Lynn and Dean Henning are guiding me on a tour of the CAFOs of Lenawee County. It’s a cold morning in early spring. The landscape is leached of color. The ponds are thick with ice. An occasional snowflake flutters from wooly clouds.

“When they spray manure in the winter, sometimes you can see it hanging frozen from the irrigation booms,” says Lynn from the back seat. “We call them ‘poopsicles.’”

“What’s it like here when spring arrives?” I ask, imagining a painterly transformation of the countryside with grass, foliage, blossoms, songbirds.

“Springtime smells really bad,” she answers.

Dean is driving. He is silver haired, in his late fifties. He has cut back on farm work since suffering a heart attack and a subsequent quadruple by-pass surgery a few years ago. We travel by “Henning Hwy.,” named after his grandfather, the first homeowner to bring electricity to the neighborhood. Dean still farms a few hundred acres of corn and soybeans, manages a few hundred acres of forestland, and maintains a massive garden that produces a prodigious quantities of tomatoes, sweet corn, and other heirloom vegetables for family and friends.

I already know Lynn Henning as the anti-CAFO warrior with waves of white hair who won the prestigious 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize. Lynn and I have met  a few times as fellow conference speakers. She and Dean have been kind enough to let me tag along on one of their thrice-weekly surveys of creeks and drainages, scouting for discharges from the dozen or so dairy CAFOs spaced at five-mile intervals around their area.

With its vegetable, tree fruit, grain and livestock production, Michigan boasts the country’s most diverse agricultural output next to California. But Lenawee County is corn and soybean country. Its fields follow the rolling contours of the land. Broad fields are interwoven between small belts of trees and complex drainages that carve through the sloping lands, sometimes flattening out in low-lying wetlands. This is precisely the challenge of concentrating livestock in this area: how to keep the waste from running off fields into the many surface and underground drainage systems that feed creeks, streams, river arteries and eventually flow into the now mightily polluted Lake Erie.

Our first stop is Hartland Farms, a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) with 1,000 dairy cows and 2,000 acres of cropland. As Lynn rattles off the complicated web of partnerships that make up its ownership, it becomes immediately obvious to me why a CAFO is so aptly referred to as a “factory farm.” The buildings are sheathed in steel. Cows are nowhere to be seen. They are housed inside by the hundreds in linear stalls, moving only to lie down or take their turns at the electronic milking parlor.

Waste exits one end of the facility the way a vertical smokestack might release pollution skyward. Instead of smoke, the CAFO pipe spews concentrated liquid animal waste—rich in nitrogen, phosphorous, ammonia and other chemicals and laden with bacteria such as fecal coliform and E. coli. The waste is temporarily stored in nearby holding lagoons that are bermed into ponds as long as football fields and deep enough to contain millions of gallons of waste. Waste off-gasses into the atmosphere that floats across the surrounding community. Waste is spread on nearby fields or pumped directly into underground irrigation pipes beneath fields.

“They plaster it on 8 inches thick and spray right up to the roadsides,” says Lynn.

“In liquid form,” adds Dean, “it doesn’t stay on the ground too long.”

The image of 100-acre fields smeared with CAFO manure more than a half a foot deep is nauseating. In fact, I can see the brown green shadow from a recent ground application glistening between rows of stubble left from last year’s corn harvest.

Dean and Lynn make the rounds of potential discharge sites. A drain can be a simple grass-lined gulley that moves through the low point of a field. It could be a culvert that spans beneath a road. Eventually the water moves onto successively larger waterways, like the South Branch of the River Raisin.

In order to monitor what is happening to their community, the Hennings, along with other members of the Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan, have become citizen scientists. Armed with a variety of hand-held devices, volunteers can monitor for nutrients, chemicals, bacteria, antibiotics and biological oxygen demand. Samples are sent to a lab if results indicate potentially dangerous contaminants. Any alarming findings are officially reported to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Rural agricultural conflicts like these are not just the result of too many humans coming up against too few resources. These fights have been going on for a very long time. Way back in 1610, English landholder William Aldred claimed that his neighbor, Thomas Benton’s pig sty, was sited too close to his home. Aldred argued that the livestock operation was violating his rights as a community member.

Upon hearing the case, King Charles I’s court ruled in Aldred’s favor, deciding that no one has “the right to right to maintain a structure upon his own land, which, by reason of disgusting smells, loud or unusual noises, thick smoke, noxious vapors, the jarring of machinery, or the unwarrantable collection of flies, renders the occupancy of adjoining property dangerous, intolerable, or even uncomfortable to its tenants.” In other words, it’s against common law to stink up or foul the neighborhood.

Four centuries later, it is still to the courts where citizens must turn when their air, water, and health are violated by intensive concentrations of animals.

We make a stop at what looks like a recently constructed CAFO facility. There are four white hangar-like barns. Sandwiched between the four barns is a fancier brick building that must serve as the main office. But something is amiss. There are no trucks in the lot. There’s no one around at all. The mailbox is tilted at a funny angle. The place is abandoned. Apparently, the CAFO went belly up. It’s been taken over by the bank and is for sale.

Factory farms, I learn, are a relatively new phenomenon in Lenawee County. The first mega-dairy arrived in 1999 as the Hudson area became a target of the Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development syndicate. This family, with Dutch origins, is now legendary across the Midwest for fabricating an elaborate Ponzi scheme that started over 90 mega-dairies, mainly with investments from European families they conned into coming to America.

Facilities were often never completed or were simply unprofitable. Environmental violations were routine. Even as dairies failed, Vreba-Hoff continued to attract more investors, expanding further into rural communities. Many investors were forced into bankruptcy. Creditors lost millions. The CAFO conmen took the money and skipped town.

“Small town drama,” says Lynn.

