration salmon, changes in water flows and flooding, are one indirect cost of factory farming operations. Add to this the direct dewatering of rivers for hay and other forage crop production is the loss of ground water supplies by pumping, particularly of the Ogalla aquifer. It’s easy to see why some argue that livestock production is the leading causes of water degradation.

Agriculture also degrades water in other more direct ways. Livestock produce 130 times the waste of the entire human population of the United States, and unlike the human waste which tend to be treated in sewage plants; most animal waste winds up on the land or in the water. Not surprisingly, livestock production is the leading cause of non-point surface water pollution accounting for 72% of the pollution in rives and 56% of the pollution in lakes.

Agriculture production is also the number one source for groundwater contamination in the Nation, with 49 states reporting high nitrates and 43 states reporting pesticide production attributed to agricultural practices.

Agricultural production is the largest source for soil erosion in the United States with current rates exceeding soil production rates by 17 times with 90% of US croplands losing soils above sustainable rates.

Since the majority of the nation’s cropland is growing animal feed, the majority of soil erosion is a direct consequence of this production.

Another indirect consequence of factory farming is the energy used to grow and transport feed. Animal protein production uses eight times the fossil fuel energy as growing vegetables or grass fed livestock Beef production was particularly energy costly, requiring 54 times the fossil fuel equivalent of non-grain fed sources of protein.

Lest we forget, livestock are a significant contributor to global warming. The world’s livestock produces 25% of the global greenhouse gases, with the waste lagoons of factory farms contributing another 5%.

And according to a UN report, the global livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport.

Much, though not all, of these environmental impacts would be reduced or avoided altogether if factory farming and other kinds of confined animal production were eliminated. A shift to smaller, diverse farms, and a reduction, if not outright elimination of meat consumption, would both contribute to a huge reduction in environmental impacts of animal agriculture.

http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html

/www.afma.co.za/AFMA_Template/feedpaper15.html

/www.afma.co.za/AFMA_Template/feedpaper15.html

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html

http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2008/06_30_2008.asp


http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_Jersey/Publications/Sweet_Corn_Statistics/CornBook2003.pdf
. http://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2008/06_30_2008.asp


http://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2008/06_30_2008.asp

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE708

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/PFW/kansas/ks7.htm

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/277/5329/1116

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html

See Wuerthner, Guzzling the West’s Water in Wuerthner, George and Mollie Matteson, ed. Welfare Ranching—The Environmental Impacts of Public Lands Grazing. http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_guzzling_water.htm

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626


http://www.fao.org/docrep/W2598E/w2598e04.htm

http://www.fao.org/docrep/W2598E/w2598e04.htm

http://www.lgt.lt/geoin/doc.php?did=cl_soil

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626


http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/

Condos or Cows? Neither!

George Wuerthner

Throughout the country there is a growing fear that subdivisions and sprawl will eliminate open space, destroy wildlife habitat, and lead to ever greater congestion. To counter such a threat, many suggest that we should do everything we can to maintain existing land uses such as farming, ranching, and/or logging on the presumption that these economic land uses will preclude or at least slow development.

However, except in the most densely settled parts of the country, these land uses are the most significant sources for environmental degradation, biological impoverishment, and loss of wildlife habitat. Instead of championing or facilitating the continued biological impoverishment of the landscape by these industries, we should be trying to reduce and hold accountable these industries, while at the same time we seek to control sprawl and subdivisions.

Rather than a choice between condos and cows as is often portrayed, we ought to be saying no to both. Unfortunately far too many people accept the false dichotomy presented by ranching advocates who use the subdivision threat as a club to beat back any criticism or attempts to rein in this destructive land use.

FLAWED STRAGETY

Ranching advocates present a false choice when they assert we must preserve ranching or suffer unrestricted sprawl. It is a seductive argument that remains, for the most part, unexamined. Many, even in the environmental community, accept the notion that if we only support and even subsidize resource extraction industries like farming, ranching, and logging, sprawl will be contained or slowed because land owners won’t sell to developers.

Of course if this assumption were true, we would not have sprawl. Even the most productive and valuable farmland in the West—California’s Central Valley—agricultural lands are being sold for development So how can anyone expect some cow beat pasture along the Wasatch Front near Salt Lake City or outside of Boise to compete against development as a housing tract?

It is higher land prices that contribute to sprawl, not the mere availability of land. There are millions of acres of private land for sale right now in North Dakota that many there wish someone would buy. It’s cheap. It’s available. So why isn’t North Dakota being swamped by real estate developers anxious to subdivide? The reason is that almost no one wants to live in North Dakota and many of the people stuck there want to leave—if only they could sell their property to someone.

But if you own land where people want to live—places like Montana’s Bitterroot or Gallatin Valleys, Colorado’s Front Range, the deserts around Phoenix and so on, than your property can be sold for way more as a housing site than it can return growing cows. Not surprisingly, many ranchers and farmers find this an attractive way to fund their retirement or leave a financial legacy for their children.

