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I believe it would be helpful to provide crude insight to pathogenicity of antibiotic resistance given present understanding against citation [51] the 1997 WHO press release on circulation of antibiotic resistance Hesternewnamke ( talk) 18:53, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
There seems to be confusion between the pollution that EPA attributes to feedlots and the pollution recorded from EPA designated CAFOs. In the United States there are large, medium and small livestock farms that would be designated CAFOs if detected by the authorities and there are also documented CAFOs that have been unable or unwilling to comply with regulation. The number of the former is much larger that the latter. The non-CAFO livestock farms produce animal waste, animal carcasses and feed waste but this pollution rarely falls under any specific laws. There is no common use term that describes livestock farms that have CAFO pollution potential but have not been detected and officially labeled as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations(CAFOs). Czarina2 ( talk) 16:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Note to Wiki editors: We are in the process of making comprehensive edits to the main page of the CAFO article. Please be patient for a few days (the week of April 10) while the changes take form. The page will be a work in progress at times. Estraub1985 ( talk) 18:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Summary Paragraph for future article:
With a rapid growth of human population, livestock production is becoming increasingly dominated by CAFO in the United States and other parts of the world. Since 1950 (poultry) and the 1970s-1980s (cattle, swine), most animal products for human consumption are come from CAFOs. Unfortunately, criticism towards CAFO producing obvious problems with the industrialization of meat: environmental impacts, economic influence, public health, and so on.
CAFOs are characterized by large numbers of animals crowded into a confined space-an unnatural and unhealthy condition that concentrates too much manure into small an area. Economically, these CAFOs generate billions of dollars of revenue every year. The EPA has focused on the industry because CAFOs also generate millions of tons of manure every year, and when improperly managed, this manure can pose substantial risks to the environment and public health. The trend of family farming is not optimistic since the traditional style is disappearing rapidly. During 1969 to 2002, the number of family farms dropped by 39%. In the 1930s, there were close to 7 million farms in the United States and as of the 2002 census, just over 2 million farms remain The current thrive of CAFOs is considered one of most influential factors to the disappearance of family farming.
The great developments of modern animal agriculture have been contributing to people’s material qualities deriving from improvement of animal breeding, mechanical innovations, and the introduction of specially formulated feeds as well as animal pharmaceuticals for increased productivity. In addition, updating new technologies created an environment that CAFOs owners are able to reduce production cost, increase business profit with less resources consumption and budget inputs. However, tying with the popularity of CAFOs, there are rising criticisms of impacts it brings in terms of environmental damage, economic influence, and public health consideration, etc. Rocky.liu ( talk) 01:49, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
There are several noteworthy CAFO policy developments in U.S. history that have helped shape current regulations. President Nixon’s executive order Reorganization Plan No. 3 created the EPA in 1970. In 1972, Congress revised the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendment of 1948, which produced what today is commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act. At the time, the Clean Water Act provided a definition of CAFO and gave the regulatory role for permit issuing to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program. The first CAFO specific regulations were developed by the EPA in 1976. In 1999, in response to a mandate by President Clinton, the EPA and USDA partnered to produce the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations. Released in 1999, the framework included information on shared objectives of the agencies and the role of voluntary and regulatory programs in assisting CAFOS in meeting their site specific water quality goals. According to the EPA, the objective of the 2003 CAFO Final Rule was to update regulations to reflect new technology and practices. The EPA created the 2008 Final Rule as a response to the Waterkeepers Alliance v. EPA court decision of 2005. Awisely ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC).
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/ag_systems/in_focus/manure_if_factsheets.html
awisely ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:32, 4 March 2011 (UTC).
Introduction: This section will be about two paragraphs and contain a definition of CAFOs and a summary of key concepts discussed in further detail in the following sections.
