PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are chemicals that are used commercially for their nonstick or waterproof properties. The problem is that they don’t readily break down and have been associated with harmful health conditions. Today, these chemicals can be found everywhere. As a result of both direct chemical pollution from manufacturing facilities and exposure through everyday household items, PFAS can be in our water, soil and even the blood of most Americans. 

In our previous PFAS coverage, we’ve brought you in-depth looks at the efforts to regulate PFAS, stories of communities on the frontlines trying to protect themselves, as well as consumer guides for how to reduce your own exposure. 

Through these stories, we connected with Kyla Bennett, science policy director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Bennett is a PFAS expert and knows this issue inside and out. Last week, we asked you, our Modern Farmer community, what questions you had for Bennett, and you delivered big time. Below, find our community questions with Bennett’s responses.

Modern Farmer: Who is most at risk for PFAS exposure?

Kyla Bennett: We are all at risk because PFAS is so ubiquitous, but fenceline communities (i.e., people living immediately adjacent to industries using PFAS, Department of Defense facilities, firefighting training facilities, conventional farms using biosolids and airports) are likely exposed to higher levels of PFAS than the rest of us. Moreover, infants, children, the elderly and pregnant people are at higher risk as well.

Firefighting foam contains harmful levels of PFAS. Click here to learn how farms located near facilities that use this foam are endangered by PFAS. (Photo by Shutterstock)

MF: Who profits from forever chemicals? Please name the companies.

KB: The top 12 companies responsible for most of PFAS pollution are: AGC, Arkema, Chemours, Daikin, 3M, Solvay, Dongyue, Archroma, Merck, Bayer, BASF and Honeywell. 

MF: We hear that PFAS are harmful to human health, but what kind of specific health issues are they associated with?

KB: PFAS cause a variety of health impacts, including thyroid disease, high cholesterol, lowered immune response, obesity, developmental issues, heart disease and cancer, especially kidney and testicular cancer.

MF: Are there any known commercial products that filter out PFAS in our drinking water that consumers can purchase on store shelves? 

KB: The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF, nsf.org) certifies filters that remove PFAS from drinking water. The NSF website has a list of certified filters that anyone can purchase.

MF: What is the best way to find out if my water has been tested?

KB: Many states require municipalities to test drinking water for PFAS. Moreover, the EPA is also requiring public water systems to test for PFAS over the next few years. If you are on town/city water, the best thing to do is reach out to your water department and ask them for any PFAS test results (although many of these are available online). Note that private well testing is done by well owners, so there is far less information on PFAS in private wells. 

MF: Where can we send soil and water samples for testing?

KB: There are many commercial labs around the country that do PFAS testing. Look for a lab that is accredited by the EPA. However, this testing can be very expensive. There are some at home test kits available for water testing, but be aware that these are not accredited by the EPA. 

Your closest lab will vary depending on where you are located. Search based on your state or region. For example, this lab will test soil and water samples in the Northeast US region.

The What’s My Exposure? tool through the PFAS Exchange will help you contextualize your water test results by comparing them to others.

You can have your soil samples tested for PFAS. (Photography by Shutterstock)

MF: If the new drinking water PFAS limits put the burden for monitoring mostly on the municipalities and not directly on the polluters (companies), will that have an impact on my personal taxes? Am I paying the cost of these continued polluters?

KB: When municipalities construct water filtration, those costs are often shifted to the consumers (through higher water rates, etc.). However, many towns and cities have joined class action lawsuits suing PFAS manufacturers to try and recoup some of that money. 

MF: Companies know that PFAS cause health issues and don’t break down. They’ve paid out huge settlements. How are companies still allowed to produce them?

KB: Unfortunately, the EPA only regulates six PFAS in drinking water, and the states that regulate PFAS also only regulate a handful. The chemical industry has a very rich and powerful lobby. Contact your state and federal representative and urge them to define PFAS broadly and regulate them as a class. 

MF: Are there non-toxic alternatives or methods these companies could use instead of PFAS? 

KB: The vast majority of PFAS uses are for convenience and are not essential uses. Industry is coming up with alternatives to PFAS, and there are lists of PFAS-free consumer products, including for items like rain gear! You can view that list here.

MF: How might the momentum on PFAS regulation be impacted by the upcoming election season? Is there anything I should be considering or looking for when casting my vote?

KB: The previous federal administration was much more industry-friendly than the current administration. The EPA’s new drinking water regulations, which came out in April of this year, were a good but small step forward. It is important to research local, state and federal candidates and ensure that they have public health and the environment in mind. Vote for the candidates whose values align most closely with your own.

The post Asked & Answered: PFAS Q&A with Kyla Bennett appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In previous coverage, we’ve told you about PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that don’t readily break down and can accumulate in humans, causing serious health problems.

We’ve also told you about how the EPA recently passed its first-ever regulations on a handful of PFAS in drinking water, and how these rules leave a lot to be desired.

And then we told you about some of the ways you can reduce your own personal exposure to these chemicals while you wait for the slow wheels of government to turn. And if you read that article, you know that making shrewd decisions while you shop can help reduce the amount of PFAS with which you come into contact. 

“I think the best thing that people can do is be educated consumers,” says Kyla Bennett, science policy director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Many items in the retail sphere won’t have information about PFAS use because it’s not required. To make matters more complicated, a PFAS-free label doesn’t necessarily give you all the information you need. Potential PFAS-free greenwashing may or may not be intentional, but regardless, that label might need closer inspection. We consulted some experts to help you understand how to find PFAS-free items in the marketplace.

Start with a trustworthy list

Verifying if something is PFAS-free can be tough, so don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to. Here is a trustworthy list of brands and products that you can buy knowing they are PFAS-free, as well as a comprehensive buying guide.

This list from PFAS Central is a good source for outdoor gear, apparel, kitchenware and more. Food & Water Watch recently released a thorough buying guide to help you side-step PFAS in everything from paint to menstrual products to furniture.

Know the laws where you live

More than a dozen states have passed some kind of legislation restricting the use of PFAS in consumer products such as foods, packaging, apparel and carpeting. We do not yet have the ability to test for all of the thousands of PFAS, so one way to screen for PFAS is by testing for the total amount of fluorine in a product. This test can serve as a good indicator of whether there is PFAS in a product, although it’s not yet clear exactly what level of PFAS is present from directly adding PFAS versus unintentional PFAS contamination.

“It’s an imperfect method, but it’s one of the better methods that are out there, especially when you couple it with more in-depth testing,” says Mike Schade, director of the Mind the Store Program for Toxic-Free Future. 

Washington State has been a leader on this front, and Schade points to the state’s Safer Products for Washington Act, which gives the state regulatory authority to ban chemicals that are hazardous.

“Raise your voice for policy change,” says Schade. “We know that the federal government is slow at making change around chemicals like PFAS. There’s been a lot more progress at the state level.”

You can use this bill tracker from Safer States to find out what states have either introduced or enacted legislation to ban PFAS in different product categories. 

Ask the right questions

When you have the time and opportunity to ask a company about its products, asking the right questions is key. Inquiring whether something is PFAS-free might not cut it.

Here are three key questions you can ask:

Does this product use nonstick or waterproof properties?

PFAS specifically are used for their waterproof and nonstick qualities, so those are good flags.

“Every time I’m going to buy something, like if I’m buying a kitchen appliance, I call and I say is there nonstick on there? Because if it is, I’m not going to buy it,” says Bennett.

Raincoats can contain PFAS because they are waterproof. (Photo by Shutterstock)

Does this product use fluorinated chemistry?

