However, over the years, it’s become clear that malathion isn’t always safe for use, and, even if no humans are negatively impacted by it on a case-by-case basis, it’s much more likely to negatively impact unintended critters or plants, some of which might be endangered. Malathion remains on the market in the US (the United Kingdom withdrew malathion for sale in 2002 due to safety concerns), but some organizations are pushing back, citing the pesticide’s murky history and evidence that malathion isn’t as safe as you might want to believe.

On September 9, 2024, the Center for Biological Diversity, an organization dedicated to protecting endangered species from human impact, sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for “failing to adequately protect more than 1,500 species of wildlife and plants from the insecticide malathion—in violation of the Endangered Species Act.” This came after years of back-and-forth on malathion’s safety. 

In 2017, scientists within the USFWS found that a single exposure to malathion “could be catastrophic” and that repeated use of the insecticide could eliminate entire populations of endangered species in particular areas. However, their findings went nowhere after that scientific determination was reversed by then-Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, which delayed the finalization of the biological opinion by five years. 

Fast forward to 2022, and the USFWS changed its tone: This time, it finalized its biological opinion on malathion and concluded that the pesticide does not pose an extinction risk to a single protected species of wildlife or plant in the United States. There’s very little to explain why such a drastic difference in findings would occur over such a short timespan. 

Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director for the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), says that, despite the shift from the USFWS, the CBD remains steadfast that malathion is harmful. “Malathion belongs to an old class of pesticides called organophosphates. Organophosphates are potent neurotoxins associated with a suite of risks to human health, including death,” says Burd. “Farmworkers suffer disproportionate exposure to pesticides, including malathion. But others can also suffer substantial exposures, including people who spray malathion for landscaping, golf courses and mosquito control; people who live in areas where malathion is frequently used for mosquito control, and workers in factories where malathion is produced.” 

A glance back in time through malathion incident reports finds concerning stories from the 1980s and ’90s. In California, malathion was the third most common cause of pesticide-related illness from 1981 to 1985, especially among applicators exposed during indoor application, usually due to inhalation of fumes. Malathion is second on the list of active ingredients thought to be responsible for the largest number of acute occupational pesticide-related illnesses, using 1999 data. One incident report recounts the time a young girl ran across a lawn five hours after the application of malathion; she was left with blisters on her feet for months afterwards. Another incident from 1995 finds that a worker installing a door was exposed to malathion sprayed by the property owner; he was hospitalized for days with dysarthria, nausea, and vomiting. 

In fairness, malathion is generally safe enough for humans—usually. Malathion is of low toxicity to humans, but absorption or ingestion into the human body metabolizes malathion into malaoxon, which is substantially more dangerous. Symptoms of malaoxon toxicity can onset within minutes to hours after exposure, and can result in minor concerns such as allergic reactions or skin rashes to nervous system impacts, seizures, loss of consciousness, and even death. Even low levels of exposure can lead to these effects.  The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends that workers not be exposed to more than 10 mg/m³ of malathion for a 10-hour workday, 40 hours per workweek. NIOSH also recommends that a level of 250 mg/m³ of malathion in the air be considered as immediately dangerous to life and health.

How can one stay protected from potential malathion toxicity? It’s important to use protective equipment when applying malathion, including gloves, rubber boots, a mask covering the nose and mouth, and eyewear. Even when wearing gloves, it’s important to thoroughly wash your hands afterwards. Windows should stay closed to prevent vapors from entering your house. Similarly, remember that anything you spray has the potential to cause harm; remove pet bowls, children’s toys, or anything else that might unknowingly harbor malathion. However, it’s important to consider others when choosing your pesticide; if you are unable to limit the exposure of others, such as neighborhood kids or dogwalkers, you may want to reconsider using a pesticide believed by many, and evidenced by many incident reports, to cause serious harm.

Malathion is, like most other insecticides, indiscriminate in who it kills; that means that endangered species that come in contact with it are likely to die. These species include the Karner blue butterfly, rusty-patched bumble bee, Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, American burying beetle, lesser prairie-chicken, and many plant species. Bat species may actually be at an increased risk, as they may feed on mosquitoes sprayed with malathion before they succumb. Similarly, feral cats, or outdoor cats and dogs, might interact with objects sprayed by malathion, or eat insects or small animals that are contaminated. 

The government’s reply to the lawsuit is due by the end of January, and the incoming Trump administration could be a factor in how it proceeds. “The election could certainly lead to changes in how the government chooses to defend itself in the case, but we still feel confident in the strength of our claims,” says Burd. 

“The Fish and Wildlife Service submitted to the pesticide industry’s demands and hung more than 1,500 endangered species out to dry by failing to rein in malathion use in their habitats,” said Burd in a release regarding the CBD lawsuit. “Today, these animals and plants continue to be harmed by one of the worst neurotoxic pesticides on the market, which can be sprayed in the last few homes of some of our most imperiled species. That includes nearly every endangered butterfly, beetle and dragonfly we have. We just can’t let this go on.” 

The post Why One Group is Suing the Government Over Malathion, a Dangerous Pesticide appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Twice a growing season, a big yellow truck with the license plate “P4FARMS” pulls into Jesse Kayan’s farm in Brattleboro, Vermont, loaded with a thousand gallons of pasteurized human urine sloshing around in IBC totes.

For more than 10 years, Kayan has been applying human urine to his hayfields through a partnership with the Brattleboro-based Rich Earth Institute, a non-profit engaging in research, education and technological innovation to advance the use of human waste as a resource. In August, Rich Earth released a Farmer Guide to Fertilizing with Urine, available for free on their website. The guide compiles a wealth of information and best practices based on working with farm partners like Kayan and a growing body of scientific research from around the world.

“Our hay yields have gone way up as a result [of the urine],” said Kayan. “We have really hungry land and sandy soil. It’s brought it up to a new level and provided some resiliency in the soil health.”

Kayan, whose business relies on the organic vegetables he grows for his farmstand and CSA, said he’d be happy to use urine on other crops if the practice was more widely accepted by consumers.

“I personally, if it were my garden, I would not think twice about it,“ he said. ”I really don’t think there’s actually any food safety concerns. It’s a matter of perception.”

Kayan is one of nine Vermont farmers who’ve participated in Rich Earth’s field studies, funded by USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE). In addition to hay, Rich Earth has conducted trials on sweet corn, hemp, figs, nursery trees, and cut flowers. The multi-year trials found that crops fertilized with human urine performed better than untreated control plots.

Kayan and other farm partners also observed higher yields and/or more robust growth and color in the urine-treated plots relative to those treated with conventional synthetic fertilizer; however, the trials found no statistically significant difference in total yields or relative feed value. That said, some international studies have shown improved yields and growth in certain urine-fertilized crops, such as cabbage, maize, and cucumber.

This is no surprise to Arthur Davis, who oversees farm partnerships for Rich Earth. He said human urine has a nutrient profile similar to many commercial fertilizers, with high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as micronutrients like magnesium, sulfur, and calcium.

But the potential benefits of fertilizing with human urine reach far beyond the fields of Vermont. Most commercially available fertilizers rely on synthetic nitrogen produced through the Haber-Bosch process, which accounts for 1.4% of carbon dioxide emissions, and 1% of total global energy consumption, according to the journal Nature Catalyst.

Most of this energy comes from natural gas, which means that the price of fertilizer is closely tied to the price of natural gas, a cost that is passed down to farmers and consumers. But the carbon footprint of conventional fertilizer doesn’t stop there. Mining of phosphate and potash are depleting natural reserves. The Global Phosphorus Research Initiative predicts a shortage of rock phosphate within the next 40 years.

“Our hay yields have gone way up as a result [of the urine].”

Diverting urine from the wastewater stream for use as fertilizer would also address the two largest contributors of nutrient pollution in the U.S., agriculture and human waste, which are responsible for toxic algae blooms, aquatic dead zones, and a wide range of human health conditions. It could also reduce nitrous oxide emission by keeping urine out of uncovered waste lagoons, where it festers with methane-breeding solid waste. Not only that, but urine-diverting toilets — available through Rich Earth — require little or no water to flush, which by their estimates could save up to 900 billion gallons of water per year in the U.S. Some of this water can be recycled for use in irrigation.

Initially, there were concerns about trace levels of pharmaceuticals in urine, but a recently concluded study by Rich Earth in partnership University of Michigan, the University at Buffalo, and the Hampton Roads Sanitation District in Virginia, detected no significant buildup in crop tissues. Davis said they are now also testing for PFAS; so far their samples have tested negative or extremely low.

If human urine is a safe, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional fertilizers, why hasn’t it already been adopted on a larger scale?

One fundamental challenge of fertilizing with human urine is ammonia volatilization, which can cause the nitrogen in urea to evaporate quickly during storage and application. To prevent this, urine is applied as close to the ground as possible, and incorporated into the soil immediately.

Davis has worked with farm partners to develop application methods that are both practical and effective. For Kayan’s hay fields, Rich Earth uses a custom-built, 500-gallon trailer tank attached to a 30-foot boom suspended about three feet above the ground. The urine drizzles out evenly through small holes spaced every six inches.

