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CAFO

November 30, 2023

US push to turn farm manure into renewable energy draws concerns

By Keith Schneider

AMES, IOWA – In a gathering that drew the attendance of both farmers and Wall Street financiers, US regulators joined with oil giant Chevron at a November conference here to promote what backers promise will be a monumental breakthrough – systemic changes that would turn polluting agricultural waste into a source of renewable energy that replaces fossil fuels and slows climate change.

Speakers at the conference, which was hosted by Iowa State University and co-sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture, assured attendees that the answers to agricultural and climate woes can be found in technology that already exists: Key, according to conference promoters, is the rapid expansion of large methane biodigesters, which capture manure waste from the nation’s cattle, hog and poultry operations and convert it into a harvest of both public and private riches.

Water and air would be cleaner and farmers could see billions of dollars in new farm income, among other benefits, according to backers.

“It can provide a substantial portion of global energy needs,” Rudi Roeslein , CEO of Roeslein Alternative Energy, told the attendees. His company has built farm-based methane systems around the country that produce enough fuel to displace six million gallons of diesel fuel and 80,000 cars. “If we do this on a large scale in the US we could generate $63.6 billion worth of revenue for farmers around the country.”

Roeslein’s company promises on its website to “restore a balance” to farmland “by using the sustainably harvested biomass to create renewable natural gas.”

Chevron promotes its investment in manure biodigestion as “finding inspiration in nature.”

“I’m really excited about the innovation in this space,” Lisa Schulte Moore, a professor and co-director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State, said in an interview. “The renewable natural gas market is providing economic incentives for better management of manure.”

But critics argue that the emergence of an alliance of Big Ag, Big Oil, and Big Government to generate energy from livestock waste is ripe with peril. They say that air pollutants and waste discharged from farms and from already existing farm-based biodigesters receive scant federal and state oversight. They fear that without strict regulation, manure digesters could make water and air pollution worse, not better. Industrial-sized farms, including concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), already are one of the nation’s largest sources of water pollution, and among the principal causes of air pollution.

July 24, 2023

Reporting project examines the scandal of US farm pollution

By Keith Schneider

There’s no way to describe farm-related nutrient pollution other than what it is – a national scandal.

A tiny minority of Americans, half of one percent, is grossly fouling the waters for tens of millions of others. Corn Belt crop farmers, and livestock and poultry producers – the heart of the rich and powerful $618 billion American farm sector – have virtually unlimited opportunities within state and federal law to pollute at will.

Crop producers, unregulated under the Clean Water Act, seek maximum production with no restriction on how much fertilizer they apply. Livestock and poultry producers, barely covered by the clean water law, treat farm fields as waste disposal zones for an ocean of untreated liquid manure and a mountain range of solid manure and poultry litter ripe with E.coli and other hazardous microorganisms. Polluting farm production practices, mostly overlooked by state environment departments, are defended by trade associations with lobbying offices in state capitals and allies from both parties in state legislatures and in Congress.

Since January I’ve been reporting the causes, consequences, and solutions to the farm sector’s assault on American waters with financial support from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, which also helped me secure a second grant from The Fund For Investigative Journalism. See the latest story here.

The project focuses on nitrate pollution in the Corn Belt and builds on expertise I gained reporting in 2022 for Circle of Blue on phosphorus pollution in Michigan and the Great Lakes states. Early reports from this year’s project have already been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Lede, Circle of Blue, Minnpost, Investigate Midwest, Detroit Now, Michigan Radio, and my ModeShift blog.

To some extent, the tide of toxic nitrogen and phosphorus discharges from crop land and livestock operations is a well-recognized story not only in media, but also in government. Addressing it has resulted in an unsteady platform of responses over the last three decades held up by two of three legs.

The first is the considerable investment by states and the federal government in science. Billions of dollars have been spent on research and nutrient monitoring. America knows with great clarity the sources of nutrient contamination and the environmental, health, and economic damage it causes.