Clean and environmentally sound disposal of animal waste in the quantities that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) produce can only be described as a challenge. Designed to provide practical information, Environmental Management of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) covers the concepts and practices involved in the operation

The majority of meat, milk, and eggs consumed in the United States are produced in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO). With concentrated animal operations, in turn comes concentrated manure accumulation, which can pose a threat of contamination of air, soil, and water if improperly managed. Animal Manure: Production, Characteristics, Environmental Concerns, and Management navigates these important environmental concerns while detailing opportunities for environmentally and economically beneficial utilization.

CAFO provides an unprecedented view of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations where an increasing percentage of the world’s meat, milk, eggs, and fish are produced. As the photos and essays in this powerful book demonstrate, the rise of the CAFO industry has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. Industrial livestock production is now a leading source of climate changing emissions, a source of water pollution, and a significant contributor to diet-related diseases, and the spread of food-borne illnesses. The intensive concentrations of animals in such crammed and filthy conditions dependent on antibiotic medicines and steady streams of subsidized industrial feeds poses serious moral and ethical considerations for all of us. CAFO takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey into the alarming world of animal factory farming and offers a compelling vision for a food system that is humane, sound for farmers and communities, and safer for both consumers and the environment.

The U.S. food system provides many benefits, not the least of which is a safe, nutritious and consistent food supply. However, the same system also creates significant environmental, public health, and other costs that generally are not recognized and not accounted for in the retail price of food. These include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, soil erosion, air pollution, and their environmental consequences, the transfer of antibiotic resistance from food animals to human, and other human health outcomes, including foodborne illnesses and chronic disease. Some external costs which are also known as externalities are accounted for in ways that do not involve increasing the price of food. But many are not. They are borne involuntarily by society at large. A better understanding of external costs would help decision makers at all stages of the life cycle to expand the benefits of the U.S. food system even further. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) with support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a public workshop on April 23-23, 2012, to explore the external costs of food, methodologies for quantifying those costs, and the limitations of the methodologies. The workshop was intended to be an information-gathering activity only. Given the complexity of the issues and the broad areas of expertise involved, workshop presentations and discussions represent only a small portion of the current knowledge and are by no means comprehensive. The focus was on the environmental and health impacts of food, using externalities as a basis for discussion and animal products as a case study. The intention was not to quantify costs or benefits, but rather to lay the groundwork for doing so. A major goal of the workshop was to identify information sources and methodologies required to recognize and estimate the costs and benefits of environmental and public health consequences associated with the U.S. food system. It was anticipated that the workshop would provide the basis for a follow-up consensus study of the subject and that a central task of the consensus study will be to develop a framework for a full-scale accounting of the environmental and public health effects for all food products of the U.S. food system. Exploring Health and Environmental Costs of Food: Workshop Summary provides the basis for a follow-up planning discussion involving members of the IOM Food and Nutrition Board and the NRC Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources and others to develop the scope and areas of expertise needed for a larger-scale, consensus study of the subject.

Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs discusses the need for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement a new method for estimating the amount of ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and other pollutants emitted from livestock and poultry farms, and for determining how these emissions are dispersed in the atmosphere. The committee calls for the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish a joint council to coordinate and oversee short - and long-term research to estimate emissions from animal feeding operations accurately and to develop mitigation strategies. Their recommendation was for the joint council to focus its efforts first on those pollutants that pose the greatest risk to the environment and public health.

Nutrients from livestock & poultry manure are key sources of water pollution. Ever-growing numbers of animals per farm & per acre have increased the risk of water pollution. New Clean Water Act regulations compel the large confined animal producers to meet nutrient application standards when applying manure to the land, & USDA encourages all animal feeding operations to do the same. The additional costs for managing manure (such as hauling manure off the farm) have implications for feedgrain producers & consumers as well. This report¿s farm level analysis examines onfarm technical choice & producer costs across major U.S. production areas for hauling manure to the minimum amount of land needed to assimilate manure nutrients. Illustrations.

"The assessment builds on the work of the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative"--Pref.