Catholic Conferences Question CAFO Operations

"Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have become a national issue. A new hog plant in Utah will produce more animal waste than the animal and human waste created by the city of Los Angeles; 1,600 dairies in the Central Valley of California produce more waste than a city of 21 million people. The annual production of 600 million chickens on the Delmarva Peninsula near Washington, D.C. generates as much nitrogen as a city of almost 500,000 people..."


"...In the light of present concerns about the industrialization of agriculture and the pollution of the environment as represented especially by the hog industry, NCRLC supports efforts for a national dialogue on Confined Animal Feeding Operations and their impacts on water quality, the environment, and local communities. Too much time has elapsed and too much damage has been done without an adequate national dialogue on these issues.

As a first step, NCRLC supports a moratorium on the expansion and building of new farm factories and calls for a serious consideration of their replacement by sustainable agricultural systems which are environmentally safe, economically viable, and socially just. While the federal government, the states, and local communities reassess the structure of agriculture, such a moratorium seems especially urgent. Without a moratorium, the number of CAFOs will continue to proliferate, causing a significant increase in the devastating pollution, health, and social impacts by these confinement facilities across the country..."

A Statement from the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) Board of Directors

Read the entire statement...

Read the letter to Wis Dept of Ag from the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.