Indeed. The more you look behind the curtain, this CAFO model becomes a serious shell game. Pack as many animals on a particular property as an agency will authorize with a pollution permit (if the agencies even require one.) Convince local governments to build new roads and other infrastructure. Rake in hundreds of thousands in US Department of Agriculture subsidies to help pay for waste management costs, and on top of that, take advantage of feed subsidies, taxpayer supported crop insurance and disaster payments for your croplands. Degrade the health of the neighborhood with waste emissions and stench, slowly driving homeowners out, then buy up their devalued properties in the process.

“They use manure as a weapon,” says Dean.

We are passing through the half-boarded up farming town of Medina. It’s a victim of what can only be described as economic undevelopment.

“Why don’t people fight back?” I ask.

“People are afraid to pick fights,” says Lynn. “It’s like the town in A Civil Action. People have lived here forever. Many are convinced that they need this system, that they’ll earn money renting their land to the CAFOs for field applications.”

“Even when that waste damages their soil and lowers their yields,” adds Dean.

“People will drop a note in the mailbox or take me aside every once in a while and thank me for speaking out,” says Lynn.

I think about the twisted and somewhat tragic logic at work: an unhealthy food production system that people somehow accept as inevitable. A system where many of the real costs of production—effects on human health, impacts on shared water resources, basic costs of feed and waste management—are passed off on local communities and federal taxpayers. I ask Lynn and Dean to talk about the words and terminology which industry uses to describe these events I am seeing.

“They always speak of ‘odor,” says Dean, “never of toxic pollution.”

“Waste runoff and lagoon overflows after heavy rains is always ‘storm water,” says Lynn.

“Waste running into the creeks is a ‘discharge,” says Dean.

“Lagoon waste spread across the farm fields is ‘sediment,” says Lynn. “But it’s never dry and it’s not sediment. And underground pipes that drain straight into the creeks are ‘sub-irrigation systems.’”We stop at an infamous site where a 20-acre wetland was filled with CAFO waste a few years back.

“The EPA was here to see it,” says Lynn.

I begin to fear that in my zeal to document this tour with photos I’ve been breathing nasty air. It’s no doubt on my boots and clothes and perhaps in my respiratory system.

“What if you could buy up one of these defunct CAFOs and turn it into a demonstration farm for a new kind of pasture-based, healthy agriculture?” I ask.

“I wish we could,” says Lynn.

Dean describes a farm. “A 640-acre section is a square mile,” he says. “You would want to keep at least 160 acres in woodland. The rest could be fenced off so that fields could be rotated between pasture and row crops. At two acres per cow, you could have a diversified farming operation,” he says.  “This model could be very effective on smaller operations.”

I can almost imagine a new era of integrated agriculture catching on in Lenawee County. As someone once said, it’s hope that makes us human.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

“Ag gag” laws have been put forth by the meat industry to criminalize the reporting of animal cruelty by anyone — journalists, activists, or whistleblowers. They are intended to prohibit the release of videotapes or photographs that document what happens inside factory farms and meat processing facilities, often with the threat of jail time. The real goal of these laws is to “chill” a person’s resolve to make public any illegal behavior such as beating or torturing captive animals, often using the police to seize their materials.

Whistle blower intimidation laws incite the ultimate cynicism about politics. For instance, the California bill is titled, “Duty to Report Animal Cruelty,” when in fact, its true aim is to squelch dissemination about the brutality of factory farming. If passed, AB 343 would require would-be whistle blowers to submit any visual evidence to law enforcement within 48 hours of taking a photograph or video or be subject up to a $500 fine. It also encourages the submission of any proof to the owner of the animals.

This would effectively force reporters to forfeit their anonymity. A worker might face retaliation from an employer. A journalist might not have time to adequately pursue a lead. Offending operators would be alerted that they are under suspicion. Meanwhile, industry maintains the appearance that it cares about animal welfare.

Big agricultural lobbies are desperate to avoid the kind of public relations disaster that befell the Hallmark Meat Packing Company. In 2008, secret cameras showed downer dairy cows being chained, dragged, and electrically prodded to slaughter at Hallmark’s facility in Chino, California. Such illegal practices were exposed by a disillusioned plant worker and the Humane Society of the United States. The USDA’s Commodity Procurement Branch, which distributes beef to the National School Lunch Program, was one of Hallmark’s biggest customers. The ensuing news coverage resulted in the largest recall of meat products in history and the ultimate closure of the plant.

Kansas, Montana, and North Dakota already have laws making it punishable to photograph an agricultural operation without consent of the owner. Utah, Missouri, and Iowa passed ag gag laws last year. In Iowa, where recent undercover videos have shown blatant animal abuse at egg and hog facilities, a first offense can land you in jail for up to a year. A second offense is considered an aggravated misdemeanor with up to two years jail time.

What’s happening in California is part of a nationwide effort. Already this year, whistleblower suppression laws similar to California’s have been filed in Arkansas, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming.

The timing of this legislative push is extremely troubling. The federal government’s budget sequestration could significantly reduce funding for USDA meat inspectors. The system is already challenged to keep up with continual changes in production lines that process animals at ever-increasing speeds. That means even as the government has less resources for oversight, industry is working to suppress whistle blowing.

Why is the meat industry on the defensive? Even perfectly legal practices are often distasteful to the public. In the face of rising public awareness about genetically modified crops, contaminated eggs, downer animals, etc., the meat industry has been jolted into anti-democratic tactics to muzzle its critics.

Newly elected California Assemblyman, Jim Patterson (23rd District), introduced AB 343 to the state legislature with the backing of the California Cattlemen’s Beef Association. While it might appease the powerful California meat lobby, this law would go against the will of California’s majority. Most citizens want animals to be raised more humanely. California’s Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, passed with 63 percent of the vote. Restrictions on animal cages are slated to go into effect January 1, 2015.

