TITLE: Farm Forward’s Investigation Into Alexandre Farms and the Greenwashing of Large-scale Dairy
https://modernfarmer.com/2024/08/farm-animal-abuse-dairy/
EXCERPTS: Industrial-scale dairy wants you to believe that they can turn cows’ milk green. As US milk consumption continues its decades-long drop, industrial dairy is increasingly desperate to hold on to environmentally-minded consumers who aren’t buying what it is selling. When you see a carton of milk at the grocery store with claims like “regenerative” or “carbon neutral,” you should feel as alarmed as you’d be by someone trying to sell you a literal glass of green milk.
Many labels that guarantee humane treatment of farm animals (e.g., “humanely raised”), do anything but and are largely meaningless. Only recently did the USDA announce that it might regulate some of these labels after a push from advocates (we aren’t holding our breath). If this is the case of animal welfare labeling, consumers are right to be concerned that it is likely true of “green” labeling as well, particularly for the dairy industry, which is one of the most environmentally intensive industries on Earth.
Farm Forward recently published a major investigative report detailing systematic animal suffering and consumer fraud at Alexandre Family Farm—a leading large-scale organic dairy company with “well over 9,000 head of cattle,” according to co-owner Blake Alexandre—whose products are covered in certification labels. The details of this investigation and the facts about large-scale dairy production should call into question the idea that the industry can be compatible with a more sustainable and humane food system.
One of the key findings of Farm Forward’s investigation into Alexandre was this: Certifications such as Regenerative Organic Certified and Certified Humane were, sadly, insufficient to stop widespread abuse of cows and apparent environmental violations of land and water. This means that the primary function of labels—to give consumers assurances that a given product meets their values—frequently fails. In other words, humane labels aren’t there to help the consumer find better products. They’re tools for the meat and dairy industry to market their products. It’s unlikely, for example, that when a consumer sees one of these labels on Alexandre milk products in a Whole Foods Market, they imagine a field of dead cows being used as compost, or decaying cow corpses dangling into waterways, likely violating state water quality laws. Yet that’s exactly what Farm Forward’s investigation found.
Farm Forward’s investigation didn’t just reveal that one particular company eschewed these standards, but also that the entire dairy system is flawed. Several certifications failed to see animal abuse happening right under their noses. USDA Organic requires that producers that treat an organic cow with antibiotics must remove that cow from the organic program. In doing so, the USDA inadvertently creates a financial disincentive for producers to treat suffering cows with the proper care, since non-organic milk and meat is sold at a far lower price point. What makes this all especially sad is that there are labels—Regenerative Organic Certified and Animal Welfare Approved among them—that genuinely have high standards relative to many other labeling schemes on the market. They can represent a small piece of the path toward a more sustainable and humane food system. But in the context of dairy production, the findings of the investigation have led Farm Forward to think that guaranteeing proper care of thousands of dairy cows just isn’t possible, given the unique challenges of dairy at scale and given the bad incentives.
Alexandre’s failures are just one example of the dairy industry failing to live up to its promises. It tells us it can save the planet while treating cows humanely, while raking in unprecedented profits with its mega-dairies. How many more instances of animal abuse and climate devastation do we need to see before we stop believing that the industry that creates these harms also somehow holds the key to fixing them?
TITLE: The battle over cattle: 11 Investigates hidden costs of Williams County large-scale farms
https://www.wtol.com/article/news/investigations/11-investigates/unregulated-growth-the-rise-of-cattle-farms-and-the-decline-of-water-quality-in-ohio-11-investigates/512-e2aaba3b-1c2e-4cdc-9c65-c499e2d11444
EXCERPT: For two years, sides have formed in this Williams County battle. On one side is the Williams County Alliance, a group known locally as “the lake people.” On the other is a group led by Schmucker Farms, a large Amish family that controls 50 square miles in the far northwest corner of the state. On that land, they raise close to 100,000 calves and cattle that will eventually be shipped to JBS Foods, the largest meat producer in the world.
The battle is being waged atop the Michindoh Aquifer, in the St. Joseph River Watershed. Those creeks, streams and rivers eventually wend their way to the Maumee River and into Lake Erie.
Some of those waterways are dangerously polluted. If you ask the lake people why, the answer to them is clear: There are thousands and thousands of cattle living within too small of an area. And that many cattle leave behind a lot of manure.
The Michindoh Aquifer supplies water to portions of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. It is the sole source of drinking water in Williams County, which is home to rivers and creeks that comprise the St. Joseph River Watershed. The St. Joseph River begins in Williams County, travels across the Indiana border, where it converges with the St. Marys River in Fort Wayne to form the Maumee River.
A series of creeks and streams feeds into the St. Joseph River, including Fish, Bear and Tamarack creeks. 11 Investigates has obtained months of water analysis for those creeks performed by Jones & Henry Laboratories in Northwood.
Each of the creeks has various levels of pollutants in recent testing. A reading of 1,000/MPN (most probable number) for E. coli would shutter most public beaches to swimmers. A June 6 reading of Bear Creek registered more than 24,000. Tamarack Creek was at 4,600. Fish Creek was 1,300. Bear and Tamarack and Bear creeks also had extremely high nitrate levels. High E. coli readings are the result of human or animal waste. High nitrate levels are often from waste products.
