10/29/2003: Nasal Rangers

[Mojo The Monkey]

Originally posted by SteveDallas
I must be missing something. Some kind of industrial waste, I can understand. What are farmers who are in violation supposed to do? make their livestock shit less?

You're imagining Farmer Brown with a wooden barn and maybe a dozen or so hogs.

Modern feedlots aren't anything like you're imagining. Imagine over 10 thousand hogs or up to two million chickens in a single location.

Here's a photo of the inside of a feedlot. Notice how densely packed the animals are?



Here's an aerial photo of a feedlot.



Each and every one of those buildings are filled just as densely as in the previous photo with hogs. And the brown "lake" across the road? Well, let's just say it's not water in that lake. Pig manure is liquid. And it stinks. A lot. People living downwind from some of these giant factory farms are concerned about the health effects. The air and soil in these areas are contaminated with excess ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and high levels of e. coli bacteria.

Maybe these factory farmers can't make their livestock shit less, but they can choose not to pack them in so densely. Or they could choose to treat the manure, using the same techniques used to treat human sewage. But they don't because that will cut in to their profits, and we all know that profitability is more important than human health or environmental safety.

(edit. Sorry if I sound too pissy. Factory Farms make Mojo unhappy.)