Farmer weighs in on CAFO issue

The letter published on Tuesday June 9 has prompted me to try and provide some insight concerning these pollution ideas. I really question what type of experience and/or credentials this person possesses to state such ludicrous ideas or comments. In the publication there was a statement concerning CAFO's being built with their own sewage plants. Instead people ought to think about what is going down their drains and into our drinking water. I remember seeing and/or hearing about a study that monitored the medicine being dumped down drains that cannot be completely filtered through our water/sewage plants no matter how efficient they are. As one can see, CAFO's cannot be pinpointed as the sole source of pollution in our drinking water.

It is beyond my comprehension how a person can think that a livestock farmer would pollute the environment because this is where his 'bread and butter' comes from. When a livestock farmer spreads the manure onto the ground, it is regulated and has to be documented. A crop is planted, the plant takes up the nutrients, is harvested, and then fed back into the livestock. This is a natural cycle, not pollution.

People need to understand that a livestock farmer takes a lot of pride in what he produces. As a family farm starts to incorporate other family members, the business needs to also increase income in order to meet expenses. Being a livestock farmer is not a high-paying career. There are high capital expenditures needed to start out, risks involved, and a lot of time required to take care of the livestock. The rewards are greater than a person who has never been associated with the business could ever fathom. There is great joy in a family working together to produce a quality product so that other people can eat rather inexpensively compared to other countries. Why would a livestock farmer want to jeopardize his operation by polluting it?

As far as the buildings are concerned in which the livestock are raised, those buildings are more comfortable than having the animals out in pasture because of ventilation, feeding, watering, and handling. All of these elements are taken into careful consideration when designing a building. There are also stringent guidelines that are associated with the feeding, handling, and the administration of medicine. Vaccination and medication schedules are followed and regulated by the state. The animals are not 'shot up' in order to keep them alive. This would not be feasible to the farmer. For example in the dairy industry, each load of milk that is picked up from a farm has a sample taken. A Delvo test is conducted on all samples that were taken before the truck is unloaded at the processing plant. If antibiotics are present, the entire load of milk is rejected. The farmer that is responsible for the rejection of the milk is required to pay for the entire cost of the lost load. Why would a farmer 'shoot up' his cows to keep them alive just so the milk could be rejected? Where is the profit or the logic in that?

In conclusion, I want people to realize that raising livestock is a business that is taken seriously by those involved in it. Farmers are committed to protecting the environment while still producing a quality product that is relatively inexpensive in the end.

Dennis Schwieterman

Portland[[In-content Ad]]