1. CAFOs development in the United States
Human began domesticating animals more than 10,000 years ago with a start of dogs. In central and southwest Asia and southeast Europe, sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated beginning with 11,000-15,000 years ago. Early domestication offered great contributions to human society in food, clothing, shelter, tools, utensils, personal items, power, war, religion, recreation, and health. With a rapid growth of human population, livestock production is becoming increasingly dominated by CAFO in the United States and other parts of the world. Since 1950 (poultry) and the 1970s-1980s (cattle, swine), most animal products for human consumption are come from CAFOs. CAFOs now have dominated livestock and poultry production in US and their sizes are constantly expanding. In 1966, one million farms composed by 57 million pigs; in 2001, 80,000 farms have the same number of 57 million pigs. Unfortunately, criticism towards CAFO producing obvious problems with the industrialization of meat: environmental impacts, economic influence, public health, and so on.
2. Nature of practice
2.1 Scale
According to 2008 final rule made by EPA, the scale of CAFO composes large, medium, and small size. The thresholds depend on the breeding species and animal units. In general, estimated numbers of CAFOs are 13,358 animal unites for large size, 5,643 (defined as CAFOs) animal unites for medium size, and a limited number may be designated for small size.
2.2 Characteristics
CAFOs are characterized by large numbers of animals crowded into a confined space-an unnatural and unhealthy condition that concentrates too much manure into small an area.
Economically, these CAFOs generate billions of dollars of revenue every year. The EPA has focused on the industry because CAFOs also generate millions of tons of manure every year, and when improperly managed, this manure can pose substantial risks to the environment and public health.
Animal waste includes a number of potentially harmful pollutants. According to the EPA, the pollutants associated with CAFO waste principally include: (1) nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus; (2) organic matter; (3) solids, including the manure itself and other elements mixed with it such as spilled feed, bedding and litter materials, hair, feathers and animal corpses; (4) pathogens (disease-causing organisms such as bacteria and viruses); (5) salts; (6) trace elements such as arsenic; (7) odorous/volatile compounds such as carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia; (8) antibiotics; and (9) pesticides and hormones.
2.3 Market conditions in US
In the past few decades, CAFOs market has expanded significantly with various categories of animal products. The transformation from traditional family farming to large size of industrial factory often goes with corporate contract have changed the husbandry production dramatically. Most meat and dairy products are produced on large farms with single species buildings or open-air pens. Since 1930s, intensive animal production started with the transformation of modern mechanization such as swine slaughterhouses. So far, the efficiency of CAFOs is highly recognized.
3. Key issues
3.1 Environmental impacts
Ground Water, Surface Water, Air pollution, Green house gas and Climate Change etc
In the United States, about 53% people are relying on groundwater resources according to estimation of EAP. (EPA 2004). CAFOs are usually being linked with groundwater contamination. As a whole aquatic ecosystem, groundwater and surface water have close interaction that if one was contaminated the other will be affected relatedly. CAFOs generate large amount of byproducts which are harmful to aquatic ecosystem. Manure is a major source of water pollution. Specifically, CAFOs present a great risk to water quality due to the rising volume of waste and contaminants like antibiotics and other veterinary drugs discharged to the environment. Many contaminants are present in livestock wastes, including nutrients, pathogens, veterinary pharmaceuticals, heavy metals especially zinc and copper, and naturally excreted hormones. The transfer of pathogens in manure highly risk human health, especially when drinking water is contaminated. It can lead to widespread outbreaks of illness. Although some facility design like lagoons can reduce contaminations to water system, substantial remaining densities of microbial pathogens from waste still can seriously pollute surface and ground water that generate a health impacts in wildlife or humans. If the groundwater was polluted by pathogenic organisms, the drinking water resources are under serious threats. Responsively, people’s health in contaminated communities will be big problems for society.
3.2 Economic impacts
In the United States, many farmers find that it’s hard for them to earn a high income because of high costs against low market prices of meat products. Those market facts often result the low profit margins for their products demonstrating competitive disadvantage against CAFOs. On the contrary, CAFOs have reduced their costs and maximized profits through multiple ways such as government subsidies, taxpayer-supported pollution cleanup program, and overuse of antibiotics which was concerned may be counterproductive, etc. For instance, US government bears high cost of agricultural subsidies, and it spends on commodity based subsides has averaged $ 16 million between FY 1996 to FY 2002. In this way, other alternative animal products, like Non-CAFO livestock operation within open-range condition or family nature farm, are losing their ability to deliver abundant goods while waiving most of the problems caused by CAFOs. And the economic efficiency and technological sophistication may not be reached for society. Moreover, the weak prevention of anti-competitive practice by lax enforcement of laws probably contributed the formulation of market monopoly.