“It’s incredibly easy,” said Kayan. “It requires basically just one person on the farm and some sort of form of locomotion.” In his case, this means a team of Suffolk Punch draft horses, but the same apparatus can be hitched to a tractor. “It’s real fast and easy, you can fertilize a lot of land real real quick with it.”

“When you’re filling the bulk tanks to go out and spray it’s really really powerful, but when I’m applying it I don’t really smell it that much.”

John Janiszyn, who runs a multigenerational farm stand in Walpole, New Hampshire, has been using urine on sweet corn for several years, and this year is testing it on his pumpkins.

Davis helped him modify his tractor so that he could cultivate his fields and apply urine in one pass. The urine flows from a tank attached to the three point hitch down through a hose onto the ground, where it is immediately buried by his cultivator. For his pumpkins, they applied the urine under a layer of plastic mulch, trapping the nutrients in the ground.

For Janiszyn, one drawback of using urine is that it is highly diluted. “You need a lot of it to do an acre,” he said. “So you sidedress or whatever and then have to go back and refill and keep going.”

It takes about 1000 gallons of urine just to fertilize one acre of hay. Currently, Rich Earth is nowhere close to being able to meet that kind of demand.

Rich Earth sources its urine from about 250 donors in the Brattleboro area, the first and largest ever community-scale urine nutrient reclamation project in the United States. At their central treatment and storage facility, the urine — about 12,000 gallon a year — is sanitized using a computer-controlled pasteurizer.

“I think it’s a little bit of a chicken and the egg,” said Davis. “It requires farmers to really feel like it’s worth investing in new equipment. They want to feel like they have steady access to the material in the first place, which then requires, on the backend, systems in place for collection and treatment.”

In Vermont, Rich Earth has been working with lawmakers for over a decade to clear regulatory pathways, and are now beginning the process in Massachusetts and New York.

“It’s purely the optics that I would worry about, and I really think that that’s just a matter of time [until it becomes normalized].”

“We’re probably the most kind of far along group in this country in terms of having a whole ecosystem of collection, treatment, transport, application, all under one regulated program,” said Davis.

Rich Earth offers assistance to organizations across the U.S. to obtain approval for farm-scale urine application, including the Land Institute of Kansas, which launched its own urine reclamation project in 2023.

But the greatest obstacle to making peecycling mainstream may not be logistic or regulatory at all. It goes back to what Kayan said about public perception.

“It’s purely the optics that I would worry about, and I really think that that’s just a matter of time [until it becomes normalized].”

“I don’t really want to be the first one,” he added.

Janiszyn and his wife Teresa found out about Rich Earth when they participated in one of their focus groups examining public attitudes toward urine reclamation.

“It was funny how having us in that focus group sort of changed people,” he said. “We said we use cow manure and stuff and this [urine] doesn’t sound like it would be an issue. And I remember one guy was like, yeah, well, hearing from these guys, you know, I guess it’s not that bad.”

Janiszyn said that after his experience in the focus group he wasn’t too concerned about customer response. “I realized that if I’m positive about it people will just come along with it. You have to have some control over the narrative.”

The post Can Human Urine Fertilize Our Crops? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I’ve always had a deep attachment to veterinary medicine. My family has a cattle ranch, and I am sixth generation. I was raised around animals,” says Thompson. 

She is one of a dwindling number of veterinarians choosing to enter rural animal practice. Between three and four percent of new veterinary graduates pursue careers focusing on livestock or food systems. In 2022, more than 500 counties in the US were facing severe shortages of food animal veterinarians, some with no vet service at all.

Thompson’s hometown of Tonopah, Nevada is part of a 23,000-square-mile area she says the USDA has identified as a veterinary desert. The only time vets came to the Thompson ranch was for preventative care. 

In regions like these where agriculture is the backbone of the economy, the absence of veterinarians can spell disaster. Thompson remembers having to trailer their horses to a vet. “If the veterinarian 1.5 hours away couldn’t treat the issue [typically colic],” she says, “we were not in a position to seek advanced care [colic surgery] due to it being another four- to fivehour drive. Typically, it would end in euthanasia,” she says. 

Fewer vets on the ground means fewer eyes to catch early signs of disease in livestock. Early detection is critical in preventing disease outbreaks, such as the 2015 bird flu that killed 50 million turkeys and chickens in Midwest states. It also heightens the danger of zoonotic diseases, which can pass from animals to humans. There is a danger that as these shortages continue, preventative care—which includes deworming and livestock vaccinations—will not happen. The ripple effect of inadequate veterinary care in rural communities, according to a report commissioned by the Farm Journal Foundation, has the potential to affect an estimated 3.7 million livestock-related positions.

“We are worried about our capacity to identify as well as respond to diseases, whether that is endemic disease and/or foreign animal diseases,” says Dr. Rosslyn Biggs, DVM, and director of continuing education and beef cattle extension specialist at Oklahoma State University (OSU) College of Veterinary Medicine.

One of the driving forces behind rural vet shortages is that starting salaries are not always compatible with vets who work in urban centers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterinarians in rural areas earn between $61,470 and $73,540 a year—roughly half of what they could make in a city.

“Salaries in the rural, large, mixed or food animal space,” says Biggs, “have been historically lower than those in urban or other segments of veterinary medicine.” This difference makes it difficult for newly graduating vets. In 2023, for example, 83 percent of veterinarians graduated with an average student debt of $185,000.

The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) through the USDA Food and Agriculture Institute (NIFA) is designed to help more food animal and public health veterinarians relocate to those rural areas facing veterinary shortages. The program will pay off up to $75,000 of each veterinarian’s student loans if they practice in an area designated as being short of vets for a minimum of three years. Since the program’s inception in 2010, it has helped more than 795 veterinarians. 

Need, however, has outstripped VMLRP’s ability to respond. The bipartisan Rural Veterinary Workforce Act could change this. The legislation would end the federal taxation the USDA is currently required to pay on behalf of the award recipient. This could potentially free 39 percent of the allocated money for the VMLRP, creating significant funds for new recipients. This bill was introduced into Congress on June 23, 2023.

But will it be enough to stem the tide? More than just monetary considerations—the life of a rural vet isn’t easy. “It’s hard work. It is long hours,” says Biggs. 

When Thompson graduates, she will begin a contract with a veterinary clinic in Elko, Nevada.

“Part of my contract is that I get to do outreach to areas that don’t have veterinary care,” she says. Twice a month, she will travel long distances to remote communities and provide vet services. This can, for many vets, be isolating and another reason they are deterred from entering into rural practice. Thompson credits her upbringing with making her prepared for these challenges.

“I grew up learning how to navigate without resources, coming from that background has prepared me the most,” she says. 

According to the American Veterinary Medicine Association (AVMA), 45 percent of vets practicing in rural areas are more likely to leave if they come from an urban background. Those that choose to return to urban practice say lack of time off and family concerns played a factor in their decisions.

A shortage of vets in rural areas also means a lack of mentorship for graduating vets. In essence, no one guides young vets through the practicalities of rural veterinary life.

This is something Thompson herself identifies as important. “Eventually, I would like to set up in a rural area,” she says, “but I definitely need that mentorship coming out of school.”

At OSU, things are slightly better than at other veterinary colleges. In 2023, 25 percent of OSU grads entered large or mixed animal practice, while the national average historically fluctuates between 10 and 15 percent. It is something upon which the college is hoping to build. Currently developing a Center for Rural Veterinary Medicine, the goal, among other things, is to provide that much-needed early guidance. The current vision for the program includes a service component in underserved/rural regions as well as outreach programs to mentor youth to help them prepare for and develop an interest in food medicine veterinary practice. The Integrated Beef Cattle Program for Veterinarians has already proven to be invaluable as part of the larger vision for the center. “Twenty vet students with interest in beef cattle practice are paired alongside 20 veterinarians who have some experience in beef animal medicine,” says Biggs.

Another solution, according to Thompson, is to create more opportunities for youth to be exposed to livestock, and have ranchers, farmers and vets come to speak to school-age children. “When I was in school,” she says, “we had an agriculture day in which we’d go out with the local 4H club and they had animals and would teach us handling and proper care. We got to interact with the animals, particularly livestock, and got a little more comfortable with that.” 

Eighty percent of those interested in rural veterinary care have had a significant history of livestock exposure, says Thompson. 

Still, Biggs acknowledges that being a rural vet is not easy. For one, you are going to get dirty. “But,” she says, “being in rural communities and serving farmers and ranchers—there is no better work.”

The post Where Have All the Vets Gone? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

At 46 years old, Heidi Penix was diagnosed with breast cancer.

A Michigan native, she had just moved back from Texas to start a new job after losing hers due to the pandemic. But things were looking up: She also purchased her first home, in Detroit’s University District.

Penix wasn’t a farmer by any means, but she had been a believer in the food sovereignty movement. Her new home came with a yard left in disrepair after years of vacancy, so she contacted Keep Growing Detroit, an organization dedicated to food sovereignty, to buy seeds to start a garden.

On the same day, Penix was scheduled to pick up her seeds, she had a doctor’s appointment. That’s when she received the diagnosis.

“It’s always, now, so associated with cancer for me,” Penix said about that seed pickup after leaving the doctor. On the drive, she recalled saying, “We got to get the crops!” and “This is a really important thing. We just got to get it.”

