At any given moment, roughly 1.6 billion animals are suffering in barren confinement on factory farms, also called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These animals are often kept in cages and crates so small they can’t fully extend their limbs or turn around. Others are packed into giant warehouses by the thousands, with limited space to move and no access to fresh air or sunlight. These CAFOs produce huge quantities of manure, which in turn pollute the local air and water. On average, factory farms in the U.S. produce more than 900 billion pounds of manure each year — twice as much as the sewage produced by the entire U.S. human population.
Living near factory farms is devastating. Residents report smells so foul that they can’t open their windows or sit outside their own homes, diminishing the quality of life and overall health of people in these communities. Rates of respiratory disease and digestive health problems are elevated among people living near CAFOs, and the air pollution from CAFOs is directly linked to almost 18,000 deaths every year. Furthermore, factory farms spew an enormous volume of dangerous greenhouse gases like methane, exacerbating climate change.
It’s not just animals and local communities who suffer in the factory farm system though — farmers are also exploited. Just a handful of multinational corporations dominate our country’s animal agriculture industry, leaving farmers with hardly any power and limited options for selling their products. Many farmers enter the CAFO system as contractors when they are told that they will be their own bosses, feed the world and make considerable money. However, that’s almost never their reality. Instead, farmers take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to build CAFO warehouses and get stuck in unfair contracts with dwindling paychecks, unable to make ends meet. Farmers who leveraged their farms and land to take out the original loans are suddenly faced with the potential of losing their family farm if they can’t make their loan payments. Meanwhile, the companies they work for rake in many billions of dollars in profits.
The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act: Investing in Farmers Getting Out of Factory Farming
Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have introduced a new federal bill called the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act (IACA) to invest in farmers who want to get out of cruel, destructive factory farming. The IACA would award much-needed funding to help CAFO operators transition their farms to more humane alternatives, like raising animals on pasture or switching to fruit, vegetable or organic crop production. For example, farmers could use their grants to build fencing and outdoor shelters necessary for animals to safely spend their lives outside, or to convert their CAFO barns into greenhouses for growing fruits and vegetables.
Success Stories: Farmers Who Already Made the Transition
Ron and Adam Holter, a father-son team, run their family’s sixth-generation dairy farm in Jefferson, Maryland. When Ron’s father and uncle ran the farm, it was a confinement operation, milking 100 cows entirely indoors. When Ron took over in the mid-1990s, he wanted to do things differently. Since then, the cows at Holterholm Farm have been out on almost 300 acres of pasture. Unlike most dairy farms, which remove calves from their mothers and feed them formula, Holterholm has a herd of nurse cows who raise and nurse babies each year. They only milk once per day, which makes life easier for the cows as well as for Ron and Adam. This high standard of care and 100% grass diet allows the Holters to sell their farm’s milk to Organic Valley’s Grassmilk line, which is available in major grocery stores. The area around Holterholm Farm once had many dairy farms, but only Ron and Adam’s remains, which they attribute to their decision to transition from a confinement operation to a more humane pastured, grass-fed operation.
“I know firsthand the difficulty both financially and socially in transitioning from a confinement animal system to a regenerative farming system, having transitioned our farm in 1996,” said Ron Holter of Holterholm Farms. “Financially there is often a lag time from the beginning of what can be an expensive transition to eventually achieving an improved income while the land heals and the livestock become accustomed to a healthier, happier lifestyle. Transitional funds like those provided in the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act would be a blessing to farmers attempting to move to more regenerative, livestock friendly systems.”
Paula and Dale Boles took over Dale’s family farm in Granite Falls, North Carolina. They entered into a contract to raise chickens for Tyson Foods in 2002, taking on $300,000 in debt to build the CAFO warehouses. Originally, they expected robust paychecks that would enable them to live comfortably and pay off the loan within 10 years, but it didn’t go that way. The paychecks got smaller and smaller, and Tyson repeatedly asked the Boleses for more expensive investments in their infrastructure. In 2015, after more than a decade in the chicken business, Paula and Dale canceled their contract and raised their last flock of chickens. Determined to use the CAFO barns they invested so much money into, they began converting the barns into greenhouses. Throughout the transition process, the Boleses hobbled together grant funds from a variety of groups, including the ASPCA. Dale’s construction skills came in handy – he took on complex projects like turning an old refrigerator into a seed germinator. Now, the Boleses grow vegetables, microgreens, hemp and flowers that they sell locally in North Carolina.
“We took on over $400,000 in debt to become contract chicken farmers and came close to foreclosure when we decided to get out of industrial animal agriculture. When we cancelled our contract, the integrator came out to our farm, picked up their $20 sign and drove away without another thought,” said Paula Boles, co-owner of JB Farms. “We know too many farmers have similar stories of being exploited by integrators and left with few options to keep their farms going. The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act would help support farmers like us across the country who want to transition to more sustainable and economically viable farming systems.”
What You Can Do
Support farmers who are building a more humane food system. Contact your members of Congress and urge them to support and cosponsor the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act.
