Clean and environmentally sound disposal of animal waste in the quantities that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) produce can only be described as a challenge. Designed to provide practical information, Environmental Management of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) covers the concepts and practices involved in the operation
CAFO provides an unprecedented view of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations where an increasing percentage of the world’s meat, milk, eggs, and fish are produced. As the photos and essays in this powerful book demonstrate, the rise of the CAFO industry has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. Industrial livestock production is now a leading source of climate changing emissions, a source of water pollution, and a significant contributor to diet-related diseases, and the spread of food-borne illnesses. The intensive concentrations of animals in such crammed and filthy conditions dependent on antibiotic medicines and steady streams of subsidized industrial feeds poses serious moral and ethical considerations for all of us. CAFO takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey into the alarming world of animal factory farming and offers a compelling vision for a food system that is humane, sound for farmers and communities, and safer for both consumers and the environment.
The majority of meat, milk, and eggs consumed in the United States are produced in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO). With concentrated animal operations, in turn comes concentrated manure accumulation, which can pose a threat of contamination of air, soil, and water if improperly managed. Animal Manure: Production, Characteristics, Environmental Concerns, and Management navigates these important environmental concerns while detailing opportunities for environmentally and economically beneficial utilization.
Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs discusses the need for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement a new method for estimating the amount of ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and other pollutants emitted from livestock and poultry farms, and for determining how these emissions are dispersed in the atmosphere. The committee calls for the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish a joint council to coordinate and oversee short - and long-term research to estimate emissions from animal feeding operations accurately and to develop mitigation strategies. Their recommendation was for the joint council to focus its efforts first on those pollutants that pose the greatest risk to the environment and public health.
Nutrients from livestock & poultry manure are key sources of water pollution. Ever-growing numbers of animals per farm & per acre have increased the risk of water pollution. New Clean Water Act regulations compel the large confined animal producers to meet nutrient application standards when applying manure to the land, & USDA encourages all animal feeding operations to do the same. The additional costs for managing manure (such as hauling manure off the farm) have implications for feedgrain producers & consumers as well. This report¿s farm level analysis examines onfarm technical choice & producer costs across major U.S. production areas for hauling manure to the minimum amount of land needed to assimilate manure nutrients. Illustrations.
The continuously increasing human population, has resulted in a huge demand for processed and packaged foods. As a result of this demand, large amounts of water, air, electricity and fuel are consumed on a daily basis for food processing, transportation and preservation purposes. Although not one of the most heavily polluting, the food industry does contribute to the increase in volume of waste produced as well as to the energy expended to do so. For the first time, nine separate food industry categories are thoroughly investigated in Waste Management for the Food Industries in an effort to help combat this already acute problem. The current state of environmental management systems is described, offering comparisons of global legislation rarely found in other resources. An extensive review of commercial equipment, including advantages and disadvantages per employed waste management technique, offers a unique perspective for any academic, student, professional, and/or consultant in the food, agriculture and environmental industries. - Thoroughly examines the most prevalent and most polluting industries such as Meat, Fish, Dairy, Olive Oil, Juice and Wine industries - Includes synoptical tables [methods employed, physicochemical or microbiological parameters altered after treatment etc] and comparative figures of the effectiveness of various waste management methods - Contains nearly 2500 of the most up-to-date references available
The U.S. food system provides many benefits, not the least of which is a safe, nutritious and consistent food supply. However, the same system also creates significant environmental, public health, and other costs that generally are not recognized and not accounted for in the retail price of food. These include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, soil erosion, air pollution, and their environmental consequences, the transfer of antibiotic resistance from food animals to human, and other human health outcomes, including foodborne illnesses and chronic disease. Some external costs which are also known as externalities are accounted for in ways that do not involve increasing the price of food. But many are not. They are borne involuntarily by society at large. A better understanding of external costs would help decision makers at all stages of the life cycle to expand the benefits of the U.S. food system even further. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) with support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a public workshop on April 23-23, 2012, to explore the external costs of food, methodologies for quantifying those costs, and the limitations of the methodologies. The workshop was intended to be an information-gathering activity only. Given the complexity of the issues and the broad areas of expertise involved, workshop presentations and discussions represent only a small portion of the current knowledge and are by no means comprehensive. The focus was on the environmental and health impacts of food, using externalities as a basis for discussion and animal products as a case study. The intention was not to quantify costs or benefits, but rather to lay the groundwork for doing so. A major goal of the workshop was to identify information sources and methodologies required to recognize and estimate the costs and benefits of environmental and public health consequences associated with the U.S. food system. It was anticipated that the workshop would provide the basis for a follow-up consensus study of the subject and that a central task of the consensus study will be to develop a framework for a full-scale accounting of the environmental and public health effects for all food products of the U.S. food system. Exploring Health and Environmental Costs of Food: Workshop Summary provides the basis for a follow-up planning discussion involving members of the IOM Food and Nutrition Board and the NRC Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources and others to develop the scope and areas of expertise needed for a larger-scale, consensus study of the subject.
Agro-Ecosystem Diversity: Impact on Food Security and Environmental Quality presents cutting-edge exploration of developing novel farming systems and introduces landscape ecology to agronomy. It encompasses the broad range of links between agricultural development and ecological impact and how to limit the potential negative results. Presented in seven sections, each focusing on a specific challenge to sustaining diversity, the book provides insights toward the argument that by re-introducing diversity, it should be possible to maintain a high level of productivity of agro-ecosystems while also maintaining and/or restoring a satisfactory level of environment quality and biodiversity. - Demonstrates that diversified agro-ecosystems can be intensified with environmental quality preserved, restored and enhanced - Includes analysis of economic constraints leading to specialization of farms and regions and the social locking forces resisting to diversification of agro-ecosystems - Presents a global vision of world agriculture and the tradeoff between a necessary increase in food production and restoring environment quality
Animals and Human Society provides a solid, scientific, research-based background to advance understanding of how animals impact humans. Animals have had profound effects on people from the earliest times, ranging from zoonotic diseases, to the global impact of livestock, poultry and fish production, to the influences of human-associated animals on the environment (on extinctions, air and water pollution, greenhouse gases, etc.), to the importance of animals in human evolution and hunter -gatherer communities.As a resource for both science and non-science, Animals and Human Society can be used as a text for courses in Animals and Human Society or Animal Science, or as supplemental material for Introduction to Animal Science. It offers foundational background to those who may have little background in animal agriculture and have focused interest on companion animals and horses. The work introduces livestock production (including poultry and aquaculture) but also includes coverage of companion and lab animals. In addition, animal behavior and animal perception are covered.Animals and Human Society is likewise an excellent resource for researchers, academics, or students newly entering a related field or coming from another discipline and needing foundational information, as well as interested laypersons looking to augment their knowledge on the many impacts of animals in human society. - Features research-based and pedagogically sound content, with learning goals and textboxes to provide key information - Challenges readers to consider issues based on facts rather than polemics - Poses ethical questions and raises overall societal impacts - Balances traditional animal science with companion animals, animal biology, zoonotic diseases, animal products, environmental impacts and all aspects of human/animal interaction
