Te Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy Animal Studies Repository 2008 An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: Te True Cost of Animal Agribusiness Te Humane Society of the United States Follow this and additional works at: htp://animalstudiesrepository.org/ hsus_reps_environment_and_human_health Part of the Agribusiness Commons, Animal Studies Commons, and the Other International and Area Studies Commons Recommended Citation Te Humane Society of the United States, "An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: Te True Cost of Animal Agribusiness" (2008). HSUS Reports: Farm Industry Impacts on Environment and Human Health. 13. htp://animalstudiesrepository.org/hsus_reps_environment_and_human_health/13 Tis Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the Animal Studies Repository. For more information, please contact Factory Farming in America The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness for Rural Communities, Public Health, Families, Farmers, the Environment, and Animals An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 1 The Humane Society of the United States is the nation‟s largest animal protection organization—backed by 10 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty. On the Web at www.humanesociety.org. An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 2 Swarms of black flies keeping children indoors. Families cancelling Sunday picnics. Property values falling when factory farms are close to homes. Asthma, headaches, sore throats, diarrhea, and burning eyes. Our land, air, and water polluted by manure, chemicals, and toxins. Workers put at risk. Farmers forced into corporate contracts or out of business altogether. Animals languishing in filthy, cramped cages, crates, pens, and sheds. An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 3 One of the most important issues confronting agricultural communities in the United States— perhaps the most important issue—is the future structure of the livestock industry. The issue is whether animals will be raised on diversified, sustainable family farms or produced in large, energy- and capital-intensive confinement facilities such as factory farms that concentrate the animals and their wastes in vast quantities and concentrate economic control in the hands of absentee investors. At stake is the prosperity and health of rural communities, access to economic opportunity for farm and rural families, the future of this country’s rural environment and far-reaching questions of food safety and affordability. Family farmers and other rural residents are upset, angry and fighting back as factory farms pollute air, water and soil; uproot social structures; drive farmers out of business; and threaten the quality of life. Excerpted from Brad Trom‟s opinion-editorial entitled, “Say no to factory farms: health and prosperity of rural communities at stake,” printed on February 28, 2005, in The Grand Forks Herald. An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 4 introduction. The landscape of American agriculture has changed dramatically since the 1950s. Across the country, independent, family farms have been pushed aside by industrial animal agribusiness corporations that intensively confine tens if not hundreds of thousands—even millions—of animals. Factory farms not only jeopardize the welfare of the animals, but damage communities, public health, the environment, and livelihoods—all for cheap meat, eggs, and milk. But what is the true cost of today‟s animal agribusiness? And who is really paying for it? $3.78 for 2 pounds of chicken thighs, $1.49 for a pound of ground beef, $3.99 for a gallon of milk, $2.59 for a 1 carton of eggs, $3.50 for ½ pound of Atlantic cod, and $2.49 for 1 pound of pork chops. These supermarket prices may seem like a bargain to some consumers, but these prices don‟t include the high costs exacted by the 2 many systematic abuses of industrial animal production. Increasingly, opponents of factory farms are speaking out—locally, state-wide, nationally, and around the world. They include organizations advocating for family farms, environmental preservation, public health, food safety, and farm animal welfare, as well as individuals and families who have been forced to live near these animal factories and are taking a stand, collectively and independently, to say, “Enough!” An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 5 When Tom Greene agreed to grow chickens for ConAgra, Inc. eleven years ago, he thought it would be the fulfillment of a longtime fantasy to make his living working his own land. He and his wife, Ruth, had just bought the 90-acre farm they had dreamed about as a young couple 20 years before…. The chicken contract is an MBA’s dream: the suppliers’ costs are more or less fixed, while farmers assume the risks—disease, weather, and nature—related to raising the birds. Some people refer to the farmers as animal babysitters. “They are merely company employees…but without benefits.” “It’s like being a gerbil in a cage,” says Rickey Gray, an assistant to Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner, Lester Spell, Jr. “The growers are going as fast as they can, but they’re not getting anywhere. All in all, it’s like a modern day sharecropping system.” Excerpted from Karen Charman‟s article entitled, “Down on the farm: modern day sharecroppers—the dismal future of farming,” published on January 23, 