As this blog has previously reported, the Time Magazine cover story by Bryan Walsh, entitled, “The Real Cost of Cheap Food,” has aroused quite a response from advocates of the agricultural production industry. The article is an in-depth look at food production and consumption and it takes the reader on Walsh’s journey from the farm to the fork.Many in the industry have expressed their concerns and disagreements over the assertions made in the article. One of the industry practices that came under much criticism from Walsh is the existence and use of Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs. Now, Bob Meyer has an interesting post on the Brownfield Ag News website that discusses the importance CAFOs, or depending on your point of view, our dependence on CAFOs, in supplying the United States with the food we consume on a daily basis.
As Meyer writes, CAFOs are animal feeding operations on farms with 1,000 or more animal units. What constitutes an “animal unit” depends on the species. According to Meyer, “a cattle CAFO is 1,000 cattle, for hogs it is 2,500 hogs weighing at least 55 pounds and in dairy it is 700 cows.” Based on these parameters and the most recent data from the Agricultural Census and the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Meyer estimates that by the end of 2007 “there were 10,810 CAFO cattle operations, 2,326 CAFO dairy operations and 6,381 CAFO hog farms.
This represents 34 percent of the nation’s beef supply, 54 percent of the country’s milk production, and roughly 65 percent of all pork production. The significance of these numbers obviously varies depending on one’s point of view. Regardless, these numbers will likely play a large role in determining what type of future changes might come to the meat and dairy production industries.
To read the Meyer post click here.
To read the U.S. Agricultural and Food Law and Policy Blog Post on the Time story click here.
Posted: 08/28/09