When government fails to fulfill its regulatory oversight, citizens — including the news media — often have no choice but to become their own watchdogs. There is a noble American tradition of journalism related to food production concerns. At the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle described appalling conditions in Chicago’s slaughterhouse district. Its publication greatly influenced new laws to regulate food safety and meat processing. Now is the time to turn the tide against a national assault on greater transparency and meaningful reform in the food system.

This post previously appeared on the Huffington Post.

Yet it seems that some in the world of pork production, and their hired PR frontmen, may indeed have rocks in their heads. How else can you explain the behavior of companies like Tyson Foods that continue to defend locking pigs in two-foot-wide metal gestation crates where the 500-pound animals can’t even turn around for essentially their entire lives?

And a PR firm associated with Tyson took to Pork Network’s web site this past week to implore pork producers not give up on immobilizing sows, but rather to fight against The Humane Society of the United States by just saying “no” to improving animal welfare.

Inexplicably, Pork Network published this irresponsible column while refusing to publish a rebuttal to it from a major pork buyer that’s getting gestation crates out of its supply chain. What makes the situation even odder is that Pork Network has already editorialized itself on the issue, telling producers to stop defending the extreme confinement practice, noting: “[O]n the issue of gestation-sow stalls, at least, it’s increasingly apparent that you will lose the battle.”

Indeed, nearly every major national restaurant and grocery chain in the country has announced their opposition to gestation crates and plans to phase them out of their supply chains. Major pork producers like Smithfield, Cargill and Hormel also are publicly moving away from this particularly inhumane practice. Just this past week, Canada’s second-largest pork producer, Olymel, announced it will phase out the gestation crates, too, based on demands from its major customers. (Another Canadian pork giant made a similar announcement six years ago.) Meanwhile, many family farmers have been raising pigs without the use of gestation crates for generations.

The future is so clear that Meat & Poultry magazine wrote, “This is no longer a debate about the viability of gestation crates in hog production, but rather a discussion about how producers will respond to meet expectations.” And why Meatingplace said of the gestation crate issue: “Game over…The move [is] inevitable.”

Not surprisingly, the ag industry’s own polling data confirm what common sense would tell us: Americans don’t want social, intelligent animals to be locked in cramped cages and lined up like parked cars for months on end. That’s one reason more than 80 percent of respondents in a Farm Bureau-funded survey don’t find keeping sows in crates to be humane. Or why only 10 percent of pork producers in a new National Pork Board survey said they plan on using the crates in the future.

Should pork producers continue their transition away from this outdated and nearly universally denounced practice? Should they heed the marketplace? Or should they listen to a PR firm encouraging farmers to go backward on their progress and refuse to meet marketplace demands?

Perhaps they should listen to animal scientists like Temple Grandin, Ph.D., who are very clear with their viewpoint, saying “We’ve got to treat animals right, and gestation stalls have got to go.” Or even do something that every businessperson in America is taught from day one –listen to their customers. Choosing to ignore them may just be the epitome of having rocks in your head.

This post originally appeared on Triple Pundit.

In the U.S. pork sector, two-thirds of hog production comes from producers working under contract with mega-processors like Smithfield and Cargill. Processing is increasingly automated and farmers feel the pressures of high volume, low cost meat production. In confined animal feeding operations or “CAFOs”, pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in superbug-breeding warehouses, crowded with pens and gestation crates as far as the eye can see. Hogs are raised for maximum weight gain and routinely given antibiotics to speed up growth and prevent the very kinds of diseases that spread when so many animals live in such close, unsanitary and stressful quarters.

The pork industry is not alone. Did you know that millions of pounds of antibiotics are used in U.S. factory farms every year?  Sales of antibiotics for use in livestock production reached record highs in 2011, with four times the amount of antibiotics going to chickens, pigs, and cows  that aren’t sick than to people who are—the vast majority used essentially as a substitute for better management practices.

But the really scary part is what happens next. Fed to animals at low levels day after day, the antibiotics kill the weakest bacteria, leaving behind the bacteria that are hardest to kill. It’s like millions of animals are not “finishing their course” of antibiotics, the way our doctors instruct us to do when they prescribe antibiotics to us.

These drug-resistant bacteria multiply and become “superbugs” that can’t be knocked out by ordinary medicines. Superbugs spread from feedlots on workers, through water, air and on meat, putting millions of people at risk of getting seriously ill. If a child catches one of these, a simple ear infection could put her in the hospital – or worse. At the same time, few new antibiotics are being developed. No less a public health authority than the Director General of the World Health Organization recently warned about a “post-antibiotic era”, in which things “as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill.”

But there is a silver lining. Actually, there are thousands of them. Thousands of farmers from coast to coast are showing that there’s a better, more sustainable, and profitable way to produce meat without reliance on antibiotics. Today, I’m so proud that NRDC is honoring one such farmer: Russ Kremer, winner of the 2013 Growing Green Award in the Food Producer Category. Russ and these other food leaders give us new models of hope.

Known as the “Pope of Pork” (read Barry Estabrook’s feature “The New Pork Gospel” to find out why), Russ is a fifth-generation pork producer and now a driving force in the movement for more sustainably-raised, antibiotic-free livestock. But it wasn’t always this way.

Notice: this is a pretty terrific story.

Fresh from college in the early 1980’s, Russ opened a CAFO in Missouri with the goal of increasing his pig yield. His animals were tightly confined and injected with antibiotics day after day. Then, one day in 1989, Russ was gored by one of his Yorkshire boars and contracted an antibiotic-resistant infection that sent him to the hospital to fight for his life. The same, aggressive drug-resistant superbug that had been bred on his farm because of his production methods nearly killed him.