2002. www.tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/5036.html An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 6 from farms to factories. Across the United States, nearly 10 billion land animals are raised and killed each year for meat, eggs, and 3,4 milk. More than half of all confined farm animals by weight—54%—are concentrated in just 5% of the 5 country‟s industrial animal production farms. The realities of today‟s animal agribusiness practices are a far cry from the ones embraced by the small, family farms that once supplied the marketplace. Industrialization and raising unprecedented numbers of farm animals have resulted in the intensive confinement of these chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, and other animals—and the intensive problems faced by those who must contend with the impacts of factory farming. Replacing Family Farms Factory farms have made it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for independent family farmers to survive as they are unable to compete against these massive corporate operations. Many once-independent farmers are 6 resorting to contractual arrangements with large agribusiness corporations, raising the companies‟ animals until slaughter. “Contract growing” now makes up much of the factory farming industry, particularly in the pig and 6 poultry sectors. By 1999, contract production accounted for more than 60% of U.S. pig production and 35% of 7 6 cattle production. Today, poultry production is now almost entirely contract-based. Among sociologists and those who advocate for the rights of contract growers, a great deal of attention is devoted to “the general well-being of contractees (operators) and their families given their asymmetrical relationship in bargaining power with agribusiness firms” and “the bargaining power of external agribusiness is 8 likely to result in a greater of share of risks and costs of production borne by contractees and their families.” The corporations supply company-owned animals, feed, and transportation, but the growers, who likely own the land, must construct company-approved buildings in which they might invest hundreds of thousands of 9,10 dollars. They are also typically responsible for managing the animals‟ waste, so the companies may have no financial obligation to control or rectify pollution from these facilities that are set up according to the 11,12 corporations‟ own specifications. This transformation from traditional animal agriculture to a corporate system places farmers “in a food-production chain that, on both sides…involves some of the world‟s most 13 powerful and concentrated industries.” Robert Taylor, an agricultural economist at Auburn University, has reportedly found that chicken grower contracts are predominantly deceptive. The contract‟s base pay, for example, may be much higher than the An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 7 actual pay most contract growers will earn over the life of the agreement, with the what is a factory farm? contract‟s proffered net income failing to account for economic depreciation or other 14 costs. A 2005 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article stated: “Critics like Wes Sims, president Although the terms “factory farm,” “concentrated animal of the Waco-based Texas Farmers Union, say feeding operation (CAFO),” and “animal feeding operation that predictions of [contract] growers‟ earnings are overstated, that they risk being cut off from (AFO)” are often used interchangeably, “factory farm” is a fresh flocks for refusing costly upgrades general term that refers to industrial animal production demanded by companies, and that their heavy farm debt ensures that they renew unfair facilities, while “AFO” and “CAFO” have precise legal contracts, creating a system akin to modern- 15 definitions. An AFO is a facility in which crops and vegetation day serfdom.” are not sustained during the normal growing season, and Financial considerations are indeed significant land animals are confined for 45 days or more within a 12- concerns in the contract grower system. A month period.28,29 As described by the U.S. Environmental 2001 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Protection Agency (EPA), “AFOs congregate animals, feed, completed by Farmers‟ Legal Action Group found that 75% of those surveyed felt that manure and urine, dead animals, and production operations entering broiler chicken production had been a on a small land area.”30 The EPA estimates that there are good decision, yet only 35% said they would 16 approximately 450,000 AFOs in the United States. 31 recommend the same decision to others. According to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), more than 71% of all contract chicken growers earn below poverty- An AFO may be designated as a CAFO in one of three ways: 17 level wages. An August 2007 article in the (1) by meeting the definitional requirements for a “large” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette notes, “A modern CAFO;32 (2) by meeting the definitional requirements for a chicken house with 20,000 chickens could gross about $5,000 per house per flock…But “medium” CAFO;32 and (3) through special designation by the all the expenses from the business are taken out of that gross income, and for older chicken relevant EPA Regional Administrator or State Director upon houses that don‟t convert energy as efficiently determining “that it is a significant contributor of pollutants to as newer ones, turning a