Regulating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations for the Well-Being of Farm Animals, Consumers, and the Environment

• Author: Lindsay Walton & Kristen King Jaiven
• Pages: 89-115

89

Chapter 4:

Regulating Concentrated

Animal Feeding Operations

for the Well-Being of

Farm Animals, Consumers,

and the Environment

Lindsay Walton a nd Kristen King Jaive n*

I. Overview of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations ........................92

A. Environmental Damage..................................................................92

B. Animal Health and Welfare ............................................................93

C. Human Health and Welfare ...........................................................93

D. Recipe for Disaster .........................................................................94

II. Is Meat Really Cheap? Allocating the Negative Environmental,

Animal, and Human Health and Welfare Impacts to CAFOs ................95

A. Negative Externalities .....................................................................96

B. Federal Subsidies for CAFOs ..........................................................96

C. Suggestions to Improve Market Imbalances ....................................97

III. Existing Laws to Address CAFOs ..........................................................98

A. Gaps in Existing Animal Rights Laws: Farm Animal Exceptions .....98

1. Background on Farm Animal Cruelty ...................................... 98

2. Animal Welfare Law ................................................................99

a. Federal Animal Welfare Act ..............................................99

b. Humane Methods of Slaughter Act ................................. 101

c. State Criminal Anti-Cruelty Laws ................................... 102

3. Other Existing Laws at Aect Animal Rights ....................103

a. Federal and State Public Health Laws .............................103

b. Ag-Gag Laws ..................................................................105

* We thank Nadia Adawi, Esq., for her assistance with this chapter and the following

wonderful attorneys and law student research assistants for their contributions: Jess

Beaulieu, Zsea Beaumonis, Esq., Natasha Belisle, Esq., Rachel Berardinelli, Esq.,

Elizabeth Buf, Esq., Denise Cartolano, Christine Donovan, and Divya Pillai, Esq.

90 What Can Animal Law Learn From Environmental Law?

4. Suggestions to Improve Animal Rights Laws as Applied

to CAFOs .............................................................................. 106

B. Existing Environmental Laws at Should Apply to CAFOs and

Indirectly Protect Farm Animals ................................................... 107

1. e Clean Water Act .............................................................107

2. e Clean Air Act ..................................................................109

3. Suggestions to Improve Environmental Laws as Applied to

CAFOs .................................................................................. 110

C. Using Local Land Use Principles to Regulate CAFOs ................... 110

1. State Agriculture Exemptions ................................................110

2. Zoning Challenges and Common-Law Nuisance Claims .......111

IV. Innovative Solutions for Consumers to Address the CAFO Problem ... 113

Conclusion ................................................................................................... 115

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations, the livestock sector of the agriculture industry is one of the

planet’s leading causes of resource consumption and environmental

degradation.1 e animal agriculture industr y contributes to extraordinary

levels of air and water pollution, greenhouse ga s emissions, freshwater use,

rainforest deforestation, species extinction, ocean dead zones, and habitat

destruction.2 By any measure, this industry fosters extreme cases of animal

cruelty and mistreatment. Adding to this list of adverse impacts are the indus-

try’s eects on human health and welfare, including antibiotic resistance, dis-

ease, diet-related health issues, and even decreased property values.3

Idyllic American images are commonly linked to farming: open elds,

green pastures, and livestock grazing under the warm sun. At one point in

time, th is may have been an accurate description, but over the past several

decades, the U.S. animal agriculture industry has morphed into a high-

intensity, high-prot, and high-pollution industrial farming system; or what

has been described as a collection of “assembly line meat factories.”4

As economic, political, and social paradigms rega rding meat, agriculture,

and our food system overall have shifted, a monolithic farming model—

concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)— emerged in the United

1. U.N. F  A. O., L’ L : E I  O xx

(2006).

2. C: T S S (Kip Andersen 2014).

3. C H, MA, N’ A’  L B.  H, U C

A F O  T I  C (2010), available at http://cdc.

gov/nceh/ehs/docs/understanding_cafos_nalboh.pdf.

4. Mark Bittman, Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler, N.Y. T, Jan. 27, 2008, http://www.nytimes.

com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html.