SPRAWL AND ITS IMPACTS

There is no denying that sprawl is socially and ecologically detrimental to human and wildlife communities. Sprawl fragments wildlife habitat, raises costs for services, increases energy use, forces longer commutes, requires more roads, spreads weeds and causes many other negative impacts that affect everything from taxes to wildlife migration patterns.

Nevertheless, as bad as these effects are upon landscape integrity, the majority of development in the West occurs around urban centers, where jobs, educational opportunities and amenities are found. Most westerners may have an exaggerated perspective on land use changes that are occurring in the West because the vast majority of the West’s population live in urban areas where we experience these negative impacts daily.

GEOGRAPHICAL FOOTPRINT

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture own figures, only 3.5 percent of the lower 48 states is developed—this includes all the highways, shopping malls, and housing tracts in the country. By comparison livestock production impacts 60-65% percent of all land area in the U.S. This figure includes public and private lands that are grazed, and farmland used for forage crop.

Looking at the West, we see the same disparity between developed land and lands affected by animal agriculture. For instance, a GAP analysis conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that only 530,000 of Colorado’s 66 million acres are affected by development, whereas 33 million acres are grazed by livestock.

Worse yet, more than 15,722,500 acres of Colorado’s farmland are devoted to livestock forage crops such as feeder corn and alfalfa. These agricultural fields are every bit as disastrous as shopping malls for most wildlife. At best they are vastly simplified ecosystems. Hay or corn fields typically consist of a single species of exotic plant that are removed annually. Many of these crops are irrigated and guzzle precious water. Such fields effectively fragment and degrade more terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems than all urbanization and sprawl combined many times over.

Don’t take my word for it—get up in an airplane and stare out the window. I guarantee that if you fly anywhere over the West, once you leave the immediate area of a major urban area, what you will see is not subdivisions, malls, or anything else we call sprawl—instead what one will see for mile after mile of biologically impoverished lands used for ranching—either grazed lands and/or hay fields and other crops planted to sustain cattle.

OPEN SPACE ISN’T THE SAME AS GOOD WILDLIFE HABITAT

As anyone who has flown over Montana or driven along its empty highways can attest that there’s a lot of undeveloped land in the state. Recent population figures indicate that 87 percent of Montana’s land area has fewer than 6 people per square mile! That’s the cut off figure used by the Census Bureau to define “frontier counties” in the 1890 census.

The sparse human imprint is supported by a recent GAP analysis which found only 0.17 percent (about 200,000 acres) of the state’s 93 million acres affected by development. In contrast, nearly 70 percent of the land is grazed, and more than 5.5 million acres consist of irrigated crops that feed livestock.

For all intents and purposes, most of Montana is still uninhabited. If “open space” were synonymous with good wildlife habitat, there would be no endangered species in Montana.

So why are prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, wolves, grizzly bears, swift foxes, sage grouse, Columbian sharp-tail grouse, Montana graylings and countless other threatened or endangered species unable to thrive in a place that’s practically deserted?
The problem is clear. Animal agriculture has devastating effects on species and ecological processes such as predation, fire and nutrient flow.

RANCHING ISN’T BENIGN

While ranching advocates are quick to point out the negative impacts of sprawl—as they should—they fail to apply the same critical analysis to the social and ecological effects of livestock production.

Livestock production involves crop production, water diversions, predator control, fences and many other activities that carry tremendous ecological costs. Livestock spread weeds, fragment wildlife habitat (particularly aquatic ecosystems because of water diversions for irrigation), transmit diseases to native wildlife, consume forage that would otherwise support native herbivores, trample soils, pollute water sources, degrade riparian areas and truncate nutrient flows.

The cumulative impact of livestock production across the West explains why it is responsible for more endangered species than any other land use. Livestock production is the largest source of non-point water pollution and soil erosion, the greatest consumer of water and a major contributor to wildfires. It’s also a chief reason why predators such as wolves and grizzlies have been reduced to token populations.

LANDSCAPE SCALE CONSERVATION

Turning a blind eye to ranching impacts won’t prevent sprawl. At best, the hope that livestock production can contain sprawl is a blunt tool. It is a passive, unfocused approach that occasionally results in “coincidental conservation.”

If we want to control sprawl, there are effective, active methods that work: zoning, planning, conservation easements and outright acquisition. Though all have drawbacks, they can restrict or guide development. States such as Oregon and California (through the Coastal Commission) have instituted statewide or regional zoning that has dramatically reduced sprawl. And of course the single best means of protecting important wildlife habitat or other public values is outright public acquisition. California, for instance, recently passed a $5 billion plus bond issue to fund, among other things, new park acquisitions. Voters in Nevada, Colorado and Arizona have also approved bond issues to fund land acquisition.

FALSE CHOICE

The argument that we must choose between condos and cows (or clearcuts and condos) is a false one. Neither is desirable, and both should be restricted as much as possible. If we enact proven land conservation policies like zoning and planning, ramped up public acquisition of critical lands, and simultaneously reduce the amount of land devoted to livestock production, the West will be a better place than it is today, even as more people discover its wonders and desire to live here.