Regulate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)

For state policymakers wanting to slow or reverse this trend, perhaps the most important action is to be aware of any new or recent legislation proposing to exempt agriculture from regulation or tax. These are generally bills to promote CAFO development and should be opposed.

Lawmakers should also be aware that policies promoting manure-to-energy projects (also known as biogas) through tax incentives or credits are a false climate solution. Biogas further expands and entrenches CAFO development and should also be opposed. (Read more in Stop Taxpayer Funding of Industrial Animal Agriculture).

Lawmakers can push for stricter environmental protections to regulate air and water pollution from large-scale livestock operations; require setback distances from homes, schools, businesses, and roads; ensure that manure is responsibly managed; and increase public participation in CAFO permitting and siting.

In almost all states, responsibility for enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act has been delegated to the state’s environmental protection agency. The states should be issuing National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for CAFOs over a certain size.^[2] Permits should protect surface and groundwater, include agency monitoring and inspections, have mechanisms for enforcement, and include robust public input. Unfortunately, the CAFO permitting process is often simply pro forma, and state agency budgets are often too low for effective inspection and enforcement. State policymakers can support adequate funding for the agencies that oversee CAFO permitting to cover inspection, compliance, and enforcement, as well as ensuring they have the authority to issue penalties for bad actors and repeat violators. If policymakers think that the enforcement agency is not properly doing its job with regard to CAFOs, they can advance legislation to require the state agency to report on the number of permits, inspections, violations. and enforcement actions that have been taken against CAFOs in the state.

There are also animal welfare concerns with CAFOs. These include use of gestation crates for breeding female pigs that are too small for the pigs to turn around; battery cages for chickens that do not allow the hens to spread their wings; and the practice of docking the tails of dairy cows, which is painful and causes distress, as they are then unable to swat biting flies. There are no animal welfare regulations at the federal level, and because of this, some states have taken action to ban cruel farming practices.

Overall, the landscape of CAFO regulation favors the rights of large industrial multinational corporations at the expense of rural communities, pasture-based farmers, natural resources, and animal welfare. State laws are inadequate at best to protect communities from the numerous harms of these facilities. . As a result, lawmakers in some states have proposed policies to rein in these facilities through CAFO regulation reform or an outright moratorium on CAFO permitting. Depending on your state, this could have lasting political implications; if you are considering this type of measure, please contact us at agriculture at stateinnovation.org to discuss.