Realizing the dangers of how he had been raising pigs, Russ made a big change. He exterminated his herd and started fresh on a 150-acre farm in Frankenstein, Missouri, raising diversified heirloom pigs. Taking lessons from his grandfather’s generation, Russ designed a natural feeding program: free of antibiotics, meat byproducts, steroids, or any unnecessary chemicals or additives. He built pig housing that incorporated deep bedding, natural ventilation, and lots of space for his hogs to move around, as well as paddocks to rotationally graze pigs on meadows and woodlands.

Today, Russ raises livestock in a sustainable, holistic, and diversified operation that prioritizes animal welfare, human health and ecology. Here’s what life on Russ’s farm looks like:

Russ is proud that his pigs have been drug-free for over 25 years. According to Russ, after weaning, his pigs survive at a rate of nearly 99 percent and rarely get sick. He’s also virtually eliminated the $16,000 he was previously spending each year in veterinarian and animal treatment-related costs.

But Russ didn’t stop with his own farm. He was determined to prove that this type of sustainable farming could be profitable and healthier for other pork producers too. He organized the Ozark Mountain Pork Cooperative, a farmer-owned pork cooperative that now includes 52 farm families and created a small, community-based processing plant in the Ozarks. The original 35 co-op farm families all went through major conversions, transitioning from the antibiotic-dependent CAFO-based model they, like Russ, had been using to raise their livestock without antibiotics. The co-op, with their brands Heritage Acres and Fork in the Road, has built a profitable, vertically coordinated production, marketing, and distribution system, and cultivated relationships with major retailers and restaurant chains across the country. Didn’t I tell you it’s a terrific story?

While antibiotics are essential to modern medicine, they are not essential to livestock production. Russ and his fellow farmers are living proof that we can produce meat in ways that don’t require massive reliance on these precious miracle drugs.

Here’s Russ in his own words on his Growing Green award win:

“I share this NRDC honor with farmers who have had the courage to buck dangerous conventional production trends by transforming their raising operations into models of hope. These producers are living proof that we can grow profitable and sustainable food production systems that put health first and preserve the efficacy of life-saving medicine, while also treating animals humanely.”  

The honor is all ours, Russ. Congratulations from all of us here at NRDC!

This post originally appeared on the NRDC Switchboard.

As a result, the sad but unsurprising reality is that those who fight to protect their families and communities from the devastating public health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts of industrial livestock operations often lose. But sometimes they win. And every so often, they win a great, monumental victory, proving that despite the wealth and power of its proponents, the industrial food system is not above the law–and not beyond reform.

Just before Thanksgiving, a victory of this magnitude occurred in Jo Daviess County, Illinois. It happened quietly, receiving little national coverage by the mainstream news media, and largely overlooked by good food advocates distracted by the holiday shuffle. But we all should’ve been singing about this from the rooftops – and though it’s no longer breaking news, I’d be remiss if I didn’t climb up onto the virtual shingles of the internet to spread the word. The unprecedented win: a small group of concerned citizens called Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards (HOMES) successfully prevented industrial dairy magnate A. J. Bos from building what would have been the state’s largest dairy – despite the fact that construction of the facility had already been more than halfway completed.

The significance of this event was perhaps best articulated by Danielle Diamond, attorney for the Illinois Citizens for Clean Air & Water (ICCAW) and executive director of the Socially Responsible Agricultural Project (SRAProject), who said of the victory:

This is a true David and Goliath story. Never before in my work with communities trying to protect themselves from the devastating impacts of industrial animal factories have I seen a group of people successfully stop construction after groundbreaking. HOMES’ commitment to stand up for their rights against all odds and against one of the most powerful corporate agribusiness industries in the country will inspire others standing in their shoes.

Why this matters: An overview of industrial livestock operations and why they make terrible neighbors

We’ve written extensively about industrial livestock production on Ecocentric, and you can find more details about the issue on Sustainable Table, but here’s a quick summary:

Industrial livestock operations, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) or factory farms, are large-scale livestock facilities that confine hundreds (and in some cases, hundreds of thousands) of animals in cramped conditions without access to pasture. Despite the fact that these operations are known to damage the environment, threaten human health, degrade surrounding communities and compromise animal welfare, the US continues to rely on them to produce the vast majority of its meat, dairy and eggs.

This situation persists because subsidies, negative externalities and a variety of additional economic market failures enable industrial livestock operations to generate large profits for a handful of powerful agribusiness corporations controlled by individuals who don’t have to live next door.

People who do have to live next door suffer the harmful health effects of exposure to pollutants such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, VOCs, particulate matter and a host of pathogens. They witness the contamination of groundwater and surface waters and the degradation of the surrounding environment. They experience plummeting property values, declining local economies and the disintegration of community ties.

In fact, living near an industrial livestock operation is similar to exactly the same as living near an enormous cesspool (because, you might be horrified to note, these facilities often store animal waste in uncovered, multi-acre pits called manure lagoons). And nobody wants to live near a place like that. This is why rural communities have fought (and continue to fight) so hard to prevent industrial livestock operations from being constructed nearby.

The challenge facing these communities is particularly urgent because CAFOs are a bit like cockroaches or bedbugs: they tend to multiply quickly, and once they set up shop, it’s really tough to get rid of them. In fact, given the current pro-industry regulatory climate, even if a CAFO spills millions of gallons of waste or causes an outbreak of foodborne illness that sickens hundreds and prompts the recall of half a billion eggs due to egregious violations of basic sanitary standards, the facility won’t actually be shut down; in most cases, regulatory violations result in little more than a slap-on-the-wrist fine and a stern admonishment to do better next time.

The Traditions Dairy Saga

Residents of rural Illinois are all too familiar with the ills of industrial livestock production (see the distribution of facilities by county on this map). The state has a history of catering to agribusiness, making a concerted effort to attract industrial livestock producers by rolling out the welcome mat and rubberstamping CAFO permits.