3.3 Public health concerns
In addition to environmental impacts, CAFOs’ waste and other pollutants create many public health risks. The direct discharge of manure, including nutrients, antibiotics, pathogens, and arsenic, is a serious potential risk to public health. The contaminations of ground water, surface water, soil, and other aquatic ecosystem derived from CAFOs effect water quality and water sources. The exposure to chemical contaminates like antibiotics create the problems of water supply and public health. Large amount of antibiotics usage contributes to the animal production, and the resistance of bacteria threatens the usefulness of medical treatment to humans in the same categories. According to the World Health Organization in 1997, because of the identification of resistant strain of human pathogens, the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animal husbandry concludes the end. Public health is risked by animal products with antibiotics through the generation of resistant foodborne pathogens and non-pathogenic bacteria as well.
3.4 Animal welfare concerns
CAFOs concentrate animals in a breeding over decades days or months period, and there’s no vegetation in confinement area. The production processes neglect basic animal rights for healthy growing. For animals, suffering is not necessary while the slaughtering process. The reduction of animal welfare before killing an animal should be considered by the public. Farm animal raised in confined environment like CAFOs have limited natural behaviors with high density.
3.5 Food health concerns
CAFOs raised Animals had harsh suffering before slaughter. The species are more industrial creatures rather than natural livings. Such man-made massive food products are characterized in duplication with standards, short production period, and food pollution by chemicals.
4. Rules and Regulation 4.1 History of regulation
4.2 Administrative procedure
4.3 Relevant laws
4.4 Current regulation
4.4.1 Consolidated Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) Regulations
4.4.2 NPDES and Effluent Limitation Guidelines and Standards for CAFOs Final Rules
4.4.3 Revised National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulation and Effluent Limitations Guidelines for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Response to the Waterkeeper Decision; Final Rule
4.4.4 EPA’s Implementation Guidance on CAFO Regulation .end. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awisely ( talk • contribs) 20:56, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Just starting this section as a place where I can put notes on the topics above as I find things to comment on :) Dana boomer ( talk) 20:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
It would probably be good to have a section - either a separate section or worked into another section - on criticism of CAFOs, because they are numerous. I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (interesting book, BTW), and she has some rather cogent criticisms of the CAFO system. The downside is that the book, at least my copy, is not indexed, and the discussion of CAFOs is rather spread out. Even if this source is not used, some discussion of the criticisms is probably necessary to provide a full picture of the CAFO system, although we should be careful not to place undue weight on any one viewpoint, either positive or negative. Dana boomer ( talk) 13:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Another thought: Remember that the lead is supposed to be a summary of what is contained in the rest of the article, and is generally not cited other than quotes and truly controversial information. See WP:LEAD for further information on this guideline, or check out some featured articles for examples. Dana boomer ( talk) 20:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
You have made good progress on this. While you still have a lot of work to do filling out your article, your basic outline is sound.
You have listed a large number of sources. Nice. I would like, however, to see more sources from the academic literature related to CAFO policy – law reviews, policy analyses, economics articles (if any exist).
The focus of the article is to be on policy related to CAFOs. What are the laws, regulations, programs and such? Where did they come from? What support is there for the approaches and how well have they worked? However, as we discussed in class, you have to understand the science, technology and impacts of the activity before you can understand its regulation. Appropriately, you have built in quite a bit of background information on CAFOs themselves (assuming there is not an existing article on CAFOs that you can edit and reference).
You might, however, want to consider breaking your piece into two separate articles that are cross-referenced if the background material starts to swamp the policy discussion. This is really a matter of judgment; others who are more familiar with Wikipedia can provide more guidance on that issue than I.
Good work so far; keep at it.
Enviro econ guy ( talk) 14:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
This is a well written Wikipedia article. Great job CAFO group. I have two comments: first, I suggest to chenge your article title into: CAFO regulations and policies. second, I feel the history of CAFO regulation section is too short. You could add a brief summary from the article you cited. All in all, it's a great article!
huiyao ( talk) 9:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
First, great job guys! You did an excellent job on your presentation in class and your article is very good so far. Here are some things that I noticed:
In the second paragraph, I'm a bit confused about the "relevant animal unit" business. Do you mean to say that CAFOs can have different categorical size requirements based on the animal? The link doesn't help clarify what you're talking about because it turns out that "animal unit" actually is a unit based on a 1,000 pound beef cow. But then you're talking about turkeys and stuff...Anyways, that's a minor thing.