This is a good catch-all question, because while we do not yet have the ability to test for all PFAS, if there is fluorinated chemistry in a product, this is a reliable indicator that there will be PFAS in the product.

Sometimes, companies will call out a certain PFAS by name. The specificity is helpful, but at the same time, it’s important to understand what this means. Just because the product doesn’t contain one specific PFAS doesn’t mean that it doesn’t contain another that is just as dangerous.

“[Companies] say oh, we have no PFOA,” says Bennett. “That means they have no PFOA, but they could have 11,999 other PFAS in them. So, they really have to ask the right questions like ‘Is there any fluorinated chemistry at all in your product?’ And that kind of covers the whole thing.”

What alternatives to PFAS do you use?

“PFAS-free is good, but it’s not enough,” says Schade. “And if I’m a consumer, what I would do is I would ask companies ‘How are you ensuring the alternative that you’re now using is safer? What are you doing to evaluate the safety of alternatives?’ Getting into the nuances of 100 parts per million versus 50 parts per million, I think that’s too challenging of an area for most consumers to navigate, quite honestly. But I think asking questions about how are you vetting the safety of alternatives, I think that is a more productive and useful question to ask, because most companies are not thinking about it.”

Beware suspect alternatives

In manufacturing, it’s possible to substitute one well-known PFAS for an alternative that is simply another, less common PFAS. Known as “regrettable substitutions,” these swaps can be just as harmful to your health.

But you also want to be sure that PFAS aren’t being changed out for another type of chemical that is just as bad. Schade recommends looking for certifications or policies that are specific about what types of alternatives are allowed. 

“Most laws that are out there and most company policies that restrict PFAS don’t do a good enough job ensuring that companies are utilizing truly safer alternatives,” says Schade. 

Schade points to GreenScreen Certified as an example of a third-party standard that not only restricts PFAS but also restricts other chemicals of concern—not all third-party standards will cast this wide of a net.

Want more choices? Schade also recommends EPA Safer Choice and Cradle to Cradle.

Start conversations with retailers

Businesses and retailers can be huge forces for change, says Schade. “Another thing that consumers can do is reach out to the retailer’s businesses that you support, that you shop at and ask them whether or not they’re taking action on PFAS.”

Campaigning has compelled major retailers including Whole Foods, REI and Dick’s Sporting Goods to take some action on PFAS. According to Schade, it really does have the potential to start a conversation within the company.

Visit Retailerreportcard.com to learn which companies are leading and which are lagging when it comes to addressing PFAS. You can even use this site to contact the companies at the back of the pack and ask them to prioritize safer chemicals.

Kyla Bennett is the science policy director at PEER, and she wants to answer your questions about PFAS. Submit your question to contact@modfarmer.com

The post PFAS: Behind the Label appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Last month, the EPA passed its first-ever legally enforceable drinking water standards on a handful of PFAS—a group of chemicals used to make non-stick coatings and products that resist heat, oil, water and more. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are toxic chemicals and are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their tendency to not break down.

The regulations state that all public water systems have three years to complete testing for these chemicals and must implement solutions to reduce PFAS in five years. Under the new laws, the public must be informed of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water.

In a lot of ways, the EPA decision is a ground-breaking move. PFAS have been used commercially since the 1940s, and it has long been known that these chemicals are toxic to people. Big chemical companies, such as  3M, have known about the harmful qualities of these toxic chemicals for decades but intentionally hid the evidence. 

The scary thing about PFAS is they are simultaneously very close to home and unsafe. They’re used in everyday household products such as raingear, nonstick pans and mascara and the EPA admits that “exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children.”

Despite the known risks, there’s a reason it has taken so long to get even one rule passed at the federal level to regulate these chemicals in drinking water. Extensive lobbying efforts by chemical companies have helped keep restraints off these substances. You can read our coverage of this lobbying here.

So what does this mean for you? 

Here are five essential takeaways for you to know about the new drinking water regulations, along with expert insights from Kyla Bennett, science policy director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). 

These laws apply to only six PFAS

Of the at least 12,000 existing PFAS, the EPA issued regulations for only six of them. This new regulation dips a toe into the water of regulating them. It sets maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) in drinking water for two of the oldest and most pervasive PFAS, called PFOA and PFOS, of four parts per trillion. The EPA has said that there is no safe level of exposure for PFOA and PFOS. 

“It’s a good first step. I think it’s too little too late given that it’s only for six PFAS and there are 12,000 to 14,000 of them,” says Bennett.“It alleviates the stress a little bit, but not a whole lot…Nobody should relax.”

Food & Water Watch recently released a thorough buying guide to help you side-step PFAS in everything from paint to menstrual products to furniture.

This is only for public drinking water systems

Public water systems have to complete initial water monitoring within three years, and if the levels are too high, take steps to reduce them within five years. For example, this could mean shutting down a contaminated water source or installing a filtration system. Data about public drinking water systems is available online. Private wells, common in rural or farm areas, won’t automatically be tested for PFAS. 

“[This regulation] does not apply to private wells,” says Bennett. “And I know a lot of farmers do have private wells. However, there is money available for private well owners if they are contaminated, to get a filter put in or to get it fixed. So, that’s good news for private well owners.”

Installing a filter at your kitchen sink can help reduce your exposure if there is PFAS in your water. Bennett recommends looking on The National Sanitation Foundation website for filters that will reliably reduce total PFAS in your water.

Private wells will not automatically be tested for PFAS. (Photo by Shutterstock)

The burden is on municipal drinking water systems, not directly on polluters

The drinking water regulation puts the burden of fixing high contaminant loads on public drinking water systems and municipalities, not the polluters themselves. This also means that, under this law, there is no direct lever for polluting companies to change their practices.

However, this regulation could start a domino effect—municipalities that don’t want to be on the hook for installing very costly filtration systems might begin putting more pressure on polluting companies in their jurisdictions.

“States are going to want to help the municipalities within their states, and they are going to then start putting in PFAS limits in the effluent, which will help reduce the amount of PFAS going into the public drinking water,” says Bennett.

Is there PFAS pollution in your area? Consult the Environmental Working Group’s interactive map.

A still image of the Environmental Working Group’s Interactive PFAS pollution map. The light blue dots show where drinking water PFAS levels are known to be above the new limits, and the dark blue dots show where it is known to be below the new limits. (Image courtesy of the Environmental Working Group)

The EPA should regulate PFAS as a class, not individually

There are at least 12,000 known PFAS, and we can only currently test for about 70 of them. Bennett says that the EPA should define PFAS broadly, and then regulate them as a class, instead of doing more of this “whack-a-mole regulation,” where they only deal with a handful at a time. And then, she says, we should ban all non-essential uses, such as cosmetics.

It’s important to regulate PFAS broadly, says Bennett, because addressing only a handful of PFAS does nothing to protect people from what are called “regrettable substitutions”—where companies using PFAS just swap restricted ones for other PFAS that remain unregulated (remember, there are hundreds of these chemicals out there). 

While the federal government moves slowly, individual states have made more moves restricting PFAS. You can use this bill tracker to find out what states have either introduced or enacted legislation to ban PFAS in different product categories.

You still need to protect yourself from PFAS

The EPA’s working assumption right now is that 20 percent of your PFOA and PFOS exposure comes from drinking water. Even if all “forever chemicals” were eliminated from your water, it’s still critical to eliminate other sources of exposure. While PFAS is a large, systemic problem, and solving it should not be on the individual’s shoulders, taking action now can help protect you while we wait for legislation to hopefully catch up. 