Though the Illinois livestock sector has long been dominated by hog production, in 2007, California dairyman A. J. Bos switched up the species, filing a Notice of Intent to Construct Traditions Dairy, which was to consist of two 5,500-cow CAFOs located less than a mile from Nora, Illinois. Industrial livestock operations are never a good idea, but the Traditions plan was particularly ill-advised and irresponsible due to the karst bedrock underlying the site.

The high porosity of the karst would dramatically increase the likelihood that waste from the dairy would contaminate surface and groundwater (including drinking water resources). This risk was further increased by the fact that the CAFOs would collectively generate more than 200 million gallons of waste annually, which would be stored in several 14-acre manure lagoons, one of which was to be sited directly on top of a spring-fed creek leading into the Apple River.

Given the threat of groundwater contamination (the legitimacy of which was confirmed by expert testimony from the Illinois State Geological Survey), along with concerns about the facility’s potential adverse impacts on air quality, public health, tourism and the overall quality of life enjoyed by community members, the Jo Daviess County Board voted to reject Bos’ CAFO application in February 2008.

You’d think the story would end here, lending itself to a neat summary: Out-of-state megadairy tycoon makes irresponsible attempt to construct hazardous industrial facility; elected officials recognize the potential threat to human health and the environment, and, acting in accordance with public sentiment, vote to reject the construction permit; megadairy tycoon abandons reckless plan; citizens of Jo Daviess live happily ever after.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, Jo Daviess residents were forced to spend the next five years struggling to protect their community from a nightmare industrial dairy backed by serious money and supported by the state’s pro-CAFO regulatory agencies. You can read the full story on the HOMES website, but here are the highlights:

In May 2008, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) disregarded the county board’s decision, ignored the threat of groundwater contamination and exerted its authority to grant the CAFO construction permit. Four days later, HOMES filed a lawsuit against Bos and the IDOA to stop construction. But so confident was A. J. Bos in his ability to steamroll the CAFO through any legal or regulatory hurdles that he began construction despite the pending lawsuit and the fact that he’d yet to secure all permits necessary to complete the project. Then Bos spent an estimated $1.2 million purchasing 26,000 tons of corn silage (used as feed for dairy cows), which he piled up on a concrete slab at the construction site.

Long, convoluted, infuriating story short, a judge issued a temporary injunction in October 2008, forcing Bos to halt construction. But the temporary injunction didn’t hold the project off for long; in 2009, the trial court entered an order in favor of A.J. Bos denying HOMES’ request for a permanent injunction.

In the meantime, the uncovered silage began to ferment, creating an acidic leachate that seeped from the CAFO site, polluting nearby surface waters and likely groundwater. HOMES and other activists diligently monitored these illegal discharges and documented major water pollution events, the most notable of which caused a tributary to the Apple River to turn purple (seriously; see photos from HOMES).

Meanwhile, in response to a Clean Water Act Section 308 complaint made by HOMES and ICCAW, the US EPA demanded waste management information for the operation and mandated that Bos conduct a geophysical dye-tracing study to determine whether the facility’s waste storage system would cause contamination of the aquifer. Bos ignored this request, ultimately prompting the US Department of Justice to threaten federal enforcement for noncompliance with the US EPA investigation. But it wasn’t until the purple river incident that the Illinois Attorney General filed charges against the dairy, which, two years later, resulted in the settlement in which Bos finally agreed to abandon the CAFO plan and sell the land.

Hope and Indignation

It’s reprehensible that A. J. Bos would propose construction of 68 acres of manure storage – including four 14-acre open cesspools - within a community, and even more outrageous that he would choose to build the facility on fractured bedrock that all but guaranteed rapid contamination of the underlying aquifer. It’s preposterous that a regulatory agency would disregard this risk, dismiss a local government’s rejection of the proposal and issue a permit for construction of an industrial facility that posed a clear threat to public health and the environment.

It’s mind-boggling that Bos could disregard a US EPA mandate, and illegally discharge pollutants for years before he was forced to abandon the CAFO plan and clean up his mess. And it’s heartbreaking to know that the Traditions Dairy closure is so unusual; in most cases, when someone decides to construct an industrial livestock operation, it ends up being built despite community opposition and, in some instances, despite the facility’s incompliance with existing regulations.

Indeed, the fact that A. J. Bos felt confident enough to spend millions of dollars on the initial construction phases of his CAFO before resolving a legitimate legal challenge or securing all required permits demonstrates both the profound entrenchment of the industrial livestock system and the power of its proponents and allies. But what’s remarkable about the Traditions Dairy case is that despite the long odds, an extremely dedicated, well-organized group of community members was able to successfully defend the public interest.

Ultimately, the tireless efforts of HOMES and its supporters revealed that industrial livestock operations are not inevitable, and that the owners of these facilities are not above the law. So from here on the virtual rooftop, I shout my congratulations to HOMES for this monumental victory, and my gratitude to its members for providing inspiration to all those who will struggle to protect themselves against industrial livestock operations in the future.

This post originally appeared on Ecocentric.

The AAA waxed poetic, calling Harvey’s speech the “crowning glory” of the commercial and extolled the late broadcaster as “legendary.”

One wonders if the Alliance recalls that Paul Harvey was a great advocate; an advocate for ending some of the most abusive practices in animal agriculture—practices the Alliance rigorously defends.

In fact, the Alliance defends practices that are so cruel they’re illegal in many states—partly because of Harvey.

(Oddly, the AAA and the Humane Society of the U.S.—two groups often at great odds—may actually be able to agree to agree on one point: the imagery of the American farmer in the ad was compelling. But the agreement ends there. While The HSUS is working hard every day to end the worst abuses of farm animals, and working with many farmers who are joining with us in calling for an end to confining farm animals in industrialized settings, the AAA works to keep those practices firmly in use.)

