Potential Public Health Impacts of Confined Animal Feed Operations

...

and phosphorus, pathogens such as E. coli, growth hormones, antibiotics, chemicals used as additives to the manure or to clean equipment, animal blood, silage leachate from corn feed, or copper sulfate used in footbaths for cows. While manure is valuable to the farming industry, in quantities this large it becomes problematic. Many farms no longer grow their own feed, so they cannot use all the manure they produce as fertilizer. CAFOs must find a way to manage the amount of manure produced by their animals. Ground application of untreated manure is one of the most common disposal methods due to its low cost. It has limitations, however, such as the inability to apply manure while the ground is frozen. There are also limits as to how many nutrients from manure a land area can handle. Over application of livestock wastes can overload environmental health 3 soil with macronutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous and micronutrients that have been added to animal feed like heavy metals. (CDC, 2016)

Concentrated animal feeding operations or farms can cause a myriad of environmental and public health problems. These issues can be maintained and operated under strict regulatory standards, it is important that local, state and federal government oversight be in place to ensure that they are routinely monitored to avoid contaminating local community water, air and soil resources. Suggested actions that can be taken to help with these issues, such as passing ordinances and regulations that direct acceptable limits and operation guidelines. Also the increasing of monitoring of air and water as well as soil sample testing will aid in this process. (Hribar, 2010)

Community efforts that are essential for risk reduction include careful planning and regulatory evaluation for CAFO’s to include laboratory testing, waste control programs and collaboration with the local, state and federal government agencies to ensure proper guidelines and safeguards within the CAFO operations. Risk control procedures should be in place that include risk assessments with attention to details that affect the community and answer to direct processes that influence the safety and public health concerns that are found during assigned inspection periods. CAFO’s tend to increase the costs of their neighboring community, in the form of increased costs, property depreciation costs and pollution mitigation costs. It is said that CAFO’s rarely contribute significantly to their local economy, rather sending more of their money to outside facilities for expenditures. CAFO’s also increase the healthcare costs in their communities because of the water and air pollution events that are hard to link to specific causes. This pollution also decreases land values due to contamination and neighboring health problems. The CAFO operators can mitigate these potential negative effects by involving the community in its operations with open communications and providing outreach to help local community members in need of healthcare costs and legal acceptance of responsibilities for accidental exposures.

Ideas for protecting communities surrounding CAFO facilities include; keeping control at the local level during the planning and operations. Set forth local environmental and public health ordinances. Include the state level in the enforcement operations which include increasing the regulatory oversight. Most communities take alternative livestock production in support of small scale operations and diversified livestock operations. (Tufts, 2016)

References

United States Department of Agriculture (2016). Animal Feeding Operations. Retrieved from http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/plantsanimals/livestock/afo/

Encyclopedia of Earth (2012). Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/151412/

CDC (2016). Animal Feeding Operations: What are animal feeding operations? Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/other/agricultural/afo.html

Hribar, C. (2010). Understanding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and their Impact on Communities. NALBOH. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/docs/understanding_cafos_nalboh.pdf

Tufts ASA (2016). Environmental and Health Problems in Livestock Production: Pollution in the food system. Retrieved from http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/AAI_Issue_Brief_2_1.pdf