I agree with your mentor's comments about the history of livestock domestication. The first three sentences of "CAFO development in the U.S." may be outside the scope. But perhaps you find them relevant to establishing the history.
Finally, I'm sure you're getting there, but I'd like to see more meat in the "Environmental Impact" section. Also, some of the material presented there duplicates information in "Public health concerns."
Nice work, everyone.
KJD2011 ( talk) 21:32, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Again, great job guys. I know that this is a work in progress so I hope these comments will be helpful.
You did mention that you're still working on the grammar. I would add that, as you do that, strive for consistency in the use of acronyms.
All the best!! Matumeru ( talk) 01:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
It looks like you guys have done a fantastic job expanding your article since your presentation in class. I think the history of CAFOs about the domestication of animals in the US is helpful in adding context to the article itself to explain the importance of these operations. A few suggestions for the page:
Overall, a great start to the article! TrueBlueWolverine ( talk) 15:25, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
This is nice work. One potentially relevant comment has to do with the regulation of CAFOs under the Clean Water Act. Does this fundamentally change the CWA to have jurisdiction over CAFOs or it is a clarification that CAFOs constitute a point source and therefore fall under the the original construct of the act. This might be an interesting thing to address as you expand on the section discussing regulation.
Additionally, are there any approaches to regulation that are a little less C and C? I know lots of wastewater treatment plants have deals with local farmers to give them "manure" to use on many of their crops. Does anything like this exist for CAFOs? or could it- potentially a way of regulating waste to a mutually-beneficial end. This is kindof a long shot, but its something that struck me while I was reading.
Overall, nice job.
Christdk ( talk) 22:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Great article CAFO group! Here are some of my thoughts on how to make it even better:
1. The first sentence should have a source link.
2. The sentence beginning “Other definition through transformations aspect to CAFO . . .” is awkwardly worded.
3. Consider separating the legal section into federal, state and local laws. I imagine there are interesting local zoning laws that relate to CAFOs. You could do a case study on Indiana as an example.
4. I think from a structural standpoint the article needs a “policy” section. The legal section is good, and it sets you up to explore policy, but you really need to bring policy out to the forefront. Take the various legal issues presented in the piece and connect them to what kind of policy instrument is being used. Many of the regs are strictly command and control, but what other options may exist for regulating CAFOs?
Gardner.rw1 ( talk) 23:33, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with everyone above - great article! You've put a lot of work into it and it's coming along nicely! A few comments:
Jes029 ( talk) 13:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi, first off this article is amazing! Secondly, I have written about the manure lagoon as part of a class project of my own. I have done quite a bit of research which deals with the environmental and health impacts of the manure produced by CAFOs, so I thought I would link that article under the Environmental Impact and create another link to it in the page (because it isn't linked at all right now). Silverglass ( talk) 19:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
First of all, this is a Great article! Very well written, and shows the serious amount of effort that went into it. I only have one little question: Does Factory farming have to be one of the links in the "See also" section? "Factory farming" is a phrase used only by opponents of large-scale animal agriculture, and a quick look at the page shows that it is not very neutral. Until that page's neutrality problems are resolved, can we eliminate this link? Thanks! Adv4Ag ( talk) 16:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I added a small bit of information to the second paragraph regarding family farms, since the existing text seemed to indicate that the majority of farms were no longer operated by families. I'll try to remember to update the reference when the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture is completed, though I'm sure the difference will be negligible, probably less than 1% change. I also made the first reference to " family farming" into a link to that page. Adv4Ag ( talk) 18:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
After adding internal links throughout (see edit history), I removed the Underlinked tag placed in Oct-2012. -- Tsavage ( talk) 22:14, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone have ideas for fixing the current issues with the page? Any suggestions before I try?