Back to the Alliance’s newfound fondness for Paul Harvey: In 2006, Harvey campaigned in favor of Arizona’s Proposition 204, a ballot campaign actively opposed by the Alliance. It prohibited confining pigs and veal calves in tiny crates—cages which immobilize animals for essentially their entire lives. Numerous experts like renowned animal scientist Temple Grandin urge an end to these inhumane practices. And month before the election, Harvey joined those experts, taking to the airwaves to urge Arizonans to support the ban.

“Pigs and calves in confinement must have enough space in their pens to extend their limbs, and to turn around, and to lie down. So on Proposition 204, Arizonans… vote YES,” Harvey pleaded during his October 3^rd broadcast on ABC Radio.

When Arizonans overwhelmingly passed the measure (62 percent to 38 percent), the Alliance derided campaign proponents like Harvey, complaining that its organization was “disappointed that Arizona’s voters were misled” by the Prop 204 advocates.

And after having more than a month to reflect on Harvey’s Arizona victory, the Alliance pondered the next moves of advocates for better treatment of farm animals, asked rhetorically, “Why would they slow down? They are succeeding.”

Indeed, Harvey and the animal protection movement didn’t slow down. Harvey lived to see many more states follow Arizona’s lead. And since his death, even more states have banned various inhumane factory farming practices, always despite the opposition of the Alliance.

After butting heads with them over the extreme confinement of farm animals, how would Harvey feel about this organization now extolling him in memoriam? It’s hard to tell, though I think we can rest assured that he’d be pleased to see the progress against standard, but cruel, animal confinement systems, even if his new admirers are still fighting to keep them as the status quo.

For an overview of the 2012 Ag Gag saga, refer to FIC’s info page.

FIC collaborates with many coalition groups who oppose the legislation, which typically criminalize the individuals who expose wrongdoing rather than the perpetrators of it! Wyoming’s bill – which was introduced mere weeks after undercover video footage revealed inhumane handling of pigs at a Tyson Foods supplier in the state – threatens agriculture whistleblowers with jail time and a fine if they use a recording device on the facility’s premises.

Many similar bills introduced last year that explicitly banned the act of video recording at agricultural operations without consent failed to pass, due to free speech concerns. Others like the one in Iowa (which did pass last year, to our dismay) kept out language involving video, yet included problematic provisions that still enable a culture of silence behind factory farm doors. FIC Director Amanda Hitt authored an op-ed in Iowa’s Cedar Rapids Gazette explaining why its Ag Gag bill is bad for transparency and public health. She also wrote a piece that appeared in Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune calling out that state’s bill (before it, too, sadly became law), which forbids media recording at food facilities but also includes additional provisions to silence would-be whistleblowers.

One such provision is now also included in the Nebraska bill, penalizing workers who gain access to farm facilities by false pretenses or with the broadly defined “intent to disrupt the normal operations” – clearly directed at individuals who utilize video to expose abuse. It would have a chilling effect on industry whistleblowers, even established long-term employees, who witness serious violations and wish to speak up. The bill also requires animal abuse reports to be filed within 12 hours, a provision similar to New Hampshire’s proposed legislation requiring whistleblowers to report animal abuse and turn over videotapes and other documentation within 24 hours or face prosecution.

Why are these provisions problematic? There are a few key reasons, but Big Ag doesn’t choose to recognize them. A blog by the Animal Agriculture Alliance defending these “Farm Protection” bills (as the industry prefers to call them) suggests that if organizations (like the Humane Society of the United States, or HSUS, and Mercy for Animals) who have carried out undercover investigations “truly cared about animal welfare, then they wouldn’t wait one second to report a valid issue to the proper authorities.” These organizations, the commentator argues, would rather let their cameras roll for days or weeks, trading away law enforcement’s ability to intervene early in cases of animal cruelty to create lengthy “propaganda” pieces.

This cynical view, however, ignores the important role that long-form undercover investigations play in combating animal cruelty and the common experience of whistleblowers within the food industry and beyond. Undercover video:

1. Motivates the public to take action
2. Provides a larger body of evidence for law enforcement, and
3. Protects the whistleblower

Preventing all of the above, mandatory reporting laws are simply wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing.

Let’s break these reasons down. First, longer-form investigative pieces compel the public to place direct pressure on violators to take action to prevent animal abuse. Case in point: late USDA veterinarian Dean Wyatt consistently raised concerns of humane handling violations at two processing plants, but his complaints weren’t treated seriously by the government until undercover footage taken by HSUS at the plants was released, sparking public outrage and vindicating him. By then, however, he had been transferred, demoted, and stigmatized for doing his job. Wyatt’s case is one of many showing the routine practice of whistleblower retaliation that makes documenting wrongdoing via video recordings essential.

Second, documenting longer-form investigations provides law enforcement with a larger body of evidence to facilitate prosecution than a report of a single isolated incident. And law enforcement apparently needs all the help and encouragement it can get, as reports of animal cruelty rarely result in prosecution and conviction. According to a report issued by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research, of the 1,369 animal cruelty cases brought in that state between 2004 and 2007, only 182 resulted in conviction. In most cases, the prosecutor decided not to prosecute.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, mandatory reporting laws like those proposed in Nebraska and New Hampshire are intended to, and will in fact, make performing and documenting these valuable longer-form investigations impossible. That’s because, absent meaningful whistleblower protections for the workers required to report violations, which these bills don’t provide, mandatory reporting requirements will make it easy for the company to isolate those who speak up and retaliate against them. If workers are forced to come forward with such evidence in a matter of hours, it eliminates the possibility of them working with outside organizations to both shield their identity and publicize the wrongdoing correctly.