Penix, now 48, has had a double mastectomy, but recently learned she has stage IV cancer with a metastatic bone lesion. Though the physical battle is grueling, she remembers how tending to the garden became a mental and emotional lifeline during her first treatment phase. Growing something in her backyard, however small, gave Penix a sense of purpose and a reason to keep going on the toughest days, she said.

‘When I couldn’t do anything else, I had this garden’

Penix’s garden is a canvas of organized chaos. It began with distinct sections: vegetables on one side, wildflowers on the other, and plastic fork prongs poking up to keep squirrels from walking on the plants.

Over time, nature had its way. Flowers like zinnias and black-eyed Susans, once intentionally planted in one section, began to spread. The marigolds, cosmos and calendula were now joined by goldenrod and poppies, creating a vibrant yet untamed space.

But Penix hadn’t always pictured herself as a gardener.

“I remember when I put the first seeds in the ground, I thought, ‘Well, this is pointless. Nothing’s going to happen,’” Penix said, laughing. “Then I remember when the first little seedlings came up, just feeling like I had done magic. I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”

At first, Penix said, managing her garden was challenging, especially with the unpredictability of her treatment schedule. Urban gardening isn’t just about growing food: It also offers physical benefits, particularly for people recovering from chronic illnesses like cancer. Research has shown that light physical activity, such as gardening, can help patients stay mobile and in good spirits during recovery. A study of Detroit’s urban gardeners published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that gardeners reported improved moods, reduced stress and better management of chronic conditions.

The diagnosis hit Penix hard. She didn’t have a family history of the disease. Sometimes, the garden was the only activity she had the energy for. Weeding, watering or simply being in the yard became a form of therapy.

“I was sick, and I was really depressed, and things kind of fell apart for me. And then I had this yard,” Penix said. “It’s the place I just wanted to spend the most time. It’s been this ongoing frustration: Plan the garden. Get really excited. Then it’s like, ‘Well, I have to have another surgery (and) can’t use my arms right after I planted. And then everything kind of falls apart. … And then when I was really mad, I could pull weeds. So it was a good outlet.”

A new outlook on food

Penix now researches injury and violence prevention in a public health master’s program at Johns Hopkins University. She’s knowledgeable in the field now, but initially, she knew little about the impact of healthy food on overall well-being.

Her cancer journey showed her the importance of what people consume and how environments shape health. Penix started focusing on addressing issues at the root, rather than only treating symptoms with medication.

“I learned how important green space is to every part of the human health experience,” Penix said. “I think about how important having the green spaces is to people. And being connected to the earth and being able to have control of the food systems and being able to use land to be able to grow healthy food I think is a really important thing.”

Penix grows tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, eggplants and beans to use in her meals. (Though, her husband says, she sometimes goes overboard with certain produce). Growing produce helped increase her fruit and vegetable intake to improve her diet. Research shows produce begins to lose its nutrients as soon as it is harvested, making fresh food the best choice.

Penix said urban farming also helped her learn more about what goes into in our food, like pesticides and other agents she considers to be harmful, although some experts maintain these chemicals are safe.

Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan, emphasized that any pesticide residue on food is safe for eating and that there isn’t much research that says pesticide-free or “organic” foods offer more nutritional benefits than nonorganic food.

“Food is pretty healthy, even if it doesn’t look perfect,” Bauer said, noting to never eat food that looks expired or rotten. “It is definitely more important to use your money to get as much fresh produce as you can that your family can handle and eat and (to have) a variety.”

As the flowers in her garden faded with the arrival of fall, Penix said she felt both a sense of sadness and peace. Her approach to urban gardening has become a metaphor for life: It’s about letting things bloom, grow and fall when the time comes.

“It’s a constant process of learning what it takes to keep things alive,” Penix said, adding that the garden “is an ecosystem that I’m not in charge of. It needs tending, it needs to be kept refreshed. … It’s sad to see all my goldenrods just fade because those are so pretty.

“It’s that hard time to let things kind of be without kind of aggressively pruning, trying to make things pretty. Just let it fade. I’m trying to be good with that.”

The post Gardening Heals: Detroiter’s Cancer Treatment Eased by her Work With Soil appeared first on Modern Farmer.

However, if you want to start growing more of your own food, many kitchen staples such as corn, beans and potatoes can be grown at home. 

Here are ten calorie-dense crops you can grow at home to turn your hobby garden into a more sustaining one. Data was collected from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USDA) and nutritionix.com and is based on the recommendation for a 2,000-calorie diet. Here, I list calories, carbohydrates and protein. Fats were excluded from the guide as most vegetables don’t produce much if any fat. 

Corn 

Corn is an American classic. Cultivated by native Americans, corn is present in so many hearty meals and has a variety of uses. You can eat corn right off the cob, pop it up in some oil over a fire or cook it and grind it into cornmeal to be used to make breads, tortillas and other tasty corn treats such as tamales. 

The possibilities are endless for corn: From the fuel in our vehicles to the fuel in our bellies, it’s one of most widely cultivated and consumed crops in the world. 

Corn’s time to maturity can get tricky based on the variety you’re growing and how much you want it to dry. A good rule of thumb is about 120 days, so plant your corn about two to three weeks after your last frost to ensure there’s enough time to harvest. 

Corn contains about 100 calories, 22 grams of carbs and 3.5 grams of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Beans 

Beans are one of the first crops kids learn about in school. If you didn’t get to have the bean germination experiment at school, I’m sorry if this reference is lost on you. 

Beans germinate very quickly and are extremely easy to grow in your home garden. They thrive in the ground as well as in raised bed and container gardens. 

Most beans will reach maturity between 45 and 60 days. Beans are a quick crop, easy to grow, and they can help make your soil more nitrogen-rich for whatever you’re planting next in your garden.

Red beans contain about 135 calories, 24 grams of carbs and 9 grams of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Winter Squash 

Winter squash deserves a place on this list due to its growing habit and role as a great companion plant for beans and corn. It’s also delicious roasted and eaten as a side dish with your fall dinner or cooked into a soup for a warm winter meal. 

Winter squash can take between 60 and 110 days to reach maturity. It is ready to harvest once the rinds are full of color and firm enough that your thumbnail won’t make an indention in the rind. 

As for nutrients, winter squash contains about 45 calories, 11 grams of carbs and one gram of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Potatoes 

I said beans were easy, but potatoes might be even easier. Just bury the potato and then water it. Soon, leaves will grow up from the soil, capturing the light needed to make more potatoes. 

Potatoes take between 60 and 130 days to reach maturity, depending on the variety you’re planting. If you’re planting potatoes right now, keep an eye out for that last frost date for your region. You want to harvest your potatoes before the last frost, so keep a watch on the weather before you plant your tubers. 

Potatoes contain about 80 calories, 17 carbs and two grams of protein per 100 grams. 

Beets 

Beets aren’t just the favorite vegetable of Dwight Schrute, their high nutritional content makes them a superfood. Beets are a spring crop with a quick harvest time of 55 to 70 days to maturity. Unlike potatoes, beets are a root vegetable that you don’t want to leave in the ground, as over-mature beets can become tough or woody (aka not the most delicious). 

Aside from being nutritious, beets also provide essential macronutrients. Beets contain about 50 calories, five grams of carbs and two grams of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Lentils 

Lentils are great for making hearty soups or replacing meat in popular American dishes such as sloppy joe sandwiches. They’re one of my favorite vegetables thanks to their versatility and delicious flavor and texture. 

Lentils are a summer crop and should be planted around late April to early May or whenever temperatures are consistently above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Most varieties take about 100 days to reach maturity. 

Lentils contain about 115 calories, 20 grams of carbs and nine grams of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Chickpeas 

Whether you prefer to call them chickpeas or garbanzo beans, they do belong to the legume family. They’re delicious as a meat replacement and a staple in Asian cuisine as the star of Chana Masala (one of my favorite Indian dishes) and the star of everyone’s favorite dip: hummus. 

Chickpeas take around 100 days to reach maturity, so follow the same guidelines for growing lentils. 

Chickpeas contain about 160 calories, 27 grams of carbs and nine grams of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Jerusalem Artichokes 

Jerusalem artichokes are one of my favorite misunderstood vegetables. I feel like people often put artichokes in a category with things such as olives or water chestnuts, which tend to attract the “love it or hate it” type of attention typical of uncommon vegetables in the United States. 

Jerusalem artichokes contain about 77 calories, 18 grams of carbs and two grams of protein per 100-gram serving. 

Sweet potatoes 

Unlike potatoes, sweet potatoes aren’t members of the nightshade family. They’re actually a member of the morning glory family, making the sweet potato more closely related to your grandmother’s favorite flowers than the humble russet potatoes she’s baking up for dinner. 

Instead of using a seed potato to grow sweet potatoes, you have to buy sweet potato slips, which are tiny sweet potato plants that have some small roots, which will turn into sweet potatoes. 

Sweet potatoes have a longer time to maturity of about 100 days, so keep the first frost in mind when planting your tubers. 

Sweet potatoes contain 86 calories, 20 carbs and two grams of protein per 100 grams. 