RayKiddy ( talk) 18:23, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
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Concentrated animal feeding operation article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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I believe it would be helpful to provide crude insight to pathogenicity of antibiotic resistance given present understanding against citation [51] the 1997 WHO press release on circulation of antibiotic resistance Hesternewnamke ( talk) 18:53, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
There seems to be confusion between the pollution that EPA attributes to feedlots and the pollution recorded from EPA designated CAFOs. In the United States there are large, medium and small livestock farms that would be designated CAFOs if detected by the authorities and there are also documented CAFOs that have been unable or unwilling to comply with regulation. The number of the former is much larger that the latter. The non-CAFO livestock farms produce animal waste, animal carcasses and feed waste but this pollution rarely falls under any specific laws. There is no common use term that describes livestock farms that have CAFO pollution potential but have not been detected and officially labeled as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations(CAFOs). Czarina2 ( talk) 16:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Note to Wiki editors: We are in the process of making comprehensive edits to the main page of the CAFO article. Please be patient for a few days (the week of April 10) while the changes take form. The page will be a work in progress at times. Estraub1985 ( talk) 18:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Summary Paragraph for future article:
With a rapid growth of human population, livestock production is becoming increasingly dominated by CAFO in the United States and other parts of the world. Since 1950 (poultry) and the 1970s-1980s (cattle, swine), most animal products for human consumption are come from CAFOs. Unfortunately, criticism towards CAFO producing obvious problems with the industrialization of meat: environmental impacts, economic influence, public health, and so on.
CAFOs are characterized by large numbers of animals crowded into a confined space-an unnatural and unhealthy condition that concentrates too much manure into small an area. Economically, these CAFOs generate billions of dollars of revenue every year. The EPA has focused on the industry because CAFOs also generate millions of tons of manure every year, and when improperly managed, this manure can pose substantial risks to the environment and public health. The trend of family farming is not optimistic since the traditional style is disappearing rapidly. During 1969 to 2002, the number of family farms dropped by 39%. In the 1930s, there were close to 7 million farms in the United States and as of the 2002 census, just over 2 million farms remain The current thrive of CAFOs is considered one of most influential factors to the disappearance of family farming.
The great developments of modern animal agriculture have been contributing to people’s material qualities deriving from improvement of animal breeding, mechanical innovations, and the introduction of specially formulated feeds as well as animal pharmaceuticals for increased productivity. In addition, updating new technologies created an environment that CAFOs owners are able to reduce production cost, increase business profit with less resources consumption and budget inputs. However, tying with the popularity of CAFOs, there are rising criticisms of impacts it brings in terms of environmental damage, economic influence, and public health consideration, etc. Rocky.liu ( talk) 01:49, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
There are several noteworthy CAFO policy developments in U.S. history that have helped shape current regulations. President Nixon’s executive order Reorganization Plan No. 3 created the EPA in 1970. In 1972, Congress revised the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendment of 1948, which produced what today is commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act. At the time, the Clean Water Act provided a definition of CAFO and gave the regulatory role for permit issuing to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program. The first CAFO specific regulations were developed by the EPA in 1976. In 1999, in response to a mandate by President Clinton, the EPA and USDA partnered to produce the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations. Released in 1999, the framework included information on shared objectives of the agencies and the role of voluntary and regulatory programs in assisting CAFOS in meeting their site specific water quality goals. According to the EPA, the objective of the 2003 CAFO Final Rule was to update regulations to reflect new technology and practices. The EPA created the 2008 Final Rule as a response to the Waterkeepers Alliance v. EPA court decision of 2005. Awisely ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC).
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/ag_systems/in_focus/manure_if_factsheets.html
awisely ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:32, 4 March 2011 (UTC).
Introduction: This section will be about two paragraphs and contain a definition of CAFOs and a summary of key concepts discussed in further detail in the following sections.
1. CAFOs development in the United States
Human began domesticating animals more than 10,000 years ago with a start of dogs. In central and southwest Asia and southeast Europe, sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated beginning with 11,000-15,000 years ago. Early domestication offered great contributions to human society in food, clothing, shelter, tools, utensils, personal items, power, war, religion, recreation, and health. With a rapid growth of human population, livestock production is becoming increasingly dominated by CAFO in the United States and other parts of the world. Since 1950 (poultry) and the 1970s-1980s (cattle, swine), most animal products for human consumption are come from CAFOs. CAFOs now have dominated livestock and poultry production in US and their sizes are constantly expanding. In 1966, one million farms composed by 57 million pigs; in 2001, 80,000 farms have the same number of 57 million pigs. Unfortunately, criticism towards CAFO producing obvious problems with the industrialization of meat: environmental impacts, economic influence, public health, and so on.