“It shouldn’t be this way,” says Bennett. “But right now, because the states and the federal government are acting so slowly, we have to take it upon ourselves to reduce our risk as best we can. So, education can go a long way in getting people to realize what they should and should not be buying, what they should and should not be using, what they should and should not be eating…It sucks that the government isn’t taking care of us. But people assume that if something’s legal, it’s safe. And that’s simply not true.”

Kyla Bennett is the science policy director at PEER, and she wants to answer your questions about PFAS. Submit your question to contact@modfarmer.com

The post The EPA Just Passed the First-Ever Federal Regulations for ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water. Here are the Top Five Things You Need to Know. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

There is still a lot of Farm Bill work ahead—the Senate will release its version, and then Congress will have to agree on a combined bill before the president can sign it—so nothing is final just yet. But that makes this an important time to see what is being proposed and let your representatives know how you feel about what’s on the table. The Farm Bill is expansive, but here are some of the key issues:

Undermined Climate Funding. The House version would remove the “climate-friendly” requirements from the Inflation Reduction Act and divert that funding over to conservation programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. In these programs, the funds sometimes go to large-scale industrial animal agriculture, which advocates argue are not solutions at all. 

“A Farm Bill that supports factory farming is not a sustainable, fair Farm Bill,” wrote Rebecca Wolf, senior food policy analyst for Food & Water Watch in an email to Modern Farmer. “While investment in conservation programs like EQIP can be a boon for sustainable farming, Big Ag has repeatedly hijacked limited program monies to fund dirty factory farm practices like biogas digesters instead. The next Farm Bill should include language from the EQIP Improvement Act to help ensure that climate-smart funding through programs like EQIP actually goes towards sustainable practices.”

Jeopardized Farm Animal Welfare. The House version of the bill says that states cannot enforce rules about how farm animals from other states are raised. The text reads that “no State or subdivision thereof may enact or enforce, directly or indirectly, as a condition for sale or consumption, any condition or standard of production on products derived from covered livestock not physically raised in such State or subdivision that is in addition to, or different from, the conditions or standards of production in the State in which the production occurs.” 

This would significantly hinder animal welfare protections at the state or local level, such as state laws banning the practice of housing pregnant pigs in gestation crates. This would essentially gut regulations such as Prop 12, a controversial but groundbreaking animal rights law in California. 

“If this dangerous language stays in the Farm Bill, it will create a race to the bottom that condemns millions of farm animals to inhumane confinement while further disadvantaging thousands of independent, higher-welfare farmers in an already incredibly consolidated marketplace unfairly dominated by factory farming,” wrote Kara Shannon, director of Farm Animal Welfare Policy at the ASPCA, to Modern Farmer.

A mother pig in a gestation crate. (Photography by Shutterstock)

By contrast, the Senate’s listed priorities include a provision dedicating funding to help farmers engaged in industrial animal agriculture transition out to more sustainable practices. 

“This groundbreaking language represents the first time a Farm Bill would directly support farmers looking for a way out of factory farming, acknowledging the harms of industrial animal agriculture and aligning government spending with public values and the urgent need to reform our food system to prevent further animal suffering, environmental degradation and public health disasters,” says Shannon.

Take action with the ASPCA here.

Reduced Funding for SNAP. Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is always hotly debated in Farm Bill negotiations. This House bill curbs the growth of the program as a way to conserve spending—SNAP would lose about $27 billion over the course of a decade. 

There are some steps forward, said Kelly Horton, the Food Research & Action Center’s interim director, in a statement, such as repealing the lifetime ban on SNAP benefits for people who have received a felony drug conviction, but “these improvements should never come at the expense of cutting SNAP benefits. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow’s (D-MI) Farm Bill proposal would strengthen these programs without harming SNAP.”

Millions of people receive SNAP benefits in the US. (Photography by Jeff Bukowski)

Ashley Tyrner is the founder and CEO of FarmboxRx, a company that delivers fresh fruits and vegetables as a health intervention program under Medicare and Medicaid. A former SNAP recipient herself, Tyrner launched a program to supply good food to people affected by previous SNAP cutbacks. She says that one of the reasons SNAP is highly debated in the Farm Bill is because of differing opinions on the government’s role in addressing food insecurity.

“That being said…the program is a vital resource for vulnerable families—as I know from firsthand experience,” wrote Tyrner to Modern Farmer in an email. 

Weigh in on SNAP here.

Reducing Lending Transparency. Small farmers sometimes depend on financial loans, but there’s a long history of discrimination in public lending. Collecting demographic data from loan recipients is one way to increase transparency and identify patterns of discrimination. The House Bill includes an exemption where lenders can stop reporting demographic data to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). 

“For too long, lending institutions have discriminated against Black, Indigenous and other farmers of color, and ensuring that we have effective and fair policy requires data collection and transparency so that the public knows which farmers are being served and which may be left behind,” said the HEAL Food Alliance in a statement. 

“Fortunately, there are many other opportunities for the Farm Bill to be one that addresses discrimination in public lending and other opportunities for BIPOC producers,” wrote Maleeka Manurasada, national organizer with the HEAL Food Alliance, to Modern Farmer in an email. “For example, the Farm Bill could improve accessibility by including measures from the Fair Credit for Farmers Act that waive loan fees for underserved farmers and limit over-collateralization on farm loans.”

Manurasada also spoke to other ways that this Farm Bill could address discrimination:

• Including the provisions from the Justice for Black Farmers Act that increase funding for the Heirs Property Relending Program, which would give pro bono assistance, succession planning and support for the development of farmers cooperatives to Black Farmers. 
• Including pieces of LASO, the Increasing Land Access, Security, and Opportunities Act, which would provide funds for services that help farmers acquire land, cover closing costs and downpayments, secure clear titles and make site improvements. It would also help improve access to training and technical assistance. 
• Mandating anti-racism training for USDA agents, and ensuring language and cultural accessibility in all opportunities for training and technical assistance.

Use Your Voice

As we said before, the Farm Bill affects you, and how exactly you experience those effects will be determined by what gets passed by Congress. That makes now a good time to tell your representatives what’s important to you.

Need more context for the Farm Bill? Check out this Citizen’s Guide.

As legislators try to get a new bill ready by September, we will be covering it and bringing you stories about the real people impacted by the bill. And we want to hear from you. Do you have a story about how you’ve been affected by a past Farm Bill? Questions about the current one? Email me and let’s chat: lena@modfarmer.com

The post The House Proposed a New Farm Bill. This Will Affect Your Life—Even if You’re Not a Farmer. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

For farmers: You’re not alone.

Connect with other farmers:

Craig Watts stands in front of the mushrooms he grows. (Photo credit: Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Craig Watts of Socially Responsible Agriculture Project says: “First and foremost, reach out to me directly and let me hear what is happening and see if there is something as it is a case-by-case process.”
Connect with Craig, or learn more about SRAP, here.

Tyler Whitley. (Photo credit: Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Tyler Whitley of The Transfarmation Project says: “Just know that there are possibilities, even if they’re tough, and spend your time looking into those. Reach out to some organizations. It doesn’t have to be just us—there are a lot of organizations that are out there; their purpose is to help farmers outside of a ‘Big Ag’ system. Quality of life is what a lot of the farmers bring up to us. And if you’re unhappy with your quality of life, the best thing that I can say is to look into making a change. I think that’s something that resonates with all readers, not just farmers. Change is possible, even if it’s tough. But you can definitely do it.”
Learn more about the possibilities available to you with The Transfarmation Project.