Mushrooms 

Mushrooms are one of my favorite things about nature. Neither plants or animals, mushrooms are fungi, and their growth conditions make them a perfect crop to grow for calorie and nutrient density. 

Many mushrooms can be grown indoors, allowing you to grow mushrooms year-round. Some of the mushroom grow kits give you everything you need to start growing your own lion’s mane or oyster mushrooms at home, with an expected harvest time of about 30 to 40 days. 

Mushrooms aren’t the greatest when it comes to calorie-density, but they do pack in the protein. Mushrooms contain about 25 calories, four grams of carbs, 3.6 grams of protein and 0.5 grams of fat per 100-gram serving.

The Three Sisters garden 

One smart way to grow beans, squash and corn is to plant a three sisters garden. By planting these three crops together, they benefit each other and create a self-sustaining, relatively low-maintenance way to grow all three crops. 

The corn won’t be competing with the squash or beans due to its fast, straight-up growing habit. Beans will use the corn stalks for support so they can grow tall without the need for a trellis. Squash’s vining habit and large leaves will protect the soil below the corn and beans to ensure weeds can’t thrive and the soil stays moist and protected from the summer sun. 

Check out this guide from the Farmer’s Almanac to learn how to maximize your three sisters garden. 

Looking forward

Whether growing food is your hobby or your livelihood, knowing how to grow more nutritious and macronutrient-dense crops can help us better appreciate the food we eat every day. 

While it’s too late to plant a three sisters garden in Tennessee, I’m going to start planning now for how to maximize my garden to make it more sustainable and nourishing for me and my family. 

The post Growing a Survival Garden: Ten Calorie-Dense Crops You Can Grow at Home appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) of swine impact the air in Sampson County. Not only is the smell overwhelming, but the odor is an indicator of what these facilities are emitting—dangerous substances such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. CAFOs are densely populated in communities of color in eastern North Carolina, and the pollution and impact of them has been on the books for decades. The issue, and the environmental justice advocates in the community who have spoken out against it, are well documented in the film “The Smell of Money.” 

The EPA has air sensors deployed around the country to monitor air quality. When there’s documented pollution, it can enable the government to hold polluters accountable. But rural areas can get overlooked when it comes to air quality measurements—in Sampson County there is a gap in data collection. One of the aims of this project is to make the case for a federal air monitor in the county. 

“One of the end goals is to advocate for a federal air monitor within the county,” says Wall, Community Science Manager for CleanAIRE NC. “And that’s actually something that we’ve been able to do in the past.”

CAFOs and Air Pollution

On a broad scale, very large-scale industrial livestock operations (with tens of thousands of animals) have been getting away with air pollution for a long time. 

“These facilities have not been required to report their air emissions for almost two decades,” says Carrie Apfel, deputy managing attorney for the Sustainable Food & Farming Program at Earthjustice. 

This exemption to the Clean Air Act can be traced back to a consent agreement made between the EPA and thousands of hog CAFOs in the early aughts. The EPA decided it needed to establish reporting methodologies for CAFOs in order to enforce emissions regulations—and so it traded legal immunity to some of the country’s biggest producers in exchange for a few years of data collection. Those few years came and went, producing very little useful data. Two decades later, CAFOs still get a free pass to pollute the air.

Meanwhile, a study from 2021 reports that agriculture leads to 17,900 air quality-related deaths every year in the US. This has been an urgent environmental justice issue for decades now, but the EPA is no closer to regulating air emissions from CAFOs.

Organizations such as Earthjustice have been working to hold the government accountable. It sued the EPA, challenging the reporting exemption for CAFOs under EPCRA as unlawful. This is one of the few statutes that would give the public the right to this reported information. Part of the resistance, says Apfel, has come from the idea that this will burden small farmers with having to figure out their emissions impact. But it won’t —this law would only affect the largest of operations, a small percentage overall.

“There’s a lot of mythology out there about where our food comes from and what these CAFOs are and are not, and I think that Big Ag does everything it can to keep it that way,” says Apfel. “I think that a lot of this is a narrative battle just trying to explain that these are not farms…They’re factories, and they don’t resemble anything like farms.”

While big wheels turn, Sampson County is taking action.

Community-driven data collection

CleanAire NC has seen success with its air quality work before, in Charlotte, NC.

Charlotte’s Historic West End endured redlining—the practice of banks refusing loans to communities of color. This contributed to multiple polluting industries moving into the area and impacting air quality. Residents wanted to know to what extent. So, community members approached CleanAIRE NC.

Residents and ClearnAIRE NC partnered to install PurpleAir sensors at peoples’ homes. The air sensors automatically track and record air quality, mainly through measuring particulate matter in the air. You can see the dashboard of operating air sensors here.

But measuring particulate matter presents a limited picture, and that’s where volunteer airkeepers come in. When levels get high, they can record their observations of what they see and smell and they can take pictures and videos. This will help the data set reflect the differences between highway emissions, CAFO pollution, rock dust from a quarry, and more.

“Particulate matter is so variable, and so it’s hard to pinpoint what might be going on at a specific time,” says Wall. 

Thanks to the data collected by these air sensors, Mecklenburg County Air Quality installed an air sensor. 

Community leaders and CleanAIRE NC have partnered on other efforts to create a green district in the Historic West End, such as planting trees, installing electric vehicle chargers, and supporting green infrastructure.

Now, 30 sensors have been deployed in Sampson County. Just as the work in Charlotte’s Historic West End has been driven by community questions, input, and resources so, too, will be the work in Sampson County.

“That’s a way that we’re trying to fill the gap between these researchers that are coming in to be a part of our project, and maintaining our values on engaging communities,” says Wall.

The post In Eastern North Carolina, Community Science Aims to Fill an Air Quality Gap appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Calvin Head

Farmer and Director of Milestone Cooperative Association

I’m participating in a regenerative agriculture initiative with several other farmers and youth and have served as director of Milestone Cooperative Association for about 12 years. I’m also a community organizer with emphasis on economic and community development. And, historically, I’ve been in this civil rights work almost all of my adult life and most of my young life.

One of the primary purposes of our organization right now is to offset these health issues by growing quality food, which is really not accessible here for most people. We’re helping people to understand what it is to eat healthy because a lot of people don’t really know, believe it or not. We’re also just trying to enhance the quality of life for low-income individuals and limited-resource farms.

I think the Farm Bill was written with us in mind in terms of how it’s presented to Congress, but when it comes to actual distribution and allocation, I think that the rules of the game change somehow. Historically, every time we get inside the process and we get to understand and master that process, they change the rules right away. They know who gets what. It’s the same people in the same places for the most part. They’re all well connected with who they want to help. I will just say the educational piece around the Farm Bill needs to be improved. Instead of just announcing it, let people really, really know what’s in it and how to take advantage of it—especially rural people and people of color.

We have many priorities for the Farm Bill, but where our community is really, really getting left behind is with broadband access. Having access to it where we are is really difficult. Our service providers are price gouging and taking as much advantage of us as they can because they know we have few alternatives. 

Right now, we’re limited to one small hotspot at our farm store for internet access. And everything is set up online, even our surveillance system. So, we can’t run the cash register, the gas pump, the surveillance system and the credit card machine at the same time. We’re limited and that hotspot can only go so far. So, we have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Broadband is so important in everyone’s everyday life. You’re almost third world without it. When we first got certified with the USDA Food Safety Program for our vegetable initiative, there was so much stuff that you had to go online and do.

It needs to be made mandatory that some of the resources from the Farm Bill reach us. Do you know what it would mean to have access to a new tractor to do some of the work we need done in these fields? One day your tractor is working and the next day you’re just hoping it makes it through that day. Or just being able to have some upfront money would be helpful. Most of the time, we’ve invested out of our own pockets. We’ve taken on all the risk and then we’re one flood away from bankruptcy. Getting support from the Farm Bill could give us the same flexibility that big farmers have when there’s a disaster. And you wouldn’t have to spend your life’s savings just to try to get a crop in the ground. It would have a tremendous impact. I have never as a farmer operated in the black.

There’s money allotted just for farmers in the Farm Bill and we just want our fair share. At least, before I leave this earth, I would like to see it. I would just like to see a level playing field just for once. All we want is the opportunity to work hard. Nobody is asking for a handout, just some flexibility.

The post Faces of the Farm Bill: Calvin Head appeared first on Modern Farmer.

She had never thought of herself as an organizer or an environmentalist. She ran a restaurant. She published a cookbook. She was a mom to five kids. Of all the hats she wore, organizer wasn’t one of them.

“I had no idea about any of this stuff,” says Dougherty. “Literally zero—less than zero probably. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

Dougherty is definitely not unique in this respect. It is very hard for most people to know what to do to organize against the threats presented by factory farming in their community. While reporting our story about some of the communities that have resisted or are currently resisting factory farms, including Dougherty’s, we came across a lot of great advice from people who themselves have been in this position. Whether you’re organizing in response to a particular factory farm site or advocating for systemic change, learning from the experiences of others can be a great place to start, so we’ve compiled some of those insights for you here. 

Align yourself with a supporting organization

Food & Water Watch addresses factory farming on a big-picture scale. Michaelyn Mankel of Food & Water Watch Iowa says connecting with others is valuable at that broader scope, too.

