Environment, Ethics & the Factory Farm David N. Cassuto Pace University School of Law

 The. U.S. was founded on the ideal of the yeoman farm  This way of life is rapidly fading into history

 Farms have become factories and the animals raised in these factories are mere commodities.  As of 2000, only 30% of the 640,000 farms in the U.S. provided pasture for their animals.  All the rest are confined in CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations).

 These operations generate enormous amounts of waste. One 55,000 cow CAFO operation generates more solid waste than the city of Portland, OR.  What was once viewed as valuable fertilizer is now generated in such volume that it is more akin to toxic waste.

 CAFO operations emit: ammonia (NH3), nitrous oxide (N2O), NOx, methane (CH4), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), and odor. Most of the emissions stem from microbial breakdown of manure stored in pits and lagoons and spread on fields.

 These emissions have spawned litigation under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, as well as under numerous state laws. yet, for the most part, CAFOs operate in a highly favorable regulatory environment.

The Problem Is Not Just Waste  Emissions are a serious problem but even if they could be remediated… The animals would fare no better.

Deliberate Indifference to Life  9 billion animals killed each year for food in the U.S. alone.  Animals confined in spaces so small they often cannot turn around.  Stacked in cages by the hundreds of thousands.

Laws Are No Help – Or Worse  Humane Slaughter Act excludes poultry  State Anti-Cruelty laws exclude “generally accepted agricultural practices,” (i.e. whatever the industry usually does is legal).

Linked Causes  Animal Law is environmental law  We cannot address our global environmental crisis while abusing our fellow inhabitants with complete indifference.  In the last 15 minutes, 2.5 million animals have been slaughtered in the U.S., many of them in grotesquely painful ways.  Sustainable agriculture is humane agriculture.

Environmental Law/Environmental Ethics  Environmental law grew out of environmentalism.  Environmentalism is about ethics.

Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic  “[A] land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land- community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow- members, and also respect for the community as such.  “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

INACTION = ACTION  Special circle of hell reserved for those who stay neutral during times of great moral crisis -- Dante

CAFOS ARE INDUSTRY, NOT AGRICULTURE  Sustainable agriculture is about more than just regulating emissions.  The problem cannot be solved by attempting to regulate CAFO emissions. Organisms create waste.  The key is designing a system that is self-sustaining.

What to Do?  If pollution is the symptom, what is the problem?  Unsustainable, unethical, industrial devastation masquerading as agriculture.  Torturing billions of animals and befouling land and rivers is not a sustainable option.

Do SOMETHING!  If you don’t try to win, you can’t win.  Carl Bernstein and Ben Bradlee and …  All the President’s Men

Full Circle  Traditional tension between environmentalists and animal activists is counterproductive.  Factory farms are spreading across the world.

How Do You See Yourself?  Common goal, different priorities.  Animal Law = Environmental Law  It’s about ethics.  And it’s about you.