A few facts about U.S. factory farm manure:
1.5 trillion pounds generated per year – about 2 tons per capita. About 4 times the total weight of human waste. A product with negative value for most factory farm operators. Factory farms manage ~80% of the land that receives manure. Together with chemical fertilizers, the largest source of pollution in U.S waterways.
Factory farm manure is a damaging pollutant. This reality has been obscured by federal agencies and the animal ag industry for decades.
The key nutrients in manure – nitrogen and phosphorus – are essential for crop production. At one time, farmed animals deposited manure on pasture and cropland, recycling the nutrients they consumed.
That agricultural system is obsolete, due to the sheer mass of concentrated factory farm manure and the rise of chemical fertilizers. Today, manure’s nutrient pollution poisons waterways, kills wildlife, degrades drinking water, and has helped propel us well past critical planetary boundaries that define a safe living space for humanity.
Factory farm manure is a burden. For crop farmers, the nutrient levels are unpredictable and often don’t match crop needs. Manure is time-consuming to apply and may contain pathogens and other contaminants. For factory farms, manure takes up storage space, can be dangerous, is hard to load, and expensive to transport. The main concern is how to get rid of it. About 80% of manure applied to crops is spread on land owned or managed by factory farms. They need somewhere to put it.
The USDA still supports the myth that most manure is applied to crops. However, USDA scientists involved in the decades-long effort to encourage manure’s use know that it mostly pollutes air and water.
The EPA reports that about 14 billion pounds of nitrogen are generated in farmed animal manure yearly, with about two-thirds of that coming from factory farms. At the same time, the USDA estimates that about 1 billion pounds of nitrogen are applied to crops. Where does the rest go?
Most of the nutrients escape into the environment at different stages of “manure management.” As currently practiced, manure management is a systematic dispersal of manure and its nutrients into the commons – our air and water.
U.S. freshwater bodies have received failing grades for decades. Less than half have healthy biological communities. Almost three-fourths of lakes are eutrophic. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone was about 6,700 square miles last summer, larger than the state of Connecticut. Nutrient pollution from factory farm manure and chemical fertilizers on feed crops is the main culprit.
The USDA and the EPA, even at prior strength, had no plan for solving the manure problem emanating from tens of thousands of factory farms. The pretense that subsidies, conservation practices, and state regulations can solve the problem is wearing thin. Acknowledging the severity of the problem would be a good first step to finding a solution.