Explore information resources:

Tanner Faaborg. (Photo credit: Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Tanner Faaborg of 1100 Farm says: “I think they should at least just have an open mind. Have an open mind and do a little bit of research to see what’s out there because people are farming differently. There are some really interesting things happening right now. And then just start to write it down. You don’t need to do everything all at once. You don’t need to make a decision overnight. But I think I would recommend them to just start making a plan. And then just continue to look for resources like Transfarmation or talk to the USDA…There are a lot of resources out there that will help you at least get started. It doesn’t have to be a massive project. You could start out with one small change.”
The Faaborgs went from hog farming to selling value-added mushroom products. See how they reimagined their farm. 

Angela De Freitas. (Photo from Animal Outlook)

Angela de Freitas of Animal Outlook says: “I think knowledge is power. And I know that with a couple of the farmers that we’ve worked with, the first thing they did, which is eventually what led them to us, is they simply went online and started reading, because it helped them to understand that it wasn’t them. They were able to see that there are plenty of other nightmare stories out there of things that have happened to farmers, particularly in these contract situations. Start calling organizations—call Tyler, call me, call whoever you find, because there are resources out there to help and there are organizations out there to help. And there is no need to have to try and figure it out yourself because, at this point, there are a couple of us out there who have done it and had successes.”
Contact Angela at Animal Outlook.

Paula and Dale Boles. (Photo credit: Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Paula Boles of JB Farms and Grace Chapel Greenhouses says: “The first thing that I would advise them to do is just do research. There are so many places that you can reach out [to] and talk to other people. And just see what options are out there. Even writing down ideas or visions, missions, whatever you think that aren’t possible—write them down anyway. And, sometimes, it’s almost like, once you write it down, it almost becomes a real thing. And then you can start looking at other ways to get there.”
Read about how contract farming affects mental health, from Paula’s perspective.

Contact your representatives:

Kara Shannon. (Photo from ASPCA)

Kara Shannon of the ASPCA says: “One of the first things that [farmers] should do is to talk to their representatives, both in their state legislature and in Congress, and just tell their story, because this is not the story that those lawmakers are hearing, especially in Congress. [They hear] from Big Ag that these contracts and these growers, they’re building strong rural economies and creating jobs and feeding the world, etc. And they are not often hearing from people who have these stories of getting into contract farming because they wanted to be their own bosses and keep the family farm and maintain this way of life and then find themselves in something so far from what they thought. So, I think sharing those stories [is] really important, because that is what is going to get those policymakers motivated to make changes to fund programs to help get those farmers out of it, to improve the accountability for these big producers that are getting the farmers in these incredibly unfair contracts.”
Support farm system reform here.

For interested consumers: You can help.

Ask questions:

The ASPCA has a guide for buyers called “Shop with Your Heart.” It helps consumers navigate grocery store aisles and determine whether the language or certifications on animal product packaging is legitimate or greenwashing. They also have a list of questions you can ask producers if you have the opportunity, such as at the farmers market. Often, smaller producers will qualify for legitimate certifications, but actually becoming certified is a financial obstacle, so it’s helpful to know what to ask them if you have the chance to speak to them directly. 

The ASPCA’s Kara Shannon shares a question she likes that implies transparency: “My go-to would be, ‘Hey, do you allow people to come out to the farm? Do you allow visits?’ And if the answer is yes, that’s kind of all you need to know.”

Become a farmer ally:

Additionally, Angela de Freitas of Animal Outlook says: “Something that’s really important to us organizationally is that farmers are our allies and that we don’t engage in shaming farmers or making them feel bad for what they have done or chose to do. And we recognize that farmers are part of the solution. That is, I think, a really important way to think about this—supporting the farmer to get out, celebrating the farmer getting out, offering the farmer options to get out, as opposed to trying to create change through shaming.”

We love to connect with our Modern Farmer community. If you have a farm and are considering transitioning to a more sustainable model, we would love to hear from you. Comment below or send us a note at lena@modfarmer.com.

The post Advice and Resources for Getting Out of Factory Farming appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But soon, other expenses started getting tacked on. Tyson required a new computer system to control the temperature in the barns. This was another $70,000. Their propane bill averaged around $25,000 per year. Not making the updates wasn’t really an option—no matter how much time and money you invested to be a farmer for the company, they could cut your contract at any time.

And the income wasn’t quite what they expected. Companies like Tyson pay their farmers in what’s called a tournament system. There’s a base pay, but whoever raises the best flock and has the best “feed conversion”—the biggest birds for the least feed— makes the most money, and payment decreases the further you go down the ladder. This essentially pits all the regional farmers against each other. 

Challenging company representatives, even on small things, resulted in retribution. Paula Boles says sometimes they’d intentionally bring you a “bad flock,” keeping your yields low and locking you into the bottom rung of the tournament system.

“If you complain too much, they just start sending you bad flocks of chickens,” she says. 

The Boles’ situation with Tyson was far from unique. While contract farming, or “factory farming,” has been exposed in the media for being exploitative of animals, the farmers who sign contracts with companies like Tyson, Perdue or other big players in animal agriculture also find themselves backed into a financial corner. But, over the last several years, there has been a wave of efforts to find ways to support farmers transitioning out of factory farming. The Boles, who raised their last flock for Tyson about nine years ago, are proof that getting out is possible.

“Now to have come through it, it’s been a long process,” says Boles. “It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve lived to tell about it, so to speak.”

Creating pathways

Tyler Whitley is the director of transfarmation for The Transfarmation Project, an initiative of Mercy for Animals. He has helped work with 12 farms to get them out of the industrial system—a system, he says, that is designed to exploit them.

 “The way that the current structure of factory farming is designed is that…the steps that carry with it the most risk and the most debt and the most liability are transitioned to the farmers,” he says. “And so what you have is you have farmers building these extremely expensive facilities at the very specific direction [and] design of the company that they’re working for. But they don’t own the animals.” 

The Transfarmation Project was founded by Leah Garcés. Whitley says that Garcés realized that ending factory farming would necessitate support systems for the farmers.

“She thought that if we’re going to be able to end factory farming, it’s not just about creating a different system that runs parallel, like you might see a lot of organizations doing when they talk about agroecology or regenerative farming [and] things of that nature,” says Whitley. “But you have to actually create transition paths for farmers to exit out of factory farming.”

And these pathways can be difficult to find and establish. Debt is one of the biggest hurdles to transitioning out of contract farming, says Whitley. And it’s not simply that the farmers have debt but a specific type of debt that requires lender authorization before farmers can make a change. 

Two of the other big challenges relate to the question: If not contract farming, then what? If you’re choosing to grow a different crop, a big obstacle is the learning curve—all forms of farming require specialized knowledge that makes changing lanes difficult. The other hurdle is marketing. When you have a contract, you don’t need to market your product, because you only have one buyer. This is also part of what makes factory farming inherently risky for the farmer.

“They don’t market the animals directly, so they have one customer,” says Whitley. “If you’re a business that has only one customer, you have a very high amount of risk for your business if you should lose that customer.”

When transitioning out of factory farming, farmers can try to use what they already have for a new purpose. This former chicken barn is now a greenhouse. (Photography credit to Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Before The Transfarmation Project can help farmers find specific buyers for new crops, it needs to have a pretty good idea of what would feasibly bring in an income for the farmer. For this, it  turns to Highland Economics for market analyses. Highland Economics has composed reports on a handful of specialty crops of The Transfarmation Project’s choosing, such as hemp, edible flowers, strawberries and microgreens.