net profit is waters of the United State.s”33 increasingly difficult. That‟s particularly significant now that the price of propane, natural gas and electricity—all used to control the fledgling chicks‟ environment—has The definitional requirements of both large and medium 18 skyrocketed.” CAFOs include minimum numbers of confined animals. A In 2005, an article in the The Texas Observer partial list of these numbers appears in Table 1. To qualify as described how great the pressures exerted by a medium CAFO, a facility must also discharge pollutants into agribusiness corporations on farmers can be. One couple was reportedly only given a single U.S. waters “through a man-made ditch, flushing system, or afternoon to accept or reject the terms of a other similar man-made device” or directly into U.S. waters contract—after having constructed four chicken sheds and assuming more than “which originate outside of and pass over, across, or through 19 $900,000 of debt. According to the couple, the facility or otherwise come into direct contact with the “Once they have those houses built, they‟ve 19 animals confined in the operation3.4” got you…They‟re in control.” After interviewing 11 growers who had entered into contracts with Sanderson Farms, the journalist An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 8 concluded: Many were fearful of retribution; those still under contract talked only on the condition that their names and identifying details not be published. All, however, described the same scenario: The company, working closely with five local banks, requires prospective contractors to obtain loans, often in excess of $400,000, to finance construction of chicken houses. Contractors put up their farms as collateral to secure loans. With their land at stake, they are then subject to total company control. They tell of low pay for long hours, intimidation, manipulation of wages, and health problems that some blame on 19 exposure to additives in the chicken feed. Contract growers may also lose their contracts despite holding up their end of the agreement. After borrowing loans in excess of $12,000 to make improvements to their chicken sheds and receiving numerous letters of commendation from Perdue for two years, one family‟s contract was suddenly terminated with company 20 officials reportedly blaming a slow economy. Despite these consistent accounts of problems plaguing the contract grower system, Laura Klauke of Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has reportedly noted that the “strong language of the confidentiality clauses [in grower contracts] has left growers voiceless and perpetuates a public lack of 20 information about the unfairness embedded in the poultry contract relationship.” Writes journalist Karen Charman: “Most chicken growers are reluctant to talk publicly for fear of reprisals…They say the corporations that control the chicken industry hook new growers on the promise of making a good, steady income at home. Instead, growers find themselves trapped in debt-laden relationships that turn them into serfs at the mercy of the companies that make a fortune on their backs…Nobody knows how many poultry growers have lost their contracts because only the companies have that information, says Mary Clouse, who [formerly ran]…the Contract Agriculture/Poultry Project at the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). Poultry companies say the number 21 is very low.” According to the U.S. Environmental RAFI‟s efforts to improve the contract grower system include distribution of its 22 publication, Questions to Ask Before Signing a Poultry Contract, and working Protection Agency, 23 with Hmong farmers who emigrated from Southeast Asia. The director of the in June 2006, Hmong American Community, Chukou Thao, states, “Farming is an important part of Hmong culture…It is a source of community pride and self-esteem, and a way to there were 24 make a living.” Unfortunately, like other farmers in the United States, the Hmong approximately have encountered the pitfalls of the contract grower system. 18,800 CAFOs in According to a 2004 article in The Wall Street Journal, “Profits so far have been 37 the United States. slim, Hmong farmers say. Mr. Lee says a flock of broilers typically brings in $40,000 to his farm. But after costs such as utilities, heat and the mortgage, a 25 paycheck for two months might register at $5,000, he says, so „you barely survive.‟” Describing another family‟s experience, the newspaper Hmong Today reported in 2005: “One couple who had been considering investing their retirement savings in a chicken farm decided to look for other opportunities when they learned they would not really be independent after signing a poultry growing contract. They learned that the company would decide when they would get chicks, how many chicks they would get, and what they should feed the chicks. It was the fact that the company could change the contract, or simply stop bringing new chicks, that 26 convinced these elders to look for a less risky retirement investment.” For individuals in the community, concern over the decline in independent family farms—coupled with the pressures of reduced quality of life and potential resultant socioeconomic disadvantages when factory farms 27 move in—can even contribute to CAFO-related post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. An HSUS Report: Factory Farming in America: The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness 9