CAFO paper pushing

New reports on feedlot economics

By Caroline Cummins

May 12, 2008

The Ethicurean keeps us up to date on the latest in CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) news. The latest? That the Pew Center has released a report on the impacts of raising animals in CAFOs.

As the Ethicurean summed it up, the report only confirms what we already knew:

[The Pew Center found] that antibiotic use in CAFOs is driving growth in antibiotic-resistant human illnesses; that E.coli and other pathogens spread quickly among animals when they’re packed tightly together, and that their susceptibility to illness is amplified by the fact that they’re being fed stuff that they wouldn’t naturally eat; and that workers and rural communities are on the front lines when it comes to illness from air and water contamination and odor.

And the report also “draws a parallel between the military industrial complex and a new agri-industrial complex that has lobbied for huge direct and indirect subsidies (which are explored in the UCS report that came out last week) to keep themselves afloat.”

Yup, all true. Good to see official types getting it all down on paper, though.