“If you’re really serious about getting involved in this work, the most important thing I think there is to do is to find your people.”

Jennifer Breon of Food & Water Watch Iowa echoes this point.

“I think collective action is key, whether it’s Food & Water Watch or any other environmental organization that’s working on factory farm issues, or environmental issues around agriculture, where you can have a sphere of influence. Don’t just do this on your own.” 

When Barb Kalbach became aware of a hog CAFO being planned for just up the road from her in 2002, she called on the help of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. After successfully resisting the CAFO, she now works with Iowa CCI. According to Kalbach, aligning yourself with an organization can help you with strategy you might miss on your own. “It’s just those little things…that you and I wouldn’t think of, and that an organization that’s worked and helps people like that, they do think of that.”

Resources

Food & Water Watch has chapters across the US and organizes at a national level as well.

Iowa CCI provides assistance on a variety of social and environmental issues in Iowa.

Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) has a Help Hotline for communities struggling against factory farming.

Environmental organizations can also be good to reach out to, especially ones that participate in water monitoring such as the Waterkeeper Alliance.

Communication is key

Dougherty, now senior regional representative with SRAP, recommends creating opportunities for community members to talk and be heard. Listening is key early on:

“Just literally holding space for folks and listening to them talk through the incredulousness of what they’re confronting…Tell me what’s going on, how is this impacting you? Are other people concerned? For me, at least the first couple of meetings are not spent devising a plan of attack; the first couple are completely based in, ‘Tell me more,’ as opposed to, ‘Let me tell you something.’”

Communication isn’t just important at the beginning. Emily Tucker of Food & Water Watch New Mexico recommends talking to others about what you’ve observed.

“Talk to your neighbors about it. Alone, we can’t get much done. But I think that the more folks work together and just say, Hey, I’ve noticed this, have you noticed this? I think that’s really important. Even if you don’t have a background in organizing, that is a wonderful place to start—just talking to your neighbor about the issue.”

Resources

Join Food & Water Watch’s Food Action Team as a volunteer to begin connecting with others in your community.

Get the word out

It’s important to make communication as easy as possible, and have streamlined ways of disseminating information. For ongoing battles, having a means of central communication is essential, says Starla Tillinghast of Oregon. 

“Kendra immediately got up a website full of information about it. And then people got signed up to be on email notification. And I think [the] number one most important thing is central communication because then that way we can be updated with anything coming up.”

Besides websites and listservs, other common ways to share information include Facebook groups and lawn signs. Bringing information to already established groups such as faith groups, schools, and community centers can also be helpful. 

Use public information and learn the laws

The industry isn’t going to publicize their plans, so seeking out information that is in the public domain but not advertised is a skill worth learning. These may include site plans, permit applications, and more. 

However, the process for getting access to public records looks different everywhere, says Kendra Kimbirauskas of State Innovation Exchange (SiX). Figuring out the unique process for making these requests in your area is a good early step.

“For somebody who’s kind of in the position that we were in, it’s really important to figure out who the public records officer or steward is, figure out what the process is, and then follow the process. And there’s going to be probably different processes for the different bodies of government that you’re talking to. We were interested in the state and the county, slightly different processes, but we had to understand what those processes were before we could get the records.”

It’s also okay to look at what other communities have done that could be a model for your community. When Farmers Against Foster Farms wanted to increase its  “setback” distance—the required distance between CAFOs and property lines— in Linn County, Oregon,  Tillinghast began looking at other agricultural states to see what their required setbacks were. Other states had much greater setbacks, and Tillinghast thought that this information could help Oregon follow suit.

“I went and looked up setbacks all across the nation, and I wrote that out in a table,” says Tillinghast. “I brought it to the planner, and I brought it to the county commissioners.”

Resources

SRAP has compiled the relevant laws concerning industrial livestock operations in each state. Find yours here.

Here’s a tutorial on how to make a Freedom of Information Act request.

Google “How to make a public records request in (county, city, or state name)” for more information.

Find out if your county has “local control”

It’s much harder to resist the effects of CAFOs once they are already built. Ideally, people would be able to know where CAFOs are going to go so they could prepare. Unfortunately, this is hard to do.

“It’s really tough to figure out where a CAFO will go next; they are pretty opaque when it comes to their next steps,” says Dougherty “From what I’ve seen, they like to come in under the radar and try to get the process started with little to no public knowledge. They seem to prefer communities with as  [few] regulations as possible.”

There are a few things that industry will look for when siting a CAFO, and perhaps the biggest one will be the ability to operate without being heavily regulated. One thing you can do today is find out if your state has “local control,” the ability to make certain decisions about agriculture at the county level instead of at the state level.

“Generally, CAFOs go where they can have a cluster, be within a certain distance to a processor, have access to transportation infrastructure, and feel that the local community doesn’t have the political power to prevent them from coming in. So, places are targeted where there [is] no local control—often, communities of color, often, communities with high unemployment rates so that they can sell the false narrative of job creation. Usually, the best way for communities to find out is through the community rumor mill. Sadly, a lot of times, communities don’t find out until the wheels are greased and the operations are being built,” says Kimbirauskas. 

Resources

Learn more about SB85, the recent law that gave Oregon local control here.

Think big picture, too

A lot of the work for a more sustainable food system is being done at the policy level. It’s important to go beyond individual site fights, because industry will always be looking for the next place to land. Alexa Moore of Food & Water Watch New Mexico points to the Farm Bill as a good example of legislation with a broad impact.

“There’s different levels of stuff—there’s your local level, there’s your state level, and then there’s your national level. We’re doing work on a fair Farm Bill. And so, that’s something that whether you’re in New Mexico, or Oregon, or Iowa, or Maryland, or South Carolina, or any of these states, this is going to impact you. And so, I think that’s something that whether you’re in a small community or in a very urban area, as a large farmer or small farmer or what have you, you can always connect through this larger issue that impacts everyone such as the Farm Bill.”

In your everyday life, you can support the kind of farmers you want to see, says Kimbirauskas. But beyond market-based solutions, she also encourages people to engage with legislators.

“Every single person in this country is represented by [legislators]. If you care about this issue, if you haven’t talked to them about this issue, they’re not inaccessible, typically. It’s pretty easy to connect with your state elected officials and let them know that this is something that you care about.”

Don’t think about these issues as siloed, says Rania Masri, PhD, co-director of North Carolina Environmental Justice Network.

“My advice that I have for people organizing is to make those links and not to organize in silos, not to just think about one aspect, but to make those links and then to connect them to state policies and federal policies. Have the courage to demand not a token seat at the table, but a completely different kind of table.”

Resources

The Farm System Reform Act would place an immediate moratorium on new factory farms. You can contact your legislators through Food & Water Watch about these issues here.

The House of Representatives’ Farm Bill draft has included language from the EATS Act. If included, this could take away states’ power to make decisions about the conditions of industrial animal agriculture locally. Learn more and take action here.

Avoid polarizing media narratives

Industrial farming can be an emotional topic for people involved. And according to Mankel, sharing stories with the media can be a powerful way to get the word out to others in the community.

“For the average person reading this, the best tool and the best place that you can put your focus on, at least to begin with, I think is the media…Look at local media and how you can get word out to the public and how you can get coverage on what’s going on and look to other organizations that you think might have a stake in this issue.”

Tucker advises people to tell their stories without contributing to polarizing anti-agriculture media narratives.

“I think that it’s really important to differentiate between small- and family-scale farmers and industrialized agriculture. And that’s something that can be kind of a struggle sometimes, and it can very, very easily get folks who farm small scale to be like, Well, why is this group organizing against me? And so, I think the narrative there is one that’s particularly important to challenge and say that, we want a food system that works for small farmers, and that works for consumers and works for the environment. And we think that we can do it. But that is a pretty difficult narrative to challenge in the media at times.”

Kimbirauskas of Oregon seconds the importance of this.

“A lot of times, we sort of get into these mindsets of them versus us. A lot of times, that kind of plays out as urban versus rural, and animal rights activists versus farmers. And that’s how the narrative is developed. That’s a losing battle for anyone who doesn’t like factory farms. And so, really striving to think about finding places of commonality, and not villainizing all farmers…I think our community saw this—when there’s a way for independent farmers to come together with advocates, and work together against factory farms, that is a winning strategy.”

Resources

You can contact us at Modern Farmer at contact@modfarm.com

Reach out to your local newspapers for coverage—most accept tips from the public. Try calling or emailing a reporter directly. You can usually find this contact information on the publication’s online masthead. If someone in your community is a writer, you can submit a letter to the editor—consult your newspaper’s pitch page for specific directions.

Take care of yourself, too

Organizing is hard work, and both site battles and systemic change can be long fights. Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist for the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability says that this kind of work can be hard on the mental health of organizers.

“Take care of yourself, because this is a movement. This is going to take time. It’s going to be hard. There’s going to be a lot more battles. And I’d also encourage people to remember that being selfless is not a sustainable way of doing this work.”

Martinez draws power from working closely with the community.

“I can use what I know to push back. I find strength in that.”

