A recent report on the dangers of concentrating animals on farms got plenty of input from the meat industry, which has criticized the study, according to members of the Washington-based commission that prepared the document.
Corporate and industrial farms that confine thousands of pigs, chickens or cows indoors are putting public health and the environment at risk, a 2 1 /2-year study by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production concluded.
The commission recommended banning nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials - or antibiotics - in animals, doing away with gestation crates for hogs and cages for chickens, and implementing new regulations to deal with animal waste.
The Pew report was compiled through a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health at Baltimore.
In response to its publication in late April, the Animal Agriculture Alliance, a Washington nonprofit that supports the meat industry, went on the offensive, calling the report unfair and prejudiced.
"We are seeing reports likethis come out from groups that we would anticipate them coming out from," said Philip Lobo, the alliance's communications director. The Pew Commission seemed unwilling to consider input from the agriculture industry, and there was a lack of representation from the kinds of farms actually being studied, the group contends.
Commission members defended their work, saying it was written methodically and openly, allowing input from the meat industry, animal-welfare advocates and other interested parties.
"It's not a matter of seeing these guys as bad guys. It's to see it as an inevitable experiment of the application of industrial methods to agriculture, which now has been seen to cause problems," said Bernard Rollin, an animal welfare ethicist at Colorado State University at Fort Collins and a member of the Pew Commission.
"So in the natural course of societal evolution, the problem should now be addressed," Rollin said.
Industrial farm operations produce about 65 percent of manure waste nationwide. That comes to 300 million tons of manure per year, about twice the amount produced by humansin the country. But these farms also produce half the food consumed in the United States.
Frank Jones, associate director for extension at the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said he found it incredible "to look at the production system that we have, where 2 percent of the total population is feeding the other 98 percent, and now they want to come and demand changes."
Jones said a more prudent approach would be to propose an alternative system that addresses the concerns raised in the report, rather than "pointing the finger and saying large-animal agriculture is bad for your health."
Companies like Springdalebased Tyson Foods Inc. and hog producer Smithfield Foods Inc. have generated huge efficiencies in the meat business by establishing contract agreements with farmers and controlling the animals from birth to slaughter. Modern poultry houses hold upward of 20,000 birds at a time, and produce tons of poultry waste as a result.
Disposing of animal waste has become a hot-button topic in Northwest Arkansas. The Oklahoma attorney general asked a federal judge earlier this year tostop the spread of poultry litter in the Illinois River watershed. Farmers worry they will take an economic hit if the injunction is granted.
The Pew Commission's report coincided with two other reports on animal agriculture.
The National Conference of State Legislatures published "Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: A Survey of State Policies" about the same time. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit that works on environmental issues, released "CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations."
Respectively, these reports criticized a lack of government regulation of animal farms and the societal cost of large industrial or corporate farms.
Bob Martin, the Pew Commission's executive director, said the animal agriculture industry is used to "getting things its way," so it is not surprising it has criticized the Pew report's findings.
"I think they are totally opposed to everything we say. They have attacked us on process, more than dealing with the specific recommendations. They have complained about not having enough influence.But they had a lot of input," Martin said.
The commission was aware of how big changes to animal agriculture could affect contract farmers. For that reason, it suggests a 10-year phase-in period for the report's recommendations, Martin said.
Congressional action to offer tax incentives, accelerated depreciation of farm equipment and other direct government programs may be needed to change industrial agriculture, Martin said.
However, with electionyear politics in Washington, he doesn't expect any action this year.
The Animal Agriculture Alliance's Lobo said he agrees with the Pew Commission that increasing funding for scientific research is a good idea, as is the recommendation for better disease tracking.
But large animal farms are here to stay, and that's a good thing, he said.
"The huge positive is that it feeds our people and provides for us the safest, most abundant food supply in the history of man," Lobo said. "It is an incredible economic driver for the United States, and uses our resources to help feed the world."
Business, Pages 83 on 05/18/2008