A New York Times Editorial

The Worst Way of Farming
Published: May 31, 2008

In the past month, two new reports have examined how farm animals are raised in this country. The report funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts calls the prevailing system “industrial farm animal production.” The report from the Union of Concerned Scientists prefers the term “confined animal feeding operations.”

No matter what you call it, it adds up to the same thing. Millions of animals are crowded together in inhumane conditions, causing significant environmental threats and unacceptable health risks for workers, their neighbors and all the rest of us.

The astonishing increase in the number and size of confined animal operations has been spawned largely by the very structure of American farm supports, which always has been skewed in a way that concentrates farming in fewer and fewer hands. As both of these reports make clear, the so-called efficiency of industrial animal production is an illusion, made possible by cheap grain, cheap water and prisonlike confinement systems. Read More

The Pew Commission Report continues to be used against modern production practices. They have tried to convince people that manure is a toxic waste and that antibiotics are used haphazardly throughout the industry. Farmers and ranchers must speak out about this report and let the public know that if the suggestions made in the report were put into practice that it could be devastating to many families that farm and ranch.

Please read the letter written by the North Dakota Food and Fiber Alliance in response to those using the Pew report against agriculture.