- Farms are located in poorly planned areas (flood plains or close to communities that utilize well water) and, the surrounding area cannot take such a high amount of waste and leads to pollution, and general degradation of the surrounding environment
- The annual production of manure produced by animal confinement facilities exceeds that produced by humans by at least three times - this results in large quanities of manure that carry excess nutrients, chemicals, and microorganisms that find their way into waterways, lakes, groundwater, soils, and airways which as a result in excessive nutrient loading, eutrophication of surface waters, reduced air quality is due to releases of toxic gases, odorous substances, particulates, and bioaerosols containing a variety of microorganisms and human pathogens
- High resource use
- High amounts of greenhouse emissions
- It is extremely energy intensive and requires disproportionately large inputs of fossil fuels, industrial fertilizers, and other synthetic chemicals
Summary of Topic 2 (from the main document):
IFAP farming focuses on high efficiency and low cost production, and when compared to previous generations of farming styles, IFAP is much less sustainable. This uses high amounts of feed, chemicals, fuels, and energy in general to produce as much protein and animal products as possible in as short of a time as possible. This method of farming has many more environmental impacts, and has more public health concerns when compared to older methods of animal farming.
Possible solution:
The best way to make a change is to write to your senators, governors, and other public officials in order to have them pass legislation to regulate, control, and stop as many of the negative impacts of IFAP farming as possible. Also to accomplish this general education of people would bring about greater change, as the more people who know the negative impacts on the environment and their health, the more likely it is that legislation will be passed.
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