Those creeks are surrounded by various Schmucker cattle farms.
For more than 40 years, the Schmucker family has raised cattle in northwest Ohio, northeast Indiana and southwest Michigan. But in late 2022, they partnered with property management firm Wagler & Associates in an attempt to obtain a Special Exception Use to open a facility to raise 8,000 calves.
The effort was unanimously rejected by the Board of Zoning Appeals.
“I was involved with a group in Indiana to fight the 8,000-head facility,” says Susan Scatterall of the Williams County Alliance. “It was 5-0. … After that is when it really exploded. I mean it outrageously exploded with the buying of the properties and bringing in the animals.”
The Ohio Revised Code said any farm that holds 1,000 or more animals is considered a Concentrated Animal Feeding Facility - or a CAFO - and is required to obtain a permit, which subjects the facility to additional testing and monitoring.
After the Board of Zoning Appeals decision on Jan. 23, 2023, there were a large number of properties in Williams County that applied to be split by members of Schmucker group.
When a parcel is split, rather than being limited to 999 animals before a permit is required, a barn can be put on each half of the split parcel, allowing 1,998 animals.
11 Investigates requested parcel-splitting records from the Williams County Auditor’s Office. Since the beginning of 2023, 23 different properties with connections to Schmucker Farms have been split.
When Scatterall reached out to the Ohio Department of Agriculture about the transactions and series of barns being built, she received the following email from Samuel Mullins, the ODA’s chief of livestock environmental permitting: “The method of parceling off land and constructing two identical operations without common ownership is a legal loophole to avoid permitting. So at this point, there aren’t any laws that have been broken. They are technically not required to obtain a permit to install because they are legally not considered a concentrated animal feeding facility. In other words, we do not have the authority over the construction of these facilities.”
TITLE: Movement to limit CAFO pollution seen strengthened by Michigan court ruling
https://www.thenewlede.org/2024/08/in-water-wars-michigan-ruling-could-spill-over-to-other-states-seeking-to-crack-down-on-cafos/
EXCERPT: A recent state court decision could transform how animal agriculture is regulated in Michigan, and potentially influence how other state and federal regulators oversee the industry’s mammoth waste stream, according to environmental lawyers and activists.
The optimism from environmental advocates comes after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled on July 31 that the state’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) has full authority to require industrial animal agriculture to take much stronger actions to manage the torrent of manure waste polluting waterways. The closely watched case pit the administration of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer against the powerful agricultural industry, led by the Michigan Farm Bureau.
“The decision is extremely powerful language for EGLE to act,” said Carrie La Seur, the legal director of For Love of Water, an environmental law and policy group that intervened on behalf of the state. “It’s clear that EGLE gained a lot of authority through this ruling.”
Michigan is one of many US states contending with rampant ground and surface water pollution caused by agricultural production. A key source of the pollution are the nation’s more than 21,000 large dairy, cattle, hog, and poultry operations, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs.
The nationwide problem extends across the ocean. On Aug 9, the Center for Food Safety environmental group gave legal notification to a Hawaii “megadairy” of their intention to file a lawsuit in federal court. The allege the dairy has been illegally “discharging animal waste, solid manure, liquid manure, milk waste, and chemical pollutants” into the state’s waterways and into the Pacific Ocean.
Michigan has close to 300 CAFOs that feed most of the state population of 450,000 dairy cows, 4 million hogs, and 21 million chickens and turkeys, according to federal figures. They are responsible for most of the 4 billion gallons of untreated urine and feces and some 40 million to 60 million tons of solid manure generated by CAFOS in Michigan each year. The waste from these operations is stored in lagoons or spread onto farmland to act as fertilizer. In Michigan, regulatory figures show such waste spread over about 600,000 acres annually.
Manure contains toxic levels of nitrates, phosphorus, and harmful E. coli bacteria – and the contaminants commonly leach into surface and groundwater across Michigan, with the heaviest concentrations of the contaminants found in areas near CAFOS. Discharges from Michigan CAFOs contribute to phosphorus pollution that causes toxic algal bloom in Lake Erie.
“For decades, industrial livestock operations have threatened public health and the environment in communities across Michigan. We’re hopeful that EGLE will now take meaningful measures to hold these facilities accountable for their pollution, setting a strong example for regulatory agencies across the country,” said Lynn Henning, a Michigan farmer and program director for the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, which opposes CAFOs.
Tim Boring, the director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the court ruling better positions the state “to safeguard water quality,” without providing details about what regulatory changes may be coming.
And EGLE spokesman Hugh McDiarmid Jr. said state regulators have “not yet made a decision on next steps.”
But environmental attorneys said EGLE now has the authority to take a range of actions, including requiring CAFOS to treat manure in wastewater facilities to remove toxic chemicals and bacteria before the manure is spread on fields.
SEE ALSO:
Meet a Family That’s Betting the Farm on a Wild Idea. Literally.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/climate/hog-farm-iowa-rewild.html