In its 35 years of service, the Government Accountability Project has seen the scenario of corporations smearing the messenger play out too many times to count. FIC Counsel Jeff Gulley states:

Once an employer learns that one of its employees has reported a violation, whether through a public records request or a request for more information by the investigating agency, its knee-jerk reaction is often to immediately isolate or terminate the employee to prevent any further reports. Rarely is an employer’s first response to help law enforcement and take steps to address the underlying misconduct, particularly where the misconduct is profitable. Thus in addition to placing an unfair burden on the worker that witnesses animal abuse, these laws will in fact make it more difficult to uncover and prosecute animal cruelty.

To effectively protect the well being of the animals and the workers, such laws must at minimum include best-practice whistleblower protections. Without rights against retaliation when they disclose inhumane handling and other violations, would-be truth-tellers in the meat and poultry industry have no incentive to follow mandatory reporting laws. Requiring employees to report abuse right away is simply a way for the industry to weed out the “snitches” and prevent the acts of abuse, etc. from becoming public information.

As Bruce Friedrich of Farm Sanctuary put it in the Huffington Post … “New Laws, Same Effect.” Ag Gag bills, in all their forms, strictly aim to suppress whistleblowers. Knowing this, FIC has been working to counter the industry’s misleading arguments and reveal the importance of empowering honest insiders, not gagging them.

This post originally appeared on the Food Integrity Campaign website.

But it wasn’t a joke. Unfortunately, the article was about the pork industry’s response to the latest animal cruelty investigation, an exposé which documented severe and routine abuse on a pig factory farm. Caught on tape were standard pork industry practices such as slamming live pigs against concrete, locking pigs in tiny cages for months on end, cutting parts of their bodies off without painkiller and more.

Just about the time you think that the factory farming industry and its apologists couldn’t be more out of touch, shocking stories like this emerge to remind us that not everyone views the Dark Ages in the past tense. Remember, just a few months ago The National Pork Producers Council defended the severe, virtual lifetime immobilization of breeding pigs by scoffing:

“So our animals can’t turn around for the 2.5 years that they are in the stalls producing piglets…I don’t know who asked the sow if she wanted to turn around.”

Let’s put this into context. In the pork industry, most breeding pigs are confined day and night during their four-month pregnancy in gestation crates on factory farms. These cages are roughly the same size as the animals’ bodies and designed to prevent them from even turning around. Breeding pigs are subsequently transferred into another crate to give birth, and are then re-impregnated and put back into a gestation crate. This happens pregnancy after pregnancy for their entire lives, adding up to years of immobilization.

This practice is so inhumane that nine states have passed laws to ban it, and nearly all of the major food retailers in the country this year have announced their plans to eliminate it from their supply chains. Animal science experts like Temple Grandin, Ph.D., condemn the practice, arguing that “confining an animal for most of its life in a box in which it is not able to turn around does not provide a decent life.” Grandin further states, “We’ve got to treat animals right, and the gestation stalls have got to go.”

Yet lobbyists at the NPPC choose to defend factory farming practices that most Americans know is indefensible, and what their own experts are encouraging them to abandon.

In fact, this trade group takes its disregard for animal welfare even further. It’s not only working furiously to prevent animal welfare improvements for pigs on factory farms, it actively works to crush efforts to protect any farm animals. For example, NPPC is behind a campaign to squelch a federal bill to improve the treatment of egg-laying hens, HR 3798, despite the fact that both the egg industry and animal protection groups back the bill.

In other words, the NPPC wants no rules protecting pigs from abuse, and it’s against even modest anti-cruelty regulations in other agribusiness sectors in which it holds no stake, even when those farmers who would be affected by the new rules support them.

It’s difficult to imagine a trade group more out of touch with mainstream American sentiments about how animals ought to be treated. Remember what the muckraking writer Upton Sinclair famously said about the difficulty of getting a person to understand something when his salary depends on not him understanding it.

Fortunately for pigs, the NPPC is increasingly isolated in its unwillingness to understand what is plainly happening. Indeed, the future is so clear that Meat & Poultry magazine wrote in a recent article, “This is no longer a debate about the viability of gestation crates in hog production, but rather a discussion about how producers will respond to meet expectations.”

That’s right: gestation crates are headed to the dustbin of animal agribusiness history, and it can’t happen soon enough.

Meatless Mondays, an initiative of the nonprofit, Monday Campaign, Inc., and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, embrace the idea of skipping meat once a week in favor of vegetarian options. Proponents of Meatless Mondays argue that the production of meat, especially beef, produces harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change. Moreover, advocates claim that going meatless once a week may reduce one’s risk of chronic preventable conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity. In fact, this grassroots movement has grown so explosively in recent years that currently thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants, and schools participate in the challenge, weekly.

On July 23, the USDA published an interoffice newsletter on its Web site that catalogued environmental initiatives at the department’s Washington headquarters. The USDA Greening Headquarters Update–as it was titled–highlighted topics ranging from waste minimization and recycling to energy and food service updates. Among the suggestions for reducing environmental impact was a call to participate in “Meatless Mondays” by choosing among the many meat-free dishes available in the department’s cafeteria.

“According to the U.N. animal agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases and climate change. It also wastes resources. It takes 7,000 kg of grain to make 1,000 kg of beef. Beef production requires a lot of water, fertilizer, fossil fuels, and pesticides. In addition, there are many health concerns related to the excessive consumption of meat,” the food service chapter stated.

Two days after the USDA’s remarks went viral, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA)—an organization that aims to increase profit opportunities for cattle and beef producers—spoke out. NCBA’s President J.D. Alexander said that the declaration calls into question the USDA’s commitment to cattlemen, farmers, and ranchers across the nation. Alexander went further to say that the USDA’s backing of Meatless Mondays is an “animal rights extremist campaign” to ultimately “end meat consumption.”