The post Advice From Those Organizing Against Factory Farms appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As a small farmer who formerly worked with communities to resist large corporate farms, she knew a lot about how industrial chicken operations could affect a community. She knew about the putrid smell of animal waste, she knew it wasn’t safe to drink the local water. But, in April of 2023, as she visited a midwestern farmer whose home was surrounded by dozens of industrial chicken barns producing millions of chickens, it was the sight of the trucks hurtling down the narrow roads, one after the other, that was particularly jarring. 

“If you can picture a dusty dirt road with semis barreling down, the amount of dust and dirt and God knows whatever else that comes off these trucks would literally blow into the front yard,” says Kimbirauskas. “Thinking about putting your clothes on the line, or having your windows open, that’s no longer an option because of these trucks.”

Carrying feed, new birds, and finished flocks, these trucks served as a near-constant reminder of the other things these operations bring with them—smells that make it hard to stand outside, air pollution you can feel burning your throat, not being able to trust the water coming out of your tap—the list goes on.

Just three years earlier, Kimbirauskas had gotten wind that Foster Farms was planning to move into her own home of Linn County, Oregon and decided to fight back. After a bit of digging, what she found was staggering: Foster Farms was planning three sites in the county to build concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which would collectively raise 13 million chickens per year. This visit provided Kimbirauskas with a glimpse into what she was fighting against in her own home community. 

“For me that was such an affirmation that [our] community is 100 percent going to be the target of chicken expansion,” says Kimbirauskas. “It really made me dig in and stand in my own power and agency of knowing that this is not something that would be good and beneficial for Linn County.”

CAFOs are defined by the EPA as intensive feeding operations where many animals are confined and fed for at least 45 days per year—though this is just a minimum—and where the waste from those animals poses a pollution threat to surface water. 

There are small, medium and large CAFOs, with the largest of these—housing thousands to tens of thousands of animals—embodying the truest definition of a “factory farm.” Many of the issues can be boiled down to the sheer concentration of manure they produce.

A mega-dairy CAFO can produce as much waste as a city; but whereas a city will have an advanced sewage system, CAFOs aren’t required to manage their waste in the same way.

As of 2022, there were more than 21,000 large CAFOs in the US. One estimate, informed by USDA data, suggests that 99 percent of livestock grown in the US is raised in a CAFO. Some states have particularly dense concentrations, such as Iowa, North Carolina, and Nebraska. This industry presents itself as a way to produce a lot of food while keeping costs down. But any cost saved by the consumer is a cost borne by the CAFOs’ neighboring communities, the environment, local economies, and even the contracted farmers themselves. 

Large CAFOs cause myriad problems that are currently being experienced by communities across the country. These issues include environmental pollution, drinking water poisoning, air pollution, and plummeting property values. In drought-ridden states such as New Mexico, CAFOs add insult to injury by contaminating the water and using more water than the dwindling aquifers can handle. In Winona County, Minnesota, more than 1,300 people can’t drink their water because of nitrate pollution.

There have been many instances of serious illnesses believed to be linked to living close to CAFOs, such as cancer and miscarriages, and respiratory issues such as asthma and sleep apnea are prolific in CAFO-adjacent communities. In North Carolina, living near a large CAFO has been associated with increased blood pressure. In Iowa, a study found that children raised on swine farms had increased odds of developing asthma.

Large CAFOs are often built in communities of color. This frequency with which polluting industries are built in these communities is evidence of ongoing environmental injustice. 

While the industry often associates itself with the picturesque image of American farming, the fact is that industrial agriculture has created the immense consolidation of US farms, driving farmers all over the country out of business. CAFOs are often built in clusters near each other—when a CAFO is built, more will likely follow.

The factory farm industry is expanding all the time, but communities across the country have become advocates to stop this expansion—both at individual sites, and on a systemic level—in the hopes that, one day, no one has to pay the price of factory farming. 

Foster Farms is coming to town

Linn County is tucked into the western part of Oregon and home to many family-run farms. But, in 2020, Foster Farms arrived in the county, planning to build CAFOs holding tens of thousands of birds at a time. Foster Farms is a poultry company that sells chicken and chicken products in chain grocery stores across the country. 

In Linn County, there was no public announcement of Foster Farms’ arrival.

“One of the stories that we hear time and again is people didn’t realize or don’t realize what’s going on until it’s too late,” says Kimbirauskas. “That is a tactic of the industry because nobody wants to live next to one of these things. So, they’re going to be trying to get in as quietly as possible.”

It started in 2020, when a woman working at a local feed store noticed a customer come in with Foster Farms company branding on his coat. He was a land scout, and he was in the area to try and determine suitable land for chicken operations.

She asked him some specific questions about the locations they were considering. One, she learned, was right next to her house. The land scout told her they planned to put up a buffer between the site and one of the bigger houses in the area, so they wouldn’t get complaints. But, she knew, there was also a smaller house on that road—her house. Would that house get a buffer?

Well, he told her, they don’t have enough money to do anything about it. 

Foster Farms’ behavior aligns with larger trends—data shows that CAFOs are disproportionately built in low-income areas.

After this upsetting conversation, the woman reached out to Kimbirauskas. Kimbirauskas is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to fighting CAFOs, because she’s seen similar situations play out all over the country. Growing up in Michigan, the rapid consolidation of dairy farms due to industrialized agriculture led her family to the very difficult decision to sell their dairy. Today, Kimbirauskas is the Senior Director of Agriculture and Food Systems at the State Innovation Exchange (SiX). Before that, as chief executive officer of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP), she had worked with communities across the country who were dealing with health and environmental issues as a result of living next to CAFOs. 

Kimbirauskas and other concerned members of the community found that there was no information available at the state level about what was going on, so the first thing Kimbirauskas began doing was submitting public records requests.

“Through those public records requests, we found that there was not two but three sites that were being proposed, which would have totaled roughly 13 million chickens within a 10-mile radius, and that was per year,” says Kimbirauskas. 

Something had to be done.

Site fights

The battle against factory farms happens at multiple scales. Some of the big-picture advocacy happens at the state and federal level, where advocates are trying to make systemic changes. Other battles happen directly over individual proposed or existing CAFOs—these are known as “site fights.” 

Site fights aren’t easy to win. But it is possible. Barb Kalbach, president of the board of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI), has experienced it firsthand. In 2002, Kalbach lived on a small farm in Adair County, Iowa—a rural community that today has a population of less than 8,000. She heard through the grapevine that just 1,970 feet up the road from her property, a massive hog CAFO was being proposed. She called a realtor she knew who lived nearby who confirmed it. The operation would consist of 10 buildings holding 7,200 sows, producing 10 million gallons of liquid manure every year. Kalbach’s farm had always been surrounded by other farms. But no regular farm produces that much manure.

Kalbach called the Iowa CCI, which had been fighting social justice issues affecting Iowans since the 1970s.

“I called the office. That was on a Friday, and they sent out on Sunday an organizer. And in that two-day period, I called all the neighbors, anybody I can think of in our community that probably wouldn’t like it very well, this confinement, and we all met over at our little local country church.”

When organizing against a CAFO, simply not wanting one near you isn’t a good enough reason to keep one out. CCI didn’t do the work for them, says Kalbach, but advised them on things they could do, such as looking for evidence in their plans that the facility wouldn’t be able to meet the environmental regulation requirements. Proof of this kind is easier said than found.

Kalbach and her neighbors went to commissioner meetings, did research, wrote letters to the editor of the local newspaper, created petitions and sought signatures. The actual turning point came to Kalbach as a phone call in the early hours of the day.

“At four o’clock in the morning, one of the guys called me and he said, ‘I’ve got a great idea,’” says Kalbach. To get permitted, this operation would have to create a manure management plan for the 10 million gallons of liquid manure per year. “The guy that called me said, ‘let’s get all the farmers within a 10-mile radius to sign a document that states they will not accept the manure.’” 

The idea was to show the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) that all of the manure would have to be transported at least 10 miles before anything could be done with it. The CAFO would not be able to claim that nearby farms were going to use the manure as fertilizer.

The CAFO was permitted anyway. The community appealed this decision, and during this period, they brought forth everything they had—including the list of neighboring farmers who agreed to reject the CAFO’s manure. And they succeeded. In the end, the vote went in favor of the community.

“[The EPC) voted finally and we won five to four,” says Kalbach. “He was smacked down and we did not have a factory farm built by us.”

Site fight victories show what’s possible. But when denied a site, industry begins looking elsewhere. The danger is that the next community may not be as successful in resisting. And that’s why many advocates are also looking for systemic change. 

“Site fights, especially here in the state of Iowa, are never going to be adequate…We need to upend the system of prioritizing CAFOs over everything else,” says Michaelyn Mankel of Food & Water Watch Iowa.

Iowa is densely populated with CAFOs. In the last 25 years, the number of waterways in Iowa that are polluted has increased significantly. Iowa Public Radio reports that Iowa has the second-highest rate of new cancers in the country, and it leads the nation in the highest rate of new cancers. Kalbach says she believes these are connected. 

Iowa is known for its sheer density of swine CAFOs, producing one out of every three hogs raised for consumption. As a result, Iowa has to deal with more hog waste than any other state in the country. The impact is felt in both rural and urban communities.