The assessments are twofold—it looks at the regional market drivers for a crop, including what types of investments are being made in the sector and important trends—and it also considers what the projected costs and returns of growing that crop are in an indoor setting. Looking at the data that emerges in these analyses, such as consumer demand and the debt service coverage ratio (the ability of a producer to pay their debts with the income they earn) helps farmers decide if a certain crop is right for them.

Travis Greenwalt of Highland Economics also encourages producers to do their own research. “I think this is a great preliminary or a starting point for starting that conversation,” says Greenwalt. “But the specific costs and specific returns are going to be all dependent on the location and the producer.”

‘Steady treadmill of debt’

Garcés started The Transfarmation Project after meeting Craig Watts, a then-poultry farmer for Perdue who let her come to his farm and film inside his chicken barns. This view into what factory farming was really like made national headlines. Watts found himself as a whistleblower after feeling deeply disturbed by the disconnect between how this scale of poultry farming was portrayed versus the reality of the situation. But when he was starting out, his goal was to get back to farming on his family’s land, and contracting with Perdue seemed like the way to do it.

“It just sounded like a good deal,” says Watts. “You build the houses, they supply the birds, they supply all the technical advice. It’s a steady cash income. Supposedly, you could have positive cash flow the first year in business, which was unheard of.”

Craig Watts. (Photography credit to Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

But Perdue exercised control over how Watts farmed. It could move the goalposts as it desired, requesting upgrades to his equipment for which he had to pay.

“They’re always coming back to you when you get your houses close to being paid for to make these additions or renovations,” says Watts. “There’s always this new thing, ‘it’s gonna save the industry and you have to have it, but we’re not going to make you get it but we’re not gonna bring you any more birds until you do it.’ It’s kind of making it mandatory without actually saying ‘mandatory.’” 

Instead of making good money, Watts found himself on a “steady treadmill of debt.”

Additionally, the way that the birds were being treated was misrepresented to the public, which eventually tipped Watts over the edge.

“I guess everybody has their breaking point,” says Watts. “And I had mine sitting in a motel room in Brookings, South Dakota.”

A commercial had come on the television for the company. As Watts watched the commercial, he saw Jim Perdue driving down the road and then stepping into a chicken barn. Inside the barn were big, beautiful, clean birds, walking around on floors covered in pine shavings.

The reality that Watts had witnessed day in and day out for 20 years was quite different: chickens packed into small spaces, often injured or physically unable to stand or walk, panting due to overheating and sitting on a cake of fecal matter.

“I had a contract with Perdue Farms, but at the end of the day, the customer was my boss,” says Watts. “And I just felt like they needed to know.”

And that was how he ended up letting Garcés inside his barns to film. The resulting video made national news in 2014.  

Craig Watts and Leah Garcés inside a former chicken barn. (Photography credit to Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Now, Watts works with the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP), heading up its Contract Grower Transition Program. At the same time, he is learning how to effectively grow mushrooms on his farm in the old poultry barns. Growing mushrooms requires a very different set of skills, and as he learns best practices, he helps other farmers find a place to land.

Most people who come to SRAP are in crisis mitigation mode; they just had their contracts cut, many are strapped with debt and they’re trying to figure out how to proceed without losing their land and their livelihoods. Every farm is different, so there is not one uniform approach. But SRAP provides guidance through the financial and legal obstacles.

“We are an air traffic controller, so to speak,” he says. “We are looking for that pilot to help them land as soft as possible.”

It’s not without loss, Watts cautions. Changing the way you farm or remaining in farming after a contract is cut isn’t always possible. “People still lose their farms,” says Watts. “There’s no magic wand here. We flip rocks until we can’t flip anymore.”

For Watts, the bigger changes have to be systemic.

“We hear about how the food system is broken,” says Watts. “The consolidation has given farmers less options to sell to and less options to buy from. But the reality is, the food system is working as it was designed to work. It’s working perfectly. What has got to happen is there has to be a major shift in policy.”

Ripple effect

The video Garcés made with Watts made waves in the media, but it also resonated deeply with other farmers who were in the same position and had felt completely isolated. In December 2014, the video made its way to Paula and Dale Boles.

That day, the Boles came home from a difficult day at their barns with a bad flock.

“We went back to the house and watched that, and just sat there in tears,” says Paula Boles. “Because we knew when we saw that, that we weren’t the dumb hillbillies like Tyson had told us that we were. We knew that there was somebody else out there. And everything that [Watts] said in that video was the life that we were living.”

They looked at their calendar and decided that May 2015 would be their last flock. Boles wrote a letter to Tyson requesting to terminate their contract, and four weeks later, they received notice that their cancellation had been accepted.

“Even driving to the post office to pick it up, I was a nervous wreck,” says Boles.

Farms contracting with Tyson have a sign on their property that says “Tyson” and the name of the farm. About a week after their cancellation was confirmed, someone from Tyson drove out to the farm and picked up their sign.

“We were just standing there, we thought, wow—we invested $400,000, we almost lost everything that we have, and all they had invested in us was a $20 sign.”

To learn about what the Boles did next to create a second life for their farm and hear about more organizations that offer support to producers transitioning out of factory farming, read part two.

The post They Once Worked in Factory Farming. Not Anymore. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“The path they were on, they wouldn’t be able to do that,” says Faaborg. “And that’s when Wendell Murphy started moving into Iowa.”

Murphy Family Farms (later bought by Smithfield Foods) helped out with the loan needed to get started. The idea was that after about 10 years, it would be completely paid off.

“It sounded like a pretty good deal,” says Faaborg. “And it turned out a little differently.”

To maintain their contract, the company required the Faaborgs to take on additional expenses, such as upgrades to their barns. 

The Faaborgs farmed hogs for 30 years. When Tanner Faaborg came back to the farm as an adult, the family began thinking about ways to transition out of hog farming. 

“We started to see all these family farms just disappearing,” he says. “And then it became this kind of existential thought process for us on, you know, what is the future of this farm?”

This question would end up guiding the Faaborgs’ transition out of hog farming and into a business model that Faaborg hopes will sustain his family and their community for years to come. For farmers like Faaborg and Paula and Dale Boles, whom you met in part one, this transition has proven to be difficult but not impossible.

“It doesn’t have to be a massive project,” says Faaborg. “You could start out with one small change.”

Tanner Faaborg. (Photography credit to Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Risk tolerance

While many contract farmers find themselves in parallel positions—burdened with debt and lacking independence in making decisions on their farm—the path out of factory farming looks a little different for everyone. Animal Outlook, an organization that helps farmers transition out of contract farming, has a general blueprint it uses to help farms transition, but the actual steps vary, because each farmer has different circumstances. According to Angela de Freitas, director of farm transitions for Animal Outlook, these are conditions such as varying amounts of debt, regional positioning, knowledge of how to do other things, whether or not there is off-farm income, what kind of regional collaborators or partners exist and a farmer’s risk tolerance for trying something new. Animal Outlook works with poultry farmers who have had their contracts cut, which can happen at any time.

“They find themselves in a bit of a crisis, because it’s unexpected,” says De Freitas. “It’s not as if they have notice, they don’t have notice—it’s just like from one day to the next they don’t have a job, basically. Yet, they still have a tremendous debt load.”

One of the first things that some of the farmers she’s worked with have done is to start accumulating knowledge by going online and reading about others in similar positions. This early step helps them to realize that it’s not just them, says De Freitas. From there, farmers can begin reaching out to organizations such as Animal Outlook for support.

Animal Outlook is an animal advocacy organization, but De Freitas says any alternative to factory farming also has to be financially viable for producers. It’s important, she says, to see farmers as allies in building a different food system.

