Holy Cow! I watched the Sierra Club DVD
I watched the Sierra Club’s DVD “Living a Nightmare; Animal Factories in Michigan.” My mind is still in a blip skip mode much like an old vinyl record from the revelation that there are over 200 of these Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFO’s in Michigan. If you read my blog Pig PooWho Knew relative to Rolling Stone’s article “Boss Hog” by Jeff Tietz (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters), then you’ll know why I can’t get past the amount of CAFOs in Michigan, let alone that they aren’t just hogs, but cattle that produces even more waste than a hog. One cow produces the waste of 23 people!
If you are new to CAFO’s and have become numb to shocking journalism because of all the suffering witnessed around the world then read Rolling Stones article first and then watch the Sierra Club’s DVD. I say this because the Sierra Club was kind, did not mention names, did not show the horrific suffering of imprisoned animals but was still enough to make a person want to hunt down not only the perpetrators but the politicians who have not only turned a blind eye and done nothing but have supported industrialized farming. In Michigan, this would be mostly the Republican factor. Just before the election last year Republicans planned to introduce bills into Michigan that would make it even easier for these farms to come here and operate.
How would you like to not only lose your home, your land, and your livelihood, but also end up pretty much like the animals, compartmentalized in an environment of putrid stench, flies, runoff from fields saturated with animal waste, bacteria, blood and fats, pesticide, and antibiotics that are the brew of open air “slurry” lagoons, an integral part of industrialized farms? Oh and don’t forget the occasional rotting cow leg or hog face lying about for your kids to find. You can’t simply sell and leave. Who else would live where you live besides Satan himself? Hear that Jerry Falwell. He stated he sees Satan in the environmental myth. I see the “Great Deceiver” in the environmental truth.
This is what hundreds of farm families are going through in Michigan. If you think they haven’t fought and petitioned anyone and everyone, think again. This is the biggest hypocrisy I’ve seen yet in Michigan. This big push to clean up our lakes, the world’s largest freshwater supply while doing nothing about the contamination of the earth, air, and groundwater throughout central Michigan due to inhumane CFO’s is a practice in futility. If one barn holds even 1,000 head of cattle, then the feces is equal to 23,000 people. The number of cattle that are housed are much greater than 1,000 but just multiply that by 200 farms. The waste of 23,000 people times 200 is the waste of 4 million 600 thousand people in one day? The livestock in this country produces 130 times the pollution of our entire human population. And we are overproducing for what purpose? To become more obese? We certainly aren’t curing starvation around the world.
And it isn’t just about containing this stuff. The farms in Michigan also go the extra mile, just like the Rolling Stone article, to blow this stuff all over the ground, in the trees. It makes it’s way to the ditches, becomes part of the groundwater and ends up in our many subsidiaries that flow to the lakes. Are you not angered by the head scratching done by officials as reported on the tube when confronted with questions about responsibility for E coli outbreaks and the recall of spinach and lettuce supplies that contained harmful bacterial substances. Duh! Visit rural Mexico for a lesson as to why you shouldn’t eat the lettuce. It won’t be long if this keeps up that all of our ground is polluted and leaching into our water supply.
Now flash back to my last post where Bush proposed a $400 million cut to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. It provides low interest loans to pay for upgrades to sewage treatment plants that federal studies show will need $300 billion over the course of the next 20 years. Local communities may not get the needed help to upgrade their infrastructures to meet stricter clean water standards. Is this administration trying to kill us? And we’re worried about terrorists tampering with our food supplies. If people are sick in the surrounding CAFO areas, think of the animals we eat as food. They are in an updraft of this noxious brew beneath them continuously, 24 hours a day.
I’m just trying to connect the dots for you. There is a little hope in the horizon however. Since Jeff Tietz article and at very least, but still not enough, Smithfield Foods, the largest meat packer in the world will be phasing out the crates that hold each animal in confinement for their lifetime by 2017. Arizona has most recently banned crates for animals also. But that doesn’t address the pollution. Livestock friendly states like Kansas and Oklahoma are onto this pollution problem. ‘”Because of the noxious and obvious problems associated with CAFOs, many states have enacted severe restrictions on permits. For example, in 1997 the legislature of typically livestock-friendly Oklahoma mandated setbacks and other pollution controls, and in 1998 that legislature enacted a moratorium on new livestock permits. Kansas is another typically agriculture-friendly state that recently has enacted a moratorium on CAFO, and it is considering legislation to end CAFOs”‘ http://www.pmac.net/AM/property_values.html. Now that’s what we want to hear throughout the country.
Again, I want to know what is wrong with Michigan? We always lag so far behind. Who in God’s name allowed the first CAFO into a state surrounded by freshwater to begin with? Who are the Republicans that just months ago tried to make it easier for them to get in? It’s nice for the Sierra Club to note elsewhere that many of the CAFO’s in Michigan are Dutch owned. But Smithfield Foods is in Michigan also and more than likely linked to my favorite grocery store Kroger. With Smithfield comes far too much power, money, and political contributions. I’m not as nice about naming names. A few Dutch companies may be involved but a monopoly of only 6 American firms control 75% of the retail hog market. I can only guess a handful own the cattle and poultry markets as well. These few have put thousands of small farmers out of business across the country, while also tormenting them with pollution, stench, and a stranglehold for ever getting out their environment. As a result the meatpackers reap billions, enough money to buy their rights and everyone’s silence. Anymore, this is a free country for the wealthy only.