2. Nature of practice
2.1 Scale
According to 2008 final rule made by EPA, the scale of CAFO composes large, medium, and small size. The thresholds depend on the breeding species and animal units. In general, estimated numbers of CAFOs are 13,358 animal unites for large size, 5,643 (defined as CAFOs) animal unites for medium size, and a limited number may be designated for small size.
2.2 Characteristics
CAFOs are characterized by large numbers of animals crowded into a confined space-an unnatural and unhealthy condition that concentrates too much manure into small an area.
Economically, these CAFOs generate billions of dollars of revenue every year. The EPA has focused on the industry because CAFOs also generate millions of tons of manure every year, and when improperly managed, this manure can pose substantial risks to the environment and public health.
Animal waste includes a number of potentially harmful pollutants. According to the EPA, the pollutants associated with CAFO waste principally include: (1) nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus; (2) organic matter; (3) solids, including the manure itself and other elements mixed with it such as spilled feed, bedding and litter materials, hair, feathers and animal corpses; (4) pathogens (disease-causing organisms such as bacteria and viruses); (5) salts; (6) trace elements such as arsenic; (7) odorous/volatile compounds such as carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia; (8) antibiotics; and (9) pesticides and hormones.
2.3 Market conditions in US
In the past few decades, CAFOs market has expanded significantly with various categories of animal products. The transformation from traditional family farming to large size of industrial factory often goes with corporate contract have changed the husbandry production dramatically. Most meat and dairy products are produced on large farms with single species buildings or open-air pens. Since 1930s, intensive animal production started with the transformation of modern mechanization such as swine slaughterhouses. So far, the efficiency of CAFOs is highly recognized.
3. Key issues
3.1 Environmental impacts
Ground Water, Surface Water, Air pollution, Green house gas and Climate Change etc
In the United States, about 53% people are relying on groundwater resources according to estimation of EAP. (EPA 2004). CAFOs are usually being linked with groundwater contamination. As a whole aquatic ecosystem, groundwater and surface water have close interaction that if one was contaminated the other will be affected relatedly. CAFOs generate large amount of byproducts which are harmful to aquatic ecosystem. Manure is a major source of water pollution. Specifically, CAFOs present a great risk to water quality due to the rising volume of waste and contaminants like antibiotics and other veterinary drugs discharged to the environment. Many contaminants are present in livestock wastes, including nutrients, pathogens, veterinary pharmaceuticals, heavy metals especially zinc and copper, and naturally excreted hormones. The transfer of pathogens in manure highly risk human health, especially when drinking water is contaminated. It can lead to widespread outbreaks of illness. Although some facility design like lagoons can reduce contaminations to water system, substantial remaining densities of microbial pathogens from waste still can seriously pollute surface and ground water that generate a health impacts in wildlife or humans. If the groundwater was polluted by pathogenic organisms, the drinking water resources are under serious threats. Responsively, people’s health in contaminated communities will be big problems for society.
3.2 Economic impacts
In the United States, many farmers find that it’s hard for them to earn a high income because of high costs against low market prices of meat products. Those market facts often result the low profit margins for their products demonstrating competitive disadvantage against CAFOs. On the contrary, CAFOs have reduced their costs and maximized profits through multiple ways such as government subsidies, taxpayer-supported pollution cleanup program, and overuse of antibiotics which was concerned may be counterproductive, etc. For instance, US government bears high cost of agricultural subsidies, and it spends on commodity based subsides has averaged $ 16 million between FY 1996 to FY 2002. In this way, other alternative animal products, like Non-CAFO livestock operation within open-range condition or family nature farm, are losing their ability to deliver abundant goods while waiving most of the problems caused by CAFOs. And the economic efficiency and technological sophistication may not be reached for society. Moreover, the weak prevention of anti-competitive practice by lax enforcement of laws probably contributed the formulation of market monopoly.