“We also approach it with the absolute understanding that if it doesn’t work for the farmer, if the transition cannot be financially successful and offer them a good quality of life, then it doesn’t work.”

The future of the farm

Finding others who share your vision for something different is an important early step. When Faaborg wanted to start changing the way his family farmed, he was met with some skepticism and felt overwhelmed with the process, he says, until he linked up with The Transfarmation Project. Tyler Whitley and the team there brought not only the can-do optimism for a big change like this but also came equipped with some of the technical knowledge and resources.

The Faaborgs began a pilot project to grow mushrooms, all while working with an outside team to retrofit the hog barn and convert it into a growing space. After eight months of learning the ropes, they now make and sell value-added products, such as tinctures and coffee blends. Finding the market for a new product was one of the most difficult parts, says Faaborg. But their website is now live for pre-orders under the name 1100 Farm. The “1100” is a nod to the fact that company barns were called “Murphy 1100 buildings,” in reference to the number of hogs that were housed in each barn. Faaborg included it in the name as a reminder of where they’ve been.

“It will always be a reminder of the change that’s possible and the change that happened on this farm,” says Faaborg.

The Faaborgs’ former hog barns. (Photography credit to Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

Faaborg has also applied for funding from multiple USDA programs supporting projects geared toward things such as energy efficiency and oxbow wetland restoration. Faaborg’s goal is to showcase that it is possible to convert hog barns to do a different kind of farming, and in doing so create jobs and revitalize the local rural economy. A couple of years into this process, Faaborg now has an answer for the existential question he and his parents were asking at the beginning of the transition—what will be the future of this farm?

“I think this will be a family farm and stay in the family for generations to come. I think this will be a public space where people can come and tour the facilities,” he says. “I want people to be able to come out in the country and be in nature and actually see where their food comes from.”

The role of policy

One of the biggest obstacles that Kara Shannon, director of farm animal welfare policy for the ASPCA, has observed for farmers wanting to transition out of industrial animal agriculture and into specialty crops or something more humane is the lack of funding and resources available to overcome financial hurdles.

“The resources just aren’t there, which I think is particularly jarring for farmers who entered into the industrial model,” says Shannon, “because agricultural lenders are incredibly quick to give out enormous loans for farmers who want to build a CAFO [concentrated animal feeding operation]. And [they’re] not nearly as happy to loan to them for these types of projects.”

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way forward.

State and federal policy have a big role to play, says Shannon. At the federal level, the Farm Bill is a big piece of legislation that pours a lot of money into US agriculture, and, unfortunately, says Shannon, a lot of conservation funding through the Farm Bill goes to CAFOs.

“I think federal and state policy play a really huge role in shaping our farm system, which is evidenced by the decades of regulatory and policy choices that have gotten us to where we currently are with this consolidated industrial system,” says Shannon. “We really need policy now to support farmers who are trying to build both more humane but also more resilient regional food systems.”

Federal legislation moves slowly, but Shannon has observed that more and more states seem to be providing farmers with grants to diversify their operations. And it can make a big difference—Shannon points to Vermont, which recently launched a grant program for small farm diversification and transitions. An added bonus of this program is that, unlike some other grants such as the Value-Added Producer Grant Program, it doesn’t require matching funds from the producer, something that can be hard to pull off if you’re saddled with debt from contract farming.

“Vermont’s a big dairy state and a lot of the dairies are struggling,” says Shannon. “So, there’s been a lot of focus on helping them, and this grant program was one of the first major steps towards doing that.”

The ASPCA also helps fund some grants for farmers looking to make their operations more humane. Paula and Dale Boles, former Tyson poultry farmers, received one of these ASPCA-funded grants during their transition.

Thanks in part to Dale’s experience in construction, the Boles were able to adapt their poultry barns into greenhouses. During the transition, they have both held off-farm jobs, but at JB Farms, they grow things such as microgreens and vegetables. It’s important for farmers to experiment with different crops or ideas, says Paula Boles, to figure out what works for them. She has leaned into growing flowers under the name Grace Chapel Greenhouses. Two years ago, the Boles were able to pay off the lingering debt from their years in poultry farming.

Left: Paula Boles. Right: The Boles’ former chicken barn was converted into a greenhouse. (Photography credit to Transfarmation / Mercy For Animals)

“I walked into Carolina Farm Credit and handed them a check for $5,000 and paid off the loan from the business that we exited seven years prior,” says Boles. “But we live to tell about it.”

And their farm has found some new life as a community-centered space. They frequently have people coming out to the farm to visit or volunteer. The connection to the community has been rewarding for Boles—it’s the complete opposite of the Tyson tournament system, which pitted her farm against other farmers. Her goal is to one day be able to work in the greenhouse full-time. 

“I have a vision, I have a long-term goal, something that I think will sustain us, something that will keep me healthy and keep me active,” says Boles. “You know, the whole thing that I thought was going to kill me I think is now going to sustain me.”

Catch the first part of this series here to read about what drove the Boles family to make their farming transition.  

The post Exiting the Factory Farm appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In addition to sectors such as clean energy and conservation, some of the jobs work with food systems. These jobs aim to conserve water and natural resources, increase access to nutritional food through community gardens and build or strengthen farm-to-plate food systems. Here are some examples of ACC jobs for which you could apply right now:

Local Food Ambassador. “Engage recent Maryland High School graduates in advancing a just and sustainable food system by improving neighborhood access to healthy food, providing experience-based education and developing an economically viable, environmentally responsible local agriculture sector.” Baltimore, Maryland.

Fond du Lac Reservation Food Sovereignty VISTA. “Serve on the Fond du Lac Reservation to enhance tribal food sovereignty working with the Agricultural Division to manage our 36-acre farm.” Cloquet, Minnesota. 

AgCorps Butte Ag Literacy Specialist. “Engage young Americans in connecting youth and the community to food and where their food comes from. This includes conducting taste tests, educational activities, cooking and gardening lessons.” Butte, Montana.

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. “The ACC member will work on sustainable agriculture initiatives, promote local food systems and advance our mission of empowering individuals and communities to bring about a sustainable and equitable future. The member will play an integral role in helping to develop and implement and executing sustainable agriculture programs and projects.” Greenville, South Carolina.

Proyecto Siembra Members. “Promote healthy futures through gardening on weekly visits to children at schools and day care centers and increase food security for our residents in Culebra while carrying out…cooking workshops every month to provide an opportunity to cultivate a healthy relationship between harvesting and consuming nutritious food.” Culebra, Puerto Rico.

Find the full list of jobs and apply here.

The post The American Climate Corps Will Put Climate Change Fighters to Work appeared first on Modern Farmer.

At CAFOs, it is common to pool animal waste in one spot, called a manure lagoon. Anaerobic digestion creates a mixture of gases, which can be used for electricity or further processed into fuel for vehicles. The idea is to take advantage of these large quantities of waste to create something useful and reduce methane emissions, helping the climate along the way.

However, that’s not quite how it works out. In Lind, an overwhelming number of citizens showed up for a public hearing to discuss the change—the Wisconsin Examiner reported that there were so many attendees, they exceeded the capacity of the building and the meeting had to be canceled. Community organizers, under the group name Citizens Protecting Rural Wisconsin, argued that digesters aren’t the solution that they seem to be.

A new report by Friends of the Earth US and Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) backs up that sentiment. The study suggests that methane digesters create incentives for the growth of industrial agriculture, further entrenching food systems that harm both people and the environment. These researchers, communities and advocates are working hard to resist the greenwashing of this technology—and sometimes they succeed. Vanguard Renewables, the company partnering with the dairy near Lind, officially withdrew its application to build in March. 

