This system of intensified confinement has made the American meat industry widely and increasingly emulated. It makes money. It has abundantly served growing global appetites for cheap burgers, hot dogs and chicken wings.
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As the industry has replicated the factory farm model across the world, the number of livestock has swelled, leading to more livestock-related planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The production of livestock globally accounts for somewhere between 16.5 and just under 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers have determined that, even if the world stopped using fossil fuels, the largest source of heat-trapping gases, there’s no way to meet global climate goals without reducing emissions from the food system, including from cattle.
My wife and I left Iowa before settling and starting our family but we have lots of friends and family still in the state. The effects that mass ag and the toxins generated have on the state...
A large CAFO in your backyard is akin to living next to a power plant or waste treatment facility […] In North Carolina and Iowa, […] excess manure, when applied to fields, poisons drinking water.
My wife and I left Iowa before settling and starting our family but we have lots of friends and family still in the state. The effects that mass ag and the toxins generated have on the state cannot be overstated - Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the country.
I feel fortunate in that I only lived in the state for ~15 years, much of it on the Mississippi River and decently far removed from the super highly-concentrated agriculture of the rest of the state, but I fear for my wife who was born and raised in the dead center of the state for 30 years. Stories like this make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s like watching a state-sized car crash in slow motion.
My wife and I left Iowa before settling and starting our family but we have lots of friends and family still in the state. The effects that mass ag and the toxins generated have on the state cannot be overstated - Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the country.
I feel fortunate in that I only lived in the state for ~15 years, much of it on the Mississippi River and decently far removed from the super highly-concentrated agriculture of the rest of the state, but I fear for my wife who was born and raised in the dead center of the state for 30 years. Stories like this make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s like watching a state-sized car crash in slow motion.