3.3 Public health concerns
In addition to environmental impacts, CAFOs’ waste and other pollutants create many public health risks. The direct discharge of manure, including nutrients, antibiotics, pathogens, and arsenic, is a serious potential risk to public health. The contaminations of ground water, surface water, soil, and other aquatic ecosystem derived from CAFOs effect water quality and water sources. The exposure to chemical contaminates like antibiotics create the problems of water supply and public health. Large amount of antibiotics usage contributes to the animal production, and the resistance of bacteria threatens the usefulness of medical treatment to humans in the same categories. According to the World Health Organization in 1997, because of the identification of resistant strain of human pathogens, the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animal husbandry concludes the end. Public health is risked by animal products with antibiotics through the generation of resistant foodborne pathogens and non-pathogenic bacteria as well.
3.4 Animal welfare concerns
CAFOs concentrate animals in a breeding over decades days or months period, and there’s no vegetation in confinement area. The production processes neglect basic animal rights for healthy growing. For animals, suffering is not necessary while the slaughtering process. The reduction of animal welfare before killing an animal should be considered by the public. Farm animal raised in confined environment like CAFOs have limited natural behaviors with high density.
3.5 Food health concerns
CAFOs raised Animals had harsh suffering before slaughter. The species are more industrial creatures rather than natural livings. Such man-made massive food products are characterized in duplication with standards, short production period, and food pollution by chemicals.
4. Rules and Regulation 4.1 History of regulation
4.2 Administrative procedure
4.3 Relevant laws
4.4 Current regulation
4.4.1 Consolidated Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) Regulations
4.4.2 NPDES and Effluent Limitation Guidelines and Standards for CAFOs Final Rules
4.4.3 Revised National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulation and Effluent Limitations Guidelines for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Response to the Waterkeeper Decision; Final Rule
4.4.4 EPA’s Implementation Guidance on CAFO Regulation .end. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awisely ( talk • contribs) 20:56, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Just starting this section as a place where I can put notes on the topics above as I find things to comment on :) Dana boomer ( talk) 20:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
It would probably be good to have a section - either a separate section or worked into another section - on criticism of CAFOs, because they are numerous. I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (interesting book, BTW), and she has some rather cogent criticisms of the CAFO system. The downside is that the book, at least my copy, is not indexed, and the discussion of CAFOs is rather spread out. Even if this source is not used, some discussion of the criticisms is probably necessary to provide a full picture of the CAFO system, although we should be careful not to place undue weight on any one viewpoint, either positive or negative. Dana boomer ( talk) 13:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Another thought: Remember that the lead is supposed to be a summary of what is contained in the rest of the article, and is generally not cited other than quotes and truly controversial information. See WP:LEAD for further information on this guideline, or check out some featured articles for examples. Dana boomer ( talk) 20:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
You have made good progress on this. While you still have a lot of work to do filling out your article, your basic outline is sound.
You have listed a large number of sources. Nice. I would like, however, to see more sources from the academic literature related to CAFO policy – law reviews, policy analyses, economics articles (if any exist).
The focus of the article is to be on policy related to CAFOs. What are the laws, regulations, programs and such? Where did they come from? What support is there for the approaches and how well have they worked? However, as we discussed in class, you have to understand the science, technology and impacts of the activity before you can understand its regulation. Appropriately, you have built in quite a bit of background information on CAFOs themselves (assuming there is not an existing article on CAFOs that you can edit and reference).
You might, however, want to consider breaking your piece into two separate articles that are cross-referenced if the background material starts to swamp the policy discussion. This is really a matter of judgment; others who are more familiar with Wikipedia can provide more guidance on that issue than I.
Good work so far; keep at it.
Enviro econ guy ( talk) 14:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
This is a well written Wikipedia article. Great job CAFO group. I have two comments: first, I suggest to chenge your article title into: CAFO regulations and policies. second, I feel the history of CAFO regulation section is too short. You could add a brief summary from the article you cited. All in all, it's a great article!
huiyao ( talk) 9:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
First, great job guys! You did an excellent job on your presentation in class and your article is very good so far. Here are some things that I noticed:
In the second paragraph, I'm a bit confused about the "relevant animal unit" business. Do you mean to say that CAFOs can have different categorical size requirements based on the animal? The link doesn't help clarify what you're talking about because it turns out that "animal unit" actually is a unit based on a 1,000 pound beef cow. But then you're talking about turkeys and stuff...Anyways, that's a minor thing.