The report

Anaerobic digesters are not typically things that you would ever see on a small, pasture-based dairy or farm. Digesters require a lot of manure to work, meaning that they are more poised to be installed on CAFOs that typically have hundreds or thousands of animals. This suggests that supporting biogas production incentivizes the growth of the CAFO industry. 

“If we put money towards biogas, we’re essentially helping to subsidize and further entrench industrial livestock production,” says Chris Hunt, deputy director at SRAP and a contributor to this report, “and essentially the worst possible ways of managing waste, which is manure lagoons.”

This growth was documented in the report, finding that herd size at the studied CAFOs with digesters grew 3.7 percent year over year—24 times the growth rate of typical dairies in the states they studied. 

“Once you have a digester in place, there’s an incentive to create more biogas, because there’s now a market for biogas,” says Hunt. “The only way of doing that is to create more waste. So, there’s an incentive to add more animals to herd size.”

Greenwashing

The Global Methane Pledge was launched at COP26, aiming to reduce global methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, using 2020 levels as a baseline. In 2021, the US released its own methane reduction plan. Expanding manure biogas production was listed as a key way to reduce methane emissions in the agriculture sector. Between 2010 and 2020, the USDA Rural Business Cooperative Service supported grants and loans totaling $117 million toward anaerobic digesters.

This plan aims to develop the industry further. Not only does it commit the USDA to launch additional work into biogas policies and research, but existing Farm Bill conservation programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) will provide resources in service of manure biogas production. 

In 2020, manure accounted for about 9 percent of the US’s methane emissions. The greater source of methane from animal agriculture is through enteric fermentation—created through the process of digestion. This accounted for about 27 percent of US methane emissions. Using anaerobic digesters to produce biogas can only address that 9 percent, and it does nothing to reduce the 27 percent inherent to ruminant agriculture—animals such as cows, buffalo, goats and sheep.

The gases produced by anaerobic digestion are being used for electricity and to power vehicles, but as the report and other advocacy organizations argue, this doesn’t make it a clean fuel.

“When you burn this fuel as an end use, it’s essentially the same as burning fossil fuels,” said Kat Ruane of Food & Water Watch during a recent webinar about biogas production in California. “It produces similar pollutants, it harms the environment in the same way and you’re still pumping gas into the atmosphere that we really don’t need to be there. So, clearly, this cannot be a solution to climate change.”

Anaerobic digesters. (Photo from Shutterstock)

Food & Water Watch did its own study on digesters in California feeding into the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program. The leakage rates of these digesters could be as much as 15 percent. Food & Water Watch used satellite images of methane plumes overlaid with geographic information about where digesters in the LCFS program were located. They documented 16 dairy operations that emitted plumes, producing 59 plumes between March 2017 and July 2023. The emission rates of these plumes reached as high as 1,729 kilograms of methane per hour. A “super-emitter” in the imaging system is classified as just 10 kilograms of methane per hour.

“Another huge greenwashing problem with this technology is just the fact that it does not work,” said Ruane. “[It’s] an absolutely mind-boggling amount of pollution being produced under the guise of supposedly helping the climate.”

In addition to research, Food & Water Watch mobilizes people on issues related to food systems and factory farming. On its website, you can read about its various objectives and wins against industrialized farming as well as calls to action on these issues. Hunt of SRAP also encourages people directly dealing with the impact of factory farming on their community to reach out directly.

“If any of your readers are facing a factory farm, they should contact us,” says Hunt. “We provide free support to communities throughout the US to help them protect themselves from the damaging impacts of industrial livestock operations.” 

There’s no uniform approach for dealing with this issue, he says, as it depends a lot on regional factors, but SRAP provides resources such as the SRAP Help Hotline and SRAP Water Rangers Program, which offers free training on how to collect and analyze water samples, document pollution and report violations.

“There’s not really one universal secret. But this is what our organization does. So, I would encourage folks to reach out to us for help.” 

Digesters don’t erase factory farm concerns

Even if biogas production wiped out methane emissions completely, that’s still a narrow view of the factory farm problem, says Hunt.

“Biogas doesn’t solve the factory farm issue,” says Hunt. “Greenhouse gas emissions aren’t the only problems in factory farms. As someone who’s been working on this issue for 20 years, it’s actually one of the problems with factory farms that concerns me the least.”

He says that methane emissions are being misconstrued as the major problem caused by factory farms, and biogas has been used as the proxy for fixing all the problems explicitly with CAFOs. “But they don’t do that at all,” says Hunt.

Digesters don’t address worker or animal rights abuses at CAFOs, nor all of the environmental concerns. Moreover, many of the human health impacts are not mitigated by anaerobic digesters.

“When you have too many animals in one place, you’re going to have too much waste in one place, and that waste becomes a problem—that waste becomes a pollutant,” says Hunt. “So, these facilities pollute the air, pollute the water and threaten public health and spoil people’s drinking water. Adding digesters doesn’t actually fix that.”

Manure storage vessels. (Photo from Shutterstock)

As of 2020, there were more than 21,000 CAFOs in the US, and some are clustered geographically. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, for example, some people live next to as many as 25 CAFOs. 

The abundance of CAFOs in the San Joaquin Valley isn’t accidental, says Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist at the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA). The San Joaquin Valley has several historically Black communities that are now largely Latino, and the abundance of polluters is evidence of environmental racism—hazardous materials or operations being located or dumped in communities of color. Moreover, many of these communities are unincorporated, and this can make it more difficult for residents to advocate for themselves.

“First and foremost, I think it’s really important that people understand the health impacts that come with so many large animals being confined in one area,” says Martinez.

These impacts include sleep apnea, asthma and other respiratory issues, as well as not being able to go outside because of the intensity of the smell or due to being swarmed by flies. CAFOs present a threat of nitrate pollution, which can cause a variety of illnesses including blue baby syndrome. Manure contamination can also lead to severe pathogen-related illnesses such as listeriosis and tetanus. The SRAP and Friends of the Earth report posits that while anaerobic digesters achieve temperatures that can kill some pathogens, the real solution is not to have such high concentrations of animals in the first place.

Martinez, who was born and raised in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley, works closely with other local organizers to do policy work against the LCFS rewarding CAFOs, such as trying to eliminate methane crediting. She encourages everyone to speak up on the impacts of dairies.

“Attend a workshop, speak up and be like, ‘As somebody who lives next to a dairy, as someone who lives next to a dairy with a digester, this is my reality of what I live with,’” says Martinez. “No one should be able to take away your right to clean air and clean drinking water and get away with it.”

On the LCJA website, you can read more about this work and find information for taking action. Small dairy farmers who’ve had success should share their stories, too, she says.

“Small farmers, rise up,” says Martinez. “There are success stories that I think need to be talked about. And I would love to hear what their solutions are to this epidemic of the CAFO industry.”

Dairy cows being milked. (Photo from Shutterstock)

A more sustainable future for dairy

As the SRAP and Friends of the Earth report states, “Only if one accepts the status quo model for industrial animal production as the baseline can it be argued that manure biogas has any benefits.” For Hunt, biogas production is not compatible with climate change solutions at all.

“I don’t think a sustainable future is compatible with the CAFO model,” he says. “You can spend millions of dollars and stick a digester on top of your lagoon, you can stunt the emissions a little bit that way. But you’re still left with all these other problems that are inherent in that model.”

