Report calls ‘factory’ farms a threat

Industrial farms where animals are kept tightly confined present a serious and growing threat to humans, animals and the environment, a private commission reported Tuesday.

The facilities can be harmful not only to workers and neighbors but also to others because of pollution and the potential for the spread of disease, according to the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production report.

“One of the most serious unintended consequences of industrial food animal production is the growing public health threat of these types of facilities,” the report said. “There is increasing urgency to chart a new course” in agriculture, which has been shifting over the last 50 years from family farms to large livestock meat producers.

The report came out of a 2½-year project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit philanthropic organization, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

It includes a number of recommendations, such as banning use of antibiotics to promote growth and stricter regulations on handling of millions of tons of animal waste.

But Garrett Hawkins, Missouri Farm Bureau national affairs director, said the report went too far and would force animal production to be shipped overseas.

“Essentially you are talking about driving production to Mexico, Brazil and other countries,” said Hawkins. “It makes me question how can American family farmers and ranchers compete in that type of environment if those regulations that they call for go into effect? The question becomes how does that impact food security in this country?”

Hawkins added that a global economy would make it even more difficult for producers to compete under new requirements.

John Carlin, a former Kansas governor who was chairman of the 15-member commission, said the recommendations attempted to strike a balance.

“The American public has a growing concern about public health and their food,” said Carlin, who now is executive-in-residence and teaches political science at Kansas State University. “We are not saying we can go back to the good old days of just small family farms.”

Another commission member was Dan Glickman, former U.S. secretary of agriculture and congressman from Kansas and now the chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America.

The commission studied industrial livestock facilities that housed dairy cows, hogs, chickens and other livestock. It addressed four broad areas of concerns about them, including their impact on:

•Public health and the use of nontherapy antimicrobials for animal growth.

•Humans and the environment because of massive amounts of animal waste.

•Animals and whether their confinement is humane.

•Rural life and how that has changed because of a lack of competition in farming.

Commission members said Tuesday that they hoped Congress and state and local governments would study the report and implement at least some of its recommendations.

Large-scale meat production already is controversial in Missouri, where the industry has grown rapidly. Kansas also has industrial farms, but they haven’t been as controversial.

Regulators and residents have sued over odors and pollution in Missouri, where hog farms are common in the north and chicken facilities in the south.

There also has been a yearslong battle over regulations — should the state or local government have control? The report recommends more power should go to local governments because state regulators cannot take into account all the particularities of a site.

In addition, the report says states do not have enough agents to inspect the regulated farms. There also are thousands of industrial, or “factory,” farms nationwide that are not regulated because of their smaller size, but need to be because of pollution.

Rhonda Perry said that debate applied to Missouri.

“That is a major issue we need to address in the next legislature,” said Perry, a livestock farmer and program director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, which represents family farms. “In Barton County alone there are thousands and thousands of hogs in one area of the county, and there are no regulations” that apply to those farms.

Perry said the report had some very good recommendations. They include:

•Phasing out and banning antibiotics and other antimicrobials that are used to promote growth but not treat illnesses. Experts believe the drugs are in the food supply and more people are becoming infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The cost of a ban would not be significant to producers, the report said.

•Improving animal disease monitoring and tracking. The tracking system would follow food animals from birth to consumption and would include federal agency oversight of all aspects of the system.

•Creating a new system of laws and regulations to deal with farm waste. The commission recommended that industrial farms be regulated as rigorously as other industries and factories. The regulations would outline what states must do to prevent pollution and to protect public health and the environment.

•Phasing out within 10 years “all intensive confinement systems that restrict natural movement and normal behaviors” of livestock. That would include swine gestation crates, restrictive swine birthing crates, cages used to house multiple hens, and the individual housing of calves to produce white veal.

•Increasing competition in the livestock industry. Livestock production from birth to the slaughter house has become concentrated, giving way to concerns that federal antitrust laws are not being enforced. To restore competition in the industry, the commission recommended enforcing existing antitrust laws.

To reach Karen Dillon, call 816-234-4430 or send e-mail to kdillon@kcstar.com.