The New York Times Opinion columnist Mark Bittman refuted Alexander’s statement in an article published on July 31. Bittman defended the USDA’s support for Meatless Mondays and said that the agency did not intentionally defame the cattlemen’s industry.

But, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Steve King echoed Alexander’s sentiments, publically boycotting Meatless Mondays, and issuing a statement declaring it “Meat Monday.”

“I will eat more meat on Monday to compensate for stupid USDA recommendation about a meatless Monday,” Grassley said.

“Heresy! I will have double rib-eye Mondays instead,” King chimed.

In response to the USDA’s statements, Johns Hopkins Dean Michael J. Klag sent a letter on July 27 to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, President Obama, and members of Congress, expressed disappointment with the agency for failing to uphold their responsibility to represent all sectors of agriculture along with promoting a healthy diet.

“The Center for a Livable Future and I believe that this response to criticism by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has squandered an opportunity to deepen ongoing discussions about food issues and the public’s health in a meaningful way,” Klag wrote.

This isn’t the only story though. Recently similar cases have emerged that illustrate how big animal agriculture is losing its footing and fighting back.

For instance, early August in the National Journal, the National Pork Producers Council—a group that conducts public policy outreach on behalf of American pork farmers—callously came out in support of gestation crate confinement of pigs.

“So our animals can’t turn around for the 2.5 years that they are in the stalls… I don’t know who asked the sow if she wanted to turn around,” the Council’s communications director said.

Another case occurred in late July of this year. The Animal Agriculture Alliance—a coalition of farmers, ranchers, and scientists, who seek to increase transparency between consumers and animal agriculture—terminated its 25-year relationship with Bank of America due to the bank’s burgeoning alliance with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a group which aims to end animal cruelty.

Statistics show that each year, HSUS allocates thousands of dollars towards legislative and legal campaigns that challenge conventional farming. Unnerved, the American Agricultural Alliance subsequently asked the bank to sever its ties to the animal rights group. However, Bank of America’s Agribusiness Executive indicated to Alliance CEO Kay Johnson Smith in a phone conversation that the bank would not discontinue its HSUS affinity card program.

To mitigate the controversy, a bank executive said that the company does not endorse HSUS but rather gives the group $60 for each affinity card as a “fee” for bringing in new clients. Yet, the American Agricultural Alliance was still in disbelief.

According to HSUS Food Policy Director Matt Prescott, the American Agricultural Alliance has never had a grip on reality.

“The Alliance is a radical, pro factory-farming organization that is either completely out-of-step with Americans’ values on how animals ought to be treated, or perhaps simply chooses to ignore those values at the request of its corporate funders,” Prescott said in an email.

It’s for certain that the tide is changing in the United States regarding animal agriculture. Now is the time for leaders in the American Agricultural Alliance to recognize that there are negligent pro-industrial agricultural folks who willfully harm their livestock. The fact is simple: without organizations like HSUS, the meat industry and factory farming in general would continue to strive to maximize output at animals’ expense.

Given how backwards the meat industry has become—sacrificing humane treatment in favor of profit—it’s no wonder why the USDA is now touting efforts like Meatless Mondays. It’s a shame though that the USDA capitulated so quickly to meat lobbyists’ complaints. The agency should look towards substantiated science as well as health benefits rather than giving in to public opinion and industry greed.

Photo: Axe on chopping block, by Shutterstock

“[The Farm Bureau] opposes the labeling of genetically engineered food, animal welfare reform and environmental regulation. In Washington, its well-funded team of lobbyists and lawyers seeks to dismantle the federal Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, opposing pesticide restrictions and increased scrutiny of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from CAFOs,” or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, writes Shearn. He notes that over the past decade, the nation’s 10 largest agribusiness interests gave $35 million to congressional candidates—led by the Farm Bureau, which gave $16 million.

Beyond its status as a non-profit farmers organization, the Farm Bureau is a $14 billion network of for-profit insurance companies and the third-largest insurance group in the United States which also has a financial interest in agribusiness corporations. Shearn explains how Farm Bureau insurance affiliates have bought stock in major food industry players like Cargill, ConAgra, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Tyson and Archer Daniels Midland.

In rural areas, the Farm Bureau grooms compliant political candidates, Shearn reports, mostly Republicans; it wields the power to dictate outcomes of legislative elections and appointments to powerful state agriculture committees. Then it influences which farm-related bills become law.

Shearn follows Rolf Christen, a farmer in Missouri who was once an enthusiastic member of his Farm bureau board, but ended up as the leader of local resistance to CAFOs and his local Farm Bureau. Christen and 60 of his neighbors formed the Citizens Legal Environmental Action Network, or CLEAN, in order to seek meaningful legal redress against the pollution from CAFO operations.

Shearn reports on the ongoing legal battle to hold a Missouri CAFO accountable for a litany of infractions including breaches of manure lagoons, runoff from spreading manure on the land, burst pipes that sent hog waste flowing into streams, lakes and onto neighboring properties, causing miles of polluted streams and killing fish. In 2010, a record $11 million was awarded to 15 plaintiffs. Shearn notes how the Missouri Farm Bureau insurance affiliates paid the legal bills for the polluting CAFOs.

In response to these types of lawsuits, Shearn writes that the Farm Bureau moved the battlefield to the Statehouse floor with a bill which was passed into law limiting citizens’ ability to sue large agribusinesses. In addition, Shearn details how the Farm Bureau is leading the way in a high-priced public relations campaign to paint agriculture in a more favorable light.

The story was produced in collaboration between the Food & Environment Reporting Network and The Nation, and appears online at www.thenation.com. You can read the full report here.