“I don’t think a sustainable future is compatible with the CAFO model.”

Martinez encourages those who consume milk and dairy products to think critically about how these products get to your table. Collectively, she says, we need to think about what sustainability is and what we as consumers are willing to accept.

“Right now, people are saying that you having access to [these products] is more important than a young child being able to go outside and ride their bike or walk home from school,” says Martinez. “Because right now that’s kind of what the trade-off is.”

In her organizing, Martinez has been accused of being anti-dairy industry and anti-dairy farmer.

“But that is not true. I think that there is a place for dairies. And I think that that place for dairies is when you don’t have thousands of cows. It’s not sustainable,” she said in the Food & Water Watch webinar. “If we want to genuinely keep dairies around in California or in Wisconsin, wherever, they have to be truly sustainable. And that means making big changes.”

The post Biogas From Mega-Dairies Is a Problem, Not a Solution appeared first on Modern Farmer.

When challenging its pork producer about its use of manure lagoons and the myriad health and environmental issues they pose, Ganzler knew that Bon Appétit’s end goal was not only to source more sustainable pork but to be able to communicate effectively with its customers about the issue—something that is quite difficult, since no one wants to talk about manure when they’re eating.

This tension is at the heart of Ganzler’s new book: How can companies practice authentic sustainability and work it effectively into their marketing strategy? In the book, Ganzler details Bon Appétit’s progress and missteps in navigating issues such as farmworker rights, pigs raised in gestation crates, chickens in cages, and more. The book, which comes out April 2, also includes interviews with other industry experts who talk about their experiences, including:  Rob Michalak, former global director of social mission for Ben & Jerry’s, who talks about integrating sustainability into operations and his experience with Milk with Dignity organizers; Gary Hirshberg, co-founder of Stonyfield Organic, who discusses picking your battles and taking stands on issues; and Lisa Dyson, CEO and co-founder of Air Protein, who talks about creating alternative protein and striving to be the number one meat company in the world.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Modern Farmer: In your book, you say that when a business does something right or makes progress toward a sustainability target, it should get credit for it. This can bolster the business, but you write that it can also create a ripple effect toward industry change. How so?

Maisie Ganzler: A great example of that was in 2005, when we at Bon Appétit made a commitment to cage-free eggs nationwide. We heard that the client at another corporation said to their food service provider, ‘We’d like cage-free eggs served here,’ and the food service provider said ‘Oh, we can’t do that. There’s not enough available, blah, blah, blah,’—all these excuses. And the client said, ‘Well, Bon Appétit does it for their locations. So, I’m sure you can do it here, too.’ That’s the ripple effect that I’m talking about—once a company has proven that something is possible, other companies now need to come to the table and do the same.

MF: Something you worked on passionately was sourcing pork from producers that don’t house pigs in gestational crates. You didn’t reach this goal overnight but through a series of milestones. You eventually accomplished this with pork producer Clemens Food Group, on which Modern Farmer reported here. To get there, you first had to hear big companies tell you no, it wasn’t possible. Why did you push on regardless? How were you confident you could achieve something that wasn’t being widely done at such a large scale?

MG: I pushed on for two main reasons. One was that it was simply the right thing to do. If you’ve seen a sow in a gestation crate, it’s heartbreaking. They can’t turn around, they can’t walk; it is very clear that something better could be done for that animal. So, that’s where we start, rooted in the idea that it’s the right thing to do for the animal. But as you’ve pointed out, we’re also a business and we want to get market credit. And we had made a public promise, and I was not going to go back on that. So, while I was transparent about the difficulties and about missing the deadline, I never wanted to say it can’t be done. Was I confident that it could be done? Not necessarily, but I don’t need confidence to keep pushing forward.

MF: You advise companies to own their challenges and obstacles to achieving their sustainability goals—something that can be tempting to hide. Why is it actually better to be transparent about these things?

MG: Being transparent is important because one, it will insulate you to some degree from greenwashing claims. If you are the person that’s stepping forward and saying here’s where we fell short, nobody can have that “gotcha” moment. The other thing is that it actually gets you more credit in the end. If you pretend that everything’s easy to do, why should anybody celebrate that you did it? If you’re transparent about how challenging it was, how many bumps there were in the road, how many times you failed and redoubled your efforts, how much more expensive it was, then all the more reason for customers or advocacy groups to laud your accomplishment when you finally do pull it off.

I don’t think that anybody on the consumer side, anybody reasonable, expects perfection from a company. But they do expect honesty. And I think that’s a reasonable expectation. One of the things that I talked to Gary Hirshberg about, the founder of Stonyfield, is he talked about people needing to make an emotional connection with the brand, especially if you’re asking them to spend more money on something. Just what I was talking about [with] gestation crates, and how they are so horrible for sows, that cuts to my heart, not necessarily to my head, because it is more efficient, it is more cost-effective, but my heart tells me something different. And a lot about building an authentic brand based upon sustainability is listening to your heart and being open with your heart.

If you’re not authentic in your desire to make real change, I think that people smell that. And you may actually have something backfire. Instead of [achieving] what you want, you may be in a worse position if you’re inauthentically making these promises.

Ganzler holds a piglet. (Photography provided by Maisie Ganzler)

MF:  You talk about how in Bon Appétit’s Farm to Fork program, you don’t require that producers be certified organic, but you do require that farms be owner-operated. As a farmer in St. Louis told you, if you’re a small farm, you can’t afford to scrap a whole field if you have a fungal outbreak, you need to be able to apply a fungicide. If you held firm to requiring organic certification, you’d end up putting the squeeze on some of your smaller producers. When setting a sustainability goal, how do you make sure that the parameters you choose can actually help you achieve your desired outcome?

MG: You have to first be really clear of what your desired outcome is. So, for the Bon Appétit Farm to Fork program, the desired outcome was to support farmers that were growing for taste—that was the initial impetus of the program: to get the best-tasting food. And to do that, we decided that we had to support small-scale farmers that were close to us that were able to grow for flavor, as opposed to grow for conformity or transportability or a whole host of other reasons. Be really clear about what your goal is. 

MF: Considering Bon Appétit’s size and reach, you encounter a lot of issues in our food system. You work with producers across a wide geography and advocates on a wide breadth of issues. From your perspective, what are the biggest issues in our food system right now? 

MG: From sitting in the chair of a food service company that’s a buyer, I think that the biggest issues really surround animal agriculture, how animals are treated and the impacts that the raising of those animals have on our environment. And there’s a lot of different things in play. And there’s a lot of strong opinions but also some conflicting information. So, I would say that there’s a whole host of issues around animal agriculture.

MF: For small farmers or food businesses that don’t have a marketing department, budget or training, do you have any advice for how they can still tell their story effectively?

MG: I think that the first thing is that they need to figure out what their story is and distill it down. If they have a package, what can they put on the package that quickly communicates the most salient points of their story, not the encyclopedic version of it, because no one’s going to take time to read that. Everybody’s got a website, so the same thing there, really figuring out what your headline is and succinctly communicating that to your customers. And making that headline something that does create an emotional connection with people. Not being afraid to take a stand, whether that is in the issues you take on, how you talk about them or where you talk about them. 

What I was trying to communicate in the book is the importance of both making meaningful change and getting market credit for it. And that’s where the title comes from—You Can’t Market Manure at Lunchtime. There was this real environmental change we were after, dealing with manure lagoons, but we also needed to be able to talk to customers about it. Because we are not advocacy groups, we are for-profit companies. But we have the power to do good in this world and capitalize on it. And there’s nothing shameful about that duality.

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