“I think it’s a little easier in urban centers, like Iowa City and Des Moines, to feel like things are a little more normal, and that the scale of the problem isn’t quite what it is,” says Mankel. “But driving through rural Iowa, and visiting small towns, it’s really destroyed so much of our state.”

There has been a campaign for a moratorium on new or expanding CAFOs in the Iowa state legislature since 2017. It has not been passed.

Despite the lack of success in Iowa, moratoria movements are one way that some other states and counties have prevented new CAFOs being built or expanded. At a federal level, Senator Cory Booker’s Farm System Reform Act could make moratoria a reality across the country. While site fights are important, they are not always successful. In states such as Iowa, which is densely saturated with CAFOs, only systemic change will move the needle. 

“I think those folks, who are the [majority] of Iowans who are not farmers, are starting to understand why they should care about this,” says Jennifer Breon of Food & Water Watch Iowa.

Consolidation and systemic advocacy

Being near a megadairy CAFO is a visceral experience. In Clovis, New Mexico, organizer for Food & Water Watch Alexa Moore said the smell was like that of a normal farm cranked up to 10 times the potency. That smell, caused by the high concentration of manure, is more than just a bad scent; these fumes carry ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, which cause respiratory issues. Just walking through the parking lot of a Walmart, Moore’s throat was burning.

Moore’s stop in Roswell was part of a roadshow to three towns with a heavy factory farming presence: Clovis, Roswell, and Las Cruces. At each of these communities, Moore and fellow organizer Emily Tucker hosted a showing of the film “Right to Harm,” a documentary that demonstrates some of the ways communities are resisting factory farming across the country. This roadshow aimed to build awareness of the issue, and foster conversation around some of the systemic changes that need to be made, and talk about the situations in the surrounding area. Some of these locations are also near airforce and military bases, which have caused pollution as well. They found some residents knew there was water pollution, but they didn’t realize how much of it was due to the large CAFOs.

“A lot of people just assumed that all of the water contamination was from those military bases,” says Moore. 

Along the way, they were cautioned by locals not to drink the water. At a taproom in Roswell, Tucker asked the server for a glass of water. 

“I’ll just get you a bottle,” the server replied. 

In a state that experienced a decades-long drought, New Mexico doesn’t have much water to spare. But here, factory farms use an estimated 32 million gallons of water every day. This puts a particular squeeze on smaller farmers, who simply can’t farm without water.

“What we are seeing is a lot of our smaller farmers aren’t able to continue to dig wells. So, we’re seeing aquifer levels drop, their wells are going dry, and the small farmers aren’t able to compete with these big corporations who can keep drilling and keep drilling,” says Moore.

Moore’s own family feels the strain directly. “My cousin is a farmer. He lives down in Alamogordo. He’s a small family farmer, been in the family for five generations,” says Moore. “And just this year, they lost their well water and so he can no longer farm, which is a huge part of his income.”

Large-scale dairies also outcompete more sustainable operations on price, driving them out of business. In the past 20 years, New Mexico has lost half of its small-scale dairies. In this context, a small dairy is less than 500 cows. Large dairies can have tens of thousands of cows.

Consolidation isn’t just a symptom of the factory farm problem, says Sean Carroll, policy and organizing director for the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota. It’s the root of it.

“Our system is so consolidated,” says Carroll. “But that’s a system that we created through choices made by policymakers. We can make different policy decisions that actually create a system that is better for farmers [and] better for rural communities.” 

A member organization of the HEAL Food Alliance, the Land Stewardship Project has had about 40 successful oppositions against CAFOs in just as many years. But it also engages in policy work at the state and federal level. Real change can be affected through a balance of both, says Carroll. 

“At the local level, people’s voices have a lot of power,” says Carroll. “At the same time, so much of the drivers of this system are decisions that are made at the state or the federal level.”

One of the greatest ways to battle industrial animal agriculture is by bolstering sustainable farm systems through policy. For example, the USDA is currently re-evaluating its Packers and Stockyards Act. Anyone can contact their legislators to voice their support of policies that can create long-lasting change.

“We can and need to change the language of the law so that farmers have actual legal avenues to challenge price discrimination from consolidation,” says Carroll.

Additionally, the Farm Bill is a giant piece of legislation passed once approximately every five years, and it affects everything to do with our food system. One of the Land Stewardship Project’s priorities for the Farm Bill is to stop using conservation funding for factory farms. Millions of dollars of this funding goes to large-scale CAFOs instead of helping smaller farmers expand their sustainable practices. 

The use of conservation funding for large-scale CAFOs is something that community advocates around the country know all too well. Often, this takes the shape of anaerobic digesters at large CAFOs, which convert animal manure into methane gas, to be used as energy.

Rania Masri, PhD, co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, says that biogas gets touted as a clean energy solution when really it’s the complete opposite.

“That concept, in and of itself, sounds great, but when we look into the details, we see that in North Carolina, biogas promotion is specifically designed to financially incentivize and increase the profit of industrial agriculture,” says Masri. “So, in that way, what it ends up doing is increasing methane production rather than decreasing it, increasing pollution in communities rather than decreasing it, and threatening communities with the possibility of methane explosion.”

Organizing against false solutions

In places where clusters of large-scale CAFOs are already established, organizers try to prevent existing CAFOs from expanding. In recent years, this has included advocacy against building anaerobic biogas digesters at large CAFOs. 

Federal and state governments have put forth biogas technology as a way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. But advocates such as SRAP and Friends of the Earth say that biogas production does not erase the environmental impact of CAFOs. Instead, this industry creates a market for the manure systems that are most detrimental to human health. 

By incentivizing manure production, biogas encourages mega-dairies to grow in size. 

In areas such as California’s Central Valley, parts of the midwest, and eastern North Carolina, advocates are speaking up against digesters. In this work, communities have to go up against not just industrial animal production giants, but also Big Oil—which has a direct interest in seeing the biogas market grow.

“It’s important that when you’re organizing about this stuff, you’re super clear with the community members about what you’re going up against,” says Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA). “You’re going up against Goliath.”

LCJA addresses systemic injustice, particularly in California’s rural and low-income regions, and biogas is one of the issues on which Martinez works closely with community members. Martinez is based in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where there is a high concentration of mega-dairies. In the small towns throughout the valley, people may live next to as many as two dozen of these operations. No one knows the negative impacts of living next to mega-dairies better than people who actually do. They experience the air and water pollution firsthand.

“Communities who live next to dairies have a lot of expertise,” says Martinez.

And yet, this technology is part of both state and federal plans to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. New Mexico recently passed a bill called the Clean Transportation Fuel Standard, intended to support the development of clean energy in the state. 

California has its own Low Carbon Fuel Standard, something that has turned out to bolster mega-dairy CAFOs by supporting the development of anaerobic digesters. To resist the impacts of digesters, it’s important to know how the rules surrounding the industry are made.

“If you’re an organizer, I think step one is to figure out how decisions get made,” says Martinez. “But [it’s] also important to talk to someone who has been through this, who has been through a regulation so you can also understand the weird politics about it.”

Martinez and LCJA have had individual victories against CAFO expansions, but when it comes to biogas advocacy, it has been difficult to get the California Air Resources Board to take the community’s concerns about public health into consideration. 

“It’s business as usual,” says Martinez. “But what about the fact that this business as usual is bad?”

As an organizer, Martinez has experienced how things like this frequently get presented through a narrow lens, such as focusing on creating methane gas without acknowledging community impact. She recommends organizers and communities push for a more holistic approach. A good question to keep coming back to when speaking to industry or government officials is, ‘how would that impact community?’

“The other thing I encourage organizers to do is to stop thinking about things in silos. The bureaucracy creates things in silos to make it difficult for communities to make change, and at the end of the day, we know that there needs to be comprehensive reform around how we are doing dairies in California.”

Becoming an advocate

When Mary Dougherty first heard of the plan to build a 26,000-hog CAFO in her home of Bayfield County, Wisconsin, she was concerned. Other parts of Minnesota had been through this. In Kewaunee County, there were more cows than people and nitrate pollution made the water unsafe to drink in many private wells. It’s still that way, today.

Dougherty knew it was bad news. What she didn’t know was what to do about it. 

She had never thought of herself as an organizer or an environmentalist. She ran a restaurant. She published a cookbook. She was a mom to five kids. Of all the hats she wore, organizer wasn’t one of them.

“I had no idea about any of this stuff,” says Dougherty. “Literally zero—less than zero probably. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

But she had to learn. There are only about 16,000 people in Bayfield County, so the idea of there being more hogs than humans was frightening. The town of Bayfield is perched on the edge of Lake Superior. Even though she didn’t think of herself as an environmentalist, many people in Bayfield shared the same love for the lake and the surrounding landscape. The acute threat posed by CAFO pollution had to be addressed.

Now senior regional representative for the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Dougherty first got involved with the organization because it was who she reached out to for assistance.

“I got involved with SRAP because I called for help,” says Dougherty. “I have such a really deep appreciation for the space [people are] in when they call because I was in that space in 2015.”

Industrial agriculture is more “industry” than “farming,” says Dougherty. “Industry is hiding behind a beloved American archetype of the American farmer. And they are causing great harm across this country, because they’re not farmers, they’re industrial operations that come with all of the risks that accompany all industrial operations.”

