Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations

Concentrated animal feeding operations Concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs, is a farming practice where many animals are fed in a very condensed space. Because of the small amount of space and over crowded conditions, farmers employ the use of heavy antibiotics to fend off diseases, even if the animals are not sick, which is then excreted through the animal 's waste in to nearby water and soil. Hormones and steroids are also commonly used to expedite the timeline from birth to slaughter creating greater profitability for farmers but again, these chemicals are being released into the environment via animal waste. In addition to these hormones, steroids and antibiotics polluting our fresh water and soil, these chemicals
These pollutants cause massive deaths in fish and aquatic environments, putrid smelling air in residential neighborhoods and soil that is unsafe to use for small-scale agricultural needs. The drug and chemical companies producing these toxins are making a huge profit while farmers are being forced into this factory farm industry by corporate buyouts and bullying and the subsidized feed offered by the U.S. government. Why do these concentrated animal feeding operations continue to operate and even expand? Because we have allowed our food sources to be overtaken by just a few corporations who are in very powerful political and financial positions to force the existence of mega farms in order to continue to profit from the sales of their company 's hormones, steroids, antibiotics and
It 's a behind-the-scenes look at why the financial gain has overtaken the quality and over all health of our foods here in the U.S. Shocking at times, it really raises a lot of good questions and sheds light on some of the ugly realities of being so removed from our food source and allowing just a few mega players in corporate America decide the quality and safety of the food we eat and the impact it has on the environment we live in.

Hormones and Pharmaceuticals Generated by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Transport in Water and Soil. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag, 2009. Print.
An examination of how hormones, antibiotics and steroids from CAFOs of cattle, poultry and pigs impact our soil and water. I learned about endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and what hypothesis currently being investigated as to their impact and methods of distribution. This is a relatively new area of study so the long-term impact of CAFOs and the contamination to our groundwater sources, soil and overall ecology these farming practices may be causing is unknown. This book provides data and statistics of several studies including information on antibiotic resistant bacteria and its relation to CAFOs.

Imhoff, Dan. The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Healdsburg,