The CAFO Hothouse

David Cassuto

The Shameless Self-Promotion Desk kicks into high gear with this from the email:

Today, on Earth Day 2010, the Animals and Society Institute is pleased to announce the release of our sixth policy paper, titled “The CAFO Hothouse: Climate Change, Industrial Agriculture and the Law.” Written by David N. Cassuto, a professor at the Pace School of Law, the paper is a very timely overview of how government policies and agribusiness interests have combined to create inhumane and unhealthy conditions within our nation’s food supply, and what that means for our planet’s future.

“The CAFO Hothouse” describes, in thorough but easily digestible detail, how CAFOs (“concentrated animal feeding operations,” commonly known as factory farms) have replaced smaller family farms in the last few decades, the direct and indirect impact they have on greenhouse gas emissions, and how better policies and practices would help mitigate the resulting environmental damage and improve conditions for billions of farmed animals.

This paper is the first in our series to address agricultural issues, and is part of our overall mission to use science-based arguments to promote more responsible public policy.

Here’s an Excerpt:   

“Five thousand pigs produce as much raw sewage as a town of 20,000 people. That statistic alone makes factory farming environmentally problematic and in need of regulatory oversight.  But there’s more.  Pig waste is more concentrated than human waste and tends to contain both pathogens and antibiotics.  Yet waste from pigs does not go to sewage treatment facilities; it tends to go straight onto the ground, where it eventually makes its way into the groundwater and rivers and into the air, causing respiratory problems, antibiotic resistance, and more. 

Habitat loss and degradation, erosion, water depletion, pollution and salinization, agrochemical contamination, the above-mentioned animal waste and air pollution are also serious and growing CAFO-related problems.  Still, agriculture remains virtually unregulated.  Of the major federal environmental statutes, only the Clean Water Act applies at all.”

Order Your Copy Today!

We encourage you to order your own copy of “The CAFO Hothouse” and consider sending copies to your elected representatives and to like-minded friends and associates who perhaps have not yet considered the relationship between diet and global warming.

Click here to order “The CAFO Hothouse” today! (ASI members get a special discount).