CIAS Citizens Advisory Council member John Pounder passed along word
that the National Catholic Rural Life Conference issued a statement
on industrialized farms a couple weeks ago. This e-copy was
forwarded to me by John Peck of the UW-Greens.
******************
A Statement from the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Rural
Life Conference
December 18, 1997
An Immediate Moratorium on Large-scale Livestock and Poultry Animal
Confinement Facilities
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 North Carolina, 35 million gallons of animal waste were spilled in
1995, killing 10 million fish. In 1996, more than 40 manure spills
were recorded in Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri, double the number
reported in 1992. Earlier this year, microbe pfiesteria associated
with the poultry industry killed 30,000 fish in the Chesapeake Bay and
another 450,000 fish in North Carolina attributed to hog waste.
Pfiesteria grow in waters with excessive nutrients. In the Gulf of
Mexico, animal waste has helped to create a "dead zone" of up to 7,000
square miles. The Center for Disease Control has just released a
report attributing foodborne diseases to food industry consolidation
and the decrease in effective microbe resistance in humans from the
antibiotics used to industrialize animals for confinement facilities.
The National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) has for 75 years
been a voice for participative democracy, widespread ownership of
land, the defense of nature, animal welfare, support for small and
moderate-sized independent family farms, economic justice, rural and
urban interdependence. Such values are drawn from the message of the
Gospel and the social teachings of our Church. Furthermore, we see
such values best represented in the agricultural arena by what is
called sustainable agriculture.
In the light of present concerns about the industrialization of
agriculture and environmental pollution as represented especially by
the hog industry, the 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, the 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.
Included among the states currently dealing with CAFO issues are:
Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky,
Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota,
Texas, Utah and Washington. Legislators, judges, and local citizens
groups are reviewing the legal safeguards at every level to ensure
clean water, a safe environment, food safety, and social justice. Such
efforts are beginning to pay dividends:
In Indiana, for example, an administrative law judge has shut down a
proposed confined feeding operation.
In Kentucky, the attorney general has ruled that large operations
are not exempt from local ordinances saying they are "not reasonable
or prudent, accepted and customary."
After two years of difficulties, North Carolina has imposed strong
restrictions on confinement operations.
South Dakota citizens recently secured sufficient signatures
(31,000) to hold a statewide referendum proposing an anti-corporate
farming law similar to Nebraska's.
All but two of the 20 counties in Kansas had voted against new
corporate hog farms.
At the federal level, a new bill has been introduced to regulate
CAFOs and a federal summit is being proposed to discuss animal-waste
management.
As the livestock industry has been restructured, a growing dependence
has developed on enormous open-air lagoon waste storage and liquid
manure application systems. These systems have been prone to breaks,
spills, and runoff into surface water and seepage into ground water.
The Clean Water Act is again to be renewed after 25 years. While
reforms of that Act are being developed, a moratorium on CAFOs is
needed to forestall potentially devastating effects.
We challenge the notion that CAFOs, particularly hog factories, are a
boon to local economies. Studies have shown that for every job created
by a hog factory, three are lost. Every year, hog factories put almost
31,000 farmers out of business, out of their homes, and out of their
communities. In 1990, there were 670,350 family hog farms; in 1995,
there were only 208,780. Between 1994 and 1996, approximately 4,439
family farmers were displaced by the expansion of the top 30 pork
producing companies, according to a recent study done by Successful
Farming. While concentration in pork production grows, independent
family farmers are being forced out. The same can be said about dairy,
beef, and poultry farming.
NCRLC invites others to join the call for a moratorium and the
replacement of factory farms by a sustainable agricultural system.
The National Catholic Rural Life Conference is a membership
organization grounded in a spiritual tradition which brings together
the Church, care for creation and care for community. The NCRLC
fosters programs of direct service and systemic change. As an educator
in the faith, the NCRLC seeks to relate religion to the rural world;
develops support services for rural pastoral ministers; serves as a
prophetic voice and as a catalyst and convener for social justice.
*************************
Contact info: National Catholic Rural Life Conference 4625 Beaver
Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa, 50310-2199 Phone: 515/270-2634 Fax:
515/270-9447 E-mail: NCRLC@aol.com
I could not find a copy of this on-line, but expect that they would
have something printed.
In addition--
Some of you who work with Catholic parishes and their people might
find the "Rural Life Prayerbook" a good resource of affirming messages
about the cycles and seasons of rural and farming life:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PRAYER/RLPRAYBK.TXT
Also, "95 Social Concerns Resources No Parish Should Be Without"
http://www.mtn.org/justice/95books.htm
This published by the Minnesota Office for Social Justice,
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis; many ecumenical resources.
peace
misha
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Michele Gale-Sinex, communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems
UW-Madison College of Ag and Life Sciences
Voice: (608) 262-8018 FAX: (608) 265-3020
http://www.wisc.edu/cias
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Community--that's what Jah say. --Alpha Blondy
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