Helping the Planet...One Bite at a Time

April 19, 2006


	USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Every year on April 22, people around the world observe Earth Day and learn ways they can sustain a healthy planet. What many may not know is that each meal they enjoy can have a significant impact—positive or negative—on the environment.

On Earth Day alone, approximately 24 million farm animals—primarily chickens—will be slaughtered. Indeed, in a single year in the United States, 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for meat, eggs, and milk.(1,2) These farm animals are treated by industrialized agribusiness as meat-, egg-, and milk-producing machines, and warehoused by the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands inside factory farms.(3) Such intensive confinement creates a host of problems—not just for the animals—but also for soil, water, and air.

The Hidden Costs of Confinement

Many of these environmental problems result from the volume of waste created, with some factory farms producing as much waste as an entire city.(4) In Arkansas, one of the nation's top broiler-chicken producing states, the amount of chicken waste generated in a single day is equivalent to that produced by 8 million people.(5) U.S. manure production amounts to about 1.4 billion tons annually.(6)

Over the past two decades, agribusiness trends have exacerbated existing waste management problems, with more animals being intensively confined in fewer—but larger—operations.(7,8,9,10)

When applied to crops at a rate consistent with the soil's absorptive capacity, farm animal waste, rich in phosphorous and nitrogen, can be a valuable fertilizer.(11,12) But in factory farms, more nutrients from manure are produced than the soil can absorb, leading to runoff that pollutes waterways, groundwater, and drinking water supplies.(13,14) Phosphorous and nitrogen in waterways can also threaten aquatic life by causing eutrophication, a process by which an increase in mineral and organic nutrients depletes water of oxygen.(15) According to the EPA, polluted runoff is the largest remaining water pollution problem, and agriculture is its principal source.(16)

Air quality is also threatened by the microbial breakdown of organic carbon and nitrogen compounds in manure.(17) Emitted gasses include hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane, a greenhouse gas implicated in global climate change. According to a 1995 EPA study, 10% of all methane emissions in this country resulted from manure management systems.(18)

What You Can Do

Although factory farm products may seem inexpensive at the grocery store, the cheap price tags do not reflect the systematic abuses of animals and the environment in their production. On Earth Day and every day, we can use the power of our plates to help the planet—one bite at a time. Read our tips on ways you can improve the earth's integrity at every meal.

1. U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service. 2005. Poultry Slaughter: 2004 Annual Summary. usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/poultry/ppy-bban/pslaan05.pdf. Accessed April 19, 2006.

2. Ibid.

3. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Emission Standards Division. 2001. Emissions From Animal Feeding Operations, Draft. August 15. p. xi. www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch09/draft/draftanimalfeed.pdf. Accessed March 7, 2006.

4. Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. 1997. Animal Waste Pollution in America: An Emerging National Problem. Report Compiled for Senator Tom Harkin, p. 11.

5. Parker S. 2006. Finger-Lickin Bad: How poultry producers are ravaging the rural South. Grist Magazine, February 21. www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/21/parker/index.html?source=weekly. Accessed March 6, 2006.

6. Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, op cit, p. 5.

7. Kellogg RL, Lander CH, Moffitt DC, and Gollehon N. 2000. Manure Nutrients Relative to the Capacity of Cropland and Pastureland to Assimilate Nutrients: Spatial and Temporal Trends for the United States. U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/land/pubs/manntr.pdf. Accessed March 7, 2006.

8. Marks R. 2001. Cesspools of Shame: How Factory Farm Lagoons and Sprayfields Threaten Environmental and Public Health. Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network. www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/cesspools/cesspools.pdf. Accessed March 8, 2006.

9. Kellogg RL, Lander CH, Moffitt DC, and Gollehon N, op cit.

10. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Emission Standards Division, op cit.

11. Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network. 1998. America's Animal Factories: How States Fail to Prevent Pollution from Livestock Waste. www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/factor/cons.asp#note1. Accessed March 6, 2006.

12. Sierra Club. Water Contamination from Factory Farms. www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/factsheets/water.asp. Accessed March 6, 2006.

13. Marks R, op cit.

14. Sierra Club, op cit.

15. Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network, op cit.

16. Parker S, op cit.

17. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Emission Standards Division, op cit.

18. Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network, op cit.

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