Just for giggles here is a short clip where Steven Colbert interviews the head of the American Meat Institute - a lobbyist group for meat producers that lobby for many things, including the right to slaughter downed animals so as not to upset the profit of the farmer sending the poor beast to slaughter...  better-know-a-lobby---american-meat-institute.

I've learned from the AMI that the average American eats ~235 lbs. of meat a year.  Good gosh, that comes to well over 1/2 # of meat a day, every day. I don't know where they get their numbers because I surely don't eat that much meat.  Can you imagine how much poop each head of meat produces?  The numbers vary from 50-100#'s a day for each head of cattle.  That's a lot of poop and a lot of reasons why we have a problem just an hour north of here at Grand Lake St. Marys.  Today the Columbus Dispatch  also published a story about the poop problem in the article ohio-farms-drowning-in-manure.


I live on a farm.  I've got 7 horses, 7 laying hens, and 2 goats.  I'm here to tell you they poop - alot, every single day.  We're not talking one or two times a day people.  We're talking 10+ piles a day per horse.  And that poop doesn't magically disappear on its own, nor does it magically compost on its own.  You've gotta cook that stuff!  It's like black gold to some farmers and mushroom farmers love the stuff.

I'm always amused when "city folk" come visit, see the manure pile, want the composted stuff for their own gardens, and then turn themselves inside out when they actually see the animal poop for real right there in front of them.  For some the chemicals will now work just fine as fertilizer thank you very much and they don't want anything "natural" in their garden after all.  For others the thought of natural fertilizer is stomach-turning and they've decided genetically altered food grown in a test tube could be the ultimate "food"; not much to think about there.  But they tend to forget that and they could come begging for tomatoes, corn or pumpkins & watermelon as long as they don't think about it actually being grown with....wait for it....composted manure from goats, chickens, and horses. For the record I don't use any dirt or pesticides, just composted manure.

It's enough work for anyone with livestock to scoop the poop produced but then you have to rid yourself of it.  We're lucky that we have a farmer behind us who rotates crops yearly and he allows us to spread it.  Our next door neighbor loves to have us spread it on his field as it has doubled the grasses and turned an overgrazed field into a grass paradise that nothing but deer graze on and hide their fawns. And then there is my beloved compost pile.  It's not just a mountain of poop.

The cost of manure management is astronomical both for the farmer and the consumer.  Farmers have to pay for the spreaders and the fuel to run them. Consumers have to pay one way or another through government clean-up or face higher prices at the grocery store.  Farmers are required to come up with manure management plans but then complain about the price of compliance.  I've read and heard quotes from farmers up north that say they have nothing to do with the problems created in Grand Lake St. Marys.  Some feel that even with 1000+ head of cattle or hogs, a strip of grass that separates their land and a waterway is sufficient and they are in compliance.

How often are fines collected?  It's just my opinion but not often enough  - Compliance. The OEPA isn't giving up the numbers so easily.  By the end of the quarter I hope to have a monetary number to let us know this situation is being taken seriously and the citizens of Ohio are being protected and compensated for the damage being done by CAFO's.

Organic farmers also have to follow their own set of management practices which can be found here. Ohio State  has a rules and regulations bulletin that provides Ohio statutes regarding the requirements. Whether CAFO or small, private organic farm crap can become more than a headache if not managed right.

Disclaimer: Just a reminder these are my thoughts and Sinclair Community College isn't responsible for the content of this blog.