The impact of this is two-fold—it leads to people supporting large-scale corporate farms because they think they’re supporting the family farmer. But it also means that these operations aren’t subject to the same regulations and monitoring as manufacturing industries. As agricultural operations, large CAFOs get away with more self-reporting and self-regulation.

Dougherty receives calls about impending CAFOs, and in places where CAFOs are already established, anaerobic digesters for biogas. 

For the average person to begin organizing against a CAFO or digester is like going into a whole new world where they don’t speak the language, says Dougherty. This new world is filled with things such as public records requests, zoning codes, and manure management plans.

Having been through the situation herself and supported others in similar situations, Dougherty says the most important thing to do first is listen to the community. She calls this a “tell me more” approach.

“What the Community Support program does is … hold space for folks, as they orient themselves to this huge fight they’re gonna find themselves in,” says Dougherty. 

When things were beginning in Bayfield, these early conversations were like the community’s compass rose. They asked themselves questions such as “who are we” and “what do we value?” And only then, says Dougherty, could they move on to “what are we going to do about it?”

Bayfield residents came together on the common ground of wanting to protect Lake Superior and the surrounding landscape. And what they did about it was they started a petition to enact a moratorium on siting CAFOs in Bayfield County. 

“This is ground that we all can stand on and agree, yes, this works for us. And once we’ve defined that ground, then we go on to the work of how we’re going to protect this place.”

The county board of supervisors passed the moratorium, stopping the clock temporarily. During that time, the board set up a study committee, which ended up recommending two ordinances that would further regulate any future CAFOs in Bayfield County. The 26,000-hog CAFO was not built in Bayfield County—but it did find another home in Burnett County.

Bayfield’s victory shows what communities are capable of. And the re-siting of the CAFO in a neighboring county demonstrates why so many advocates are pushing for systemic change as well. 

Back in Linn County, Oregon, Farmers Against Foster Farms was working towards both—a bill to protect not only its county but give other Oregon counties the ability to defend themselves as well.

In Oregon, the story is not over

Finding out about the planned chicken operation galvanized Linn County residents—many of them farmers themselves—to organize into a group called Farmers Against Foster Farms. They made a website and an email listserv, created yard signs and a Facebook page. The three planned sites were a concern, but they also wanted a way to address the issue more generally, before future sites were even chosen.

Starla Tillinghast, a Linn County farmer and member of Farmers Against Foster Farms, knew that many of the issues they were concerned about, such as environmental pollution and health effects, could be partially addressed with “setbacks.” A setback is a legally required distance between a CAFO and a property line. Oregon’s was on the lower end—a couple of dozen feet. Tillinghast began looking at other agricultural states to see what their required setbacks were. Other states had greater setbacks, and Tillinghast thought that this information could help Oregon follow suit.

“I went and looked up setbacks all across the nation, and I wrote that out in a table,” says Tillinghast. “I brought it to the planner, and I brought it to the county commissioners.”

When they went to the Linn County commissioners with their concerns, they were faced with this issue: Oregon counties did not have “local control” or the ability to make decisions about these matters at the county level. When decisions about CAFOs are made at the state level, it makes it easier for industry to get a toehold in desirable areas.

They campaigned in coalition with other groups and, in August 2023, Oregon passed Senate Bill 85. One of the things it did was give counties local control. Another key part of its passing made it illegal for corporate farms to access groundwater without a permit, which Kimbirauskas suspects led two of the three potential Foster Farms sites to pull their permit applications. The third was granted and then paused—to be under review until October 2024. 

In December, the county commissioners voted in favor of a one-mile setback for any new or expanding CAFOs—a huge victory for the group.

But after the decision, there was a lot of pushback. The county commissioners, who had passed the decision but had yet to codify it, reopened the topic for public comment and set another meeting for June, wherein the commissioners would either uphold the previous decision or walk it back.

The comments poured in. The Albany Democrat-Herald reports that nearly 200 people wrote in, both supporting and opposing the setback rule, most in opposition being members of a Facebook group called “Families for Affordable Food.” This group mischaracterizes what the setback would actually do, implying it would hinder new farms and ranches in the area, when the focus is actually on large livestock operations.

It wasn’t just people in Linn County who wrote in, nor even just in Oregon. People wrote in from the Midwest and the East Coast, above Oregon in Washington and below in California, signifying the cross-country nature of the resistance to factory farming.

“The whole nation is watching us,” said Commissioner Sherrie Sprenger. “It’s a big deal.”

In the end, they voted to maintain the one-mile setback, but only for poultry CAFOs. This is a victory for the group, as well as an indication that more work will need to be done to make the case for holding that setback for dairy and hog CAFOs as well.

“I feel uneasy…This story may not be finished,” wrote Tillinghast to Modern Farmer in an email. “But probably no [Foster Farms] CAFOs in Linn County for 2024 anyway.”

The post Factory Farms Make Bad Neighbors. Meet the People Who Are Fighting Back appeared first on Modern Farmer.

That’s how a farmer who used to work for Perdue described his chicken house—a sight so upsetting that it led him to transition out of this kind of work, often referred to as “factory farming.” 

Factory farming is a colloquial term, one meant to evoke the mechanized and impersonal nature of the process—although the phrase itself is somewhat vague. How big of an operation are we talking about, and why is it a problem? To get at the heart of the issue, it helps to be more specific.

What the term is actually referring to can be more or less encapsulated in large-scale CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations. 

Concentrated animal feeding operations

CAFOs are defined by the EPA as intensive feeding operations where many animals are confined and fed for at least 45 days per year (though it can be much more) and inevitably their manure and waste come in contact with ground and surface water. 

There are small, medium and large CAFOs, with the largest of these embodying the truest definition of a “factory farm.” A large CAFO is at least 1,000 “animal units. ”An animal unit is roughly 1,000 lbs of live animal so to be classified as a large CAFO an operation would need to have at least:

Or combinations of all types of animals totaling 1,000 animal units. 

The largest of these CAFOs hold tens of thousands of animals in one place. 

Rationalized as a way to feed more people, large CAFOs are pervasive in our food system. But industrial animal agriculture comes with a lot of downsides.

What’s the problem?

The main problems with concentrated animal agriculture are its impacts on human health, its impact on the environment, and its threats to animal welfare. Many of these issues can be boiled down to the fact that these operations produce a lot of manure in one place. And those pollutants are released directly into the air and water. A single large CAFO can produce as much waste as a human city but without the same sewage treatment processes in place.

Human Health

For people who live near these CAFOs, pollution of the air and water pose serious health concerns. Respiratory issues such as asthma can be caused or made worse, and nitrate pollution in water can cause conditions such as blue baby syndrome. Although it can be difficult to prove causation, there have been many instances of serious issues believed to be caused by living close to CAFOs, such as cancer, miscarriages, and more. In the US, research has indicated that the impacts of agriculture on air quality lead to 17,900 deaths per year.

Additionally, these large-scale animal operations are often built in communities of color. For example, in California’s Central Valley, people of color are 1.29 times more likely to live within three  miles of a large dairy CAFO than white residents. With examples of this spanning the country, from California to North Carolina, this kind of pollution is a pattern of environmental injustice.

Farmer Health and Well-being  

Often, the farmers who enter into contracts with big meat companies such as  Tyson or Perdue find themselves taking on extensive debt to keep up with the equipment demands of the company. Due to the pay system that some of these companies use, farmers don’t make enough money to get out of debt. Instead, the company keeps the profits while the farmers shoulder the overhead costs. Ultimately, contract farming has caused many producers to lose their farms.

Environment 

Air and waterways can be seriously polluted by CAFOs. In Iowa, the state with the most hog waste in the country, the number of polluted waterways has increased dramatically in the last few decades. In North Carolina, flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew had caused substantial pollution when hog waste overflowed from their lagoons. The reason CAFOs are designated by the EPA is because the Clean Water Act specifically regulates waste and pollutants in our water and this concentration of animals and their waste is seen as a major source of potential pollution.

Animal Welfare 

In these operations, chickens, cows, and hogs are kept in conditions where they can hardly move or stand up. They are dirty and ill for most of their lives. Animal rights groups have long sounded the alarm on these conditions, but Ag-gag laws are in place in many states in an attempt to prevent these conditions from being documented.

Additional Issues

Living near a large CAFO can impact people in a lot of other ways,  too. There is an ever-present bad smell, flies, property values go down, mental health implications, and more. Even if you do not live next to a large CAFO, the issues with this type of animal production can include the spread of disease and strain on water supply.

No. Advocates would not equate large-scale CAFOs with farming at all. There are many farms—farms that practice animal agriculture—that operate in a way that protects the environment, practices responsible animal care, and does not harm the human communities close to them. These farmers are in a different category from industrial animal agriculture, which many farmers and advocates in this space would say is actually not agriculture at all, but more similar to manufacturing—hence the “factory” moniker. 

Still, this industry will often present itself as representative of the American farmer. As a result, critics are branded as “anti-agriculture” when in fact, the opposite is true. What many advocates call for is not the end of farming, but the end of a brand of food production that harms more than it helps.

The post Factory Farms Explained appeared first on Modern Farmer.