What's on the grill?

Meat isn’t just what’s for dinner anymore; its production affects our environment, our health, as well as the welfare and rights of communities across our nation.  Just yesterday, Food & Water Watch released the first-ever web map showing the distribution of factory farms and animals on factory farms, www.factoryfarmmap.org.

Slapping a steak on a barbecue grill is a distinctly American summer experience.  However, these days, most of those steaks, pork sirloins, or marinated chicken breasts are produced on one of many gigantic, environmentally-hazardous livestock operations that litter our nation’s countryside.  These large animal production facilities raising Bessie and Porky are not your “Mom and Pop” family farm, but rather industrial-sized meat production facilities holding thousands of animals. 

The factory-style operations known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are serious sources of pollution for many rural communities and spew high ammonia emissions into the surrounding air creating nauseating conditions for local residents.  The factories also produce air pollution of other forms that wafts into surrounding communities.  The concentrated animal waste drains from these operations, pollutes groundwater and is a serious hazard not only for local residents but additionally permeates into the surrounding environment and water resources touching communities that extend far and away from the barnyard silo.

The Food & Water Watch factory farm map will empower both organizations and individuals with a tool to help them in their struggle against these dangerous factories.  Importantly, the map can also help the summer barbequer to understand the regionally-centralized nature of factory farming, inequitably exposing certain communities and counties to the hazards of highly concentrated animal production. 

Accompanying the map, Food & Water Watch released Turning Farms into Factories, a report providing further details on the problems of the current animal production system.  The report includes policy and consumer recommendations to combat the rise of CAFOs as well as identifies better and brighter alternatives.  You can access the map directly and learn more at www.foodandwaterwatch.org

To find alternatives to factory-farmed meat, check out the eatwellguide.org