I agree with your mentor's comments about the history of livestock domestication. The first three sentences of "CAFO development in the U.S." may be outside the scope. But perhaps you find them relevant to establishing the history.
Finally, I'm sure you're getting there, but I'd like to see more meat in the "Environmental Impact" section. Also, some of the material presented there duplicates information in "Public health concerns."
Nice work, everyone.
KJD2011 ( talk) 21:32, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Again, great job guys. I know that this is a work in progress so I hope these comments will be helpful.
You did mention that you're still working on the grammar. I would add that, as you do that, strive for consistency in the use of acronyms.
All the best!! Matumeru ( talk) 01:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
It looks like you guys have done a fantastic job expanding your article since your presentation in class. I think the history of CAFOs about the domestication of animals in the US is helpful in adding context to the article itself to explain the importance of these operations. A few suggestions for the page:
Overall, a great start to the article! TrueBlueWolverine ( talk) 15:25, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
This is nice work. One potentially relevant comment has to do with the regulation of CAFOs under the Clean Water Act. Does this fundamentally change the CWA to have jurisdiction over CAFOs or it is a clarification that CAFOs constitute a point source and therefore fall under the the original construct of the act. This might be an interesting thing to address as you expand on the section discussing regulation.
Additionally, are there any approaches to regulation that are a little less C and C? I know lots of wastewater treatment plants have deals with local farmers to give them "manure" to use on many of their crops. Does anything like this exist for CAFOs? or could it- potentially a way of regulating waste to a mutually-beneficial end. This is kindof a long shot, but its something that struck me while I was reading.
Overall, nice job.
Christdk ( talk) 22:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Great article CAFO group! Here are some of my thoughts on how to make it even better:
1. The first sentence should have a source link.
2. The sentence beginning “Other definition through transformations aspect to CAFO . . .” is awkwardly worded.
3. Consider separating the legal section into federal, state and local laws. I imagine there are interesting local zoning laws that relate to CAFOs. You could do a case study on Indiana as an example.
4. I think from a structural standpoint the article needs a “policy” section. The legal section is good, and it sets you up to explore policy, but you really need to bring policy out to the forefront. Take the various legal issues presented in the piece and connect them to what kind of policy instrument is being used. Many of the regs are strictly command and control, but what other options may exist for regulating CAFOs?
Gardner.rw1 ( talk) 23:33, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with everyone above - great article! You've put a lot of work into it and it's coming along nicely! A few comments:
Jes029 ( talk) 13:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi, first off this article is amazing! Secondly, I have written about the manure lagoon as part of a class project of my own. I have done quite a bit of research which deals with the environmental and health impacts of the manure produced by CAFOs, so I thought I would link that article under the Environmental Impact and create another link to it in the page (because it isn't linked at all right now). Silverglass ( talk) 19:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
First of all, this is a Great article! Very well written, and shows the serious amount of effort that went into it. I only have one little question: Does Factory farming have to be one of the links in the "See also" section? "Factory farming" is a phrase used only by opponents of large-scale animal agriculture, and a quick look at the page shows that it is not very neutral. Until that page's neutrality problems are resolved, can we eliminate this link? Thanks! Adv4Ag ( talk) 16:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I added a small bit of information to the second paragraph regarding family farms, since the existing text seemed to indicate that the majority of farms were no longer operated by families. I'll try to remember to update the reference when the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture is completed, though I'm sure the difference will be negligible, probably less than 1% change. I also made the first reference to " family farming" into a link to that page. Adv4Ag ( talk) 18:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
After adding internal links throughout (see edit history), I removed the Underlinked tag placed in Oct-2012. -- Tsavage ( talk) 22:14, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone have ideas for fixing the current issues with the page? Any suggestions before I try?
RayKiddy ( talk) 18:23, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2023 and 10 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): WhisenRosei ( article contribs).
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