Shifting Baselines:

CAFOs and SPOs

Dalica Nosavan, Nina Ewert, Louise Codina, Fernando
Villavicencio
Period 4

Beginnings of CAFO

AFO were first identified as potential pollutants in the

1972 Clean Water Act (Hribar, 2010).
To be considered a CAFO, a farm must first be
categorized as an animal feeding operation (AFO)
(Hribar, 2010).
SPOs were the considered normal and CAFOs didnt
exist (Hribar, 2010).

How
Did
the
Shift
Happen?
Factory farms grew 20% bigger within 5 years (20022007). (Food & Water Watch, 2016)
Factory farms get bigger while Sustainable farms get

smaller.

(Food & Water Watch, 2016)

The amount of cows, hogs, chickens, and egg-laying

operations rose by 20% in the factory farms. (Food & Water Watch,
2016)

Production of cows and chickens nearly doubled. (Food & Water

Watch, 2016)

As factory farms increased, the amount of land didnt.(Food &

Water Watch, 2016)

Amount of Animals

2012
2002
(Food & Water Watch, 2016)

CAFOs Now
Livestock production is dominated
by CAFOs (Imhoff, Tompkins, Carra, 2013)
The animals are born to die (Imhoff,
Tompkins, Carra, 2013)

50 billion animals are raised and

slaughtered every year (Imhoff, Tompkins,
Carra, 2013)

70% of all agricultural land is

occupied by growing and grazing
feed (Imhoff, Tompkins, Carra, 2013)

Where is the Problem Headed?

Local harvest (Mercola, 2015)

Farmers Markets (Mercola, 2015)
Locally Grown (Mercola, 2015)
100% USDA Organic (Mercola, 2015)
No antibiotics (Mercola, 2015)
Grass Fed (Mercola, 2015)

References

[Farmers Markets] Retrieved from

http://www.foothillfarmersmarket.com/images/homePic-panPl.jpg
Food & Water Watch (2016). Factory Farming Nation: Map Charts Unprecedented Growth in Factory
Farming. Retrieved from
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/factory-farm-nation-map-charts-unprecedented-growth-factoryfarming
Hribar, C. (2010). Understanding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and Their Impact on
Communities. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/docs/understanding_cafos_nalboh.pdf
Imhoff, D., Tompkins, D., Carra, R. (2013) CAFO Retrieved from http://www.cafothebook.org/index.htm
[Local Farms Sign] Retrieved from
http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001811389/419688902_fresh_vbe3md_xlarge.jpeg
[Map] Retrieved from http://www.factoryfarmmap.org/#animal:all;location:US;year:2012
Mercola, J. (2015). CAFO Collapse - How Factory Farms are Failing Fast. Retrieved from
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/07/15/cafo-system-collapse.aspx
[Pigs in cages] Retrieved from
https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/hogcafo_425.jpg
[Room full of chickens] Retrieved from http://iowacnaa.org/wp-content/uploads/CAFO-chickens.jpg
[Two men standing in farm field] Retrieved from
http://hawaiiseed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sustainable_ag.jpg