Wisconsin is known as America’s Dairyland. Producing over 600 varieties of cheese and about 3.3 billion gallons of milk each year with 1.3 million dairy cows, it’s no surprise dairy is the leading agriculture business in Wisconsin pulling in 43.4 billion dollars every year. In comparison, the great Idaho potato makes only 15% of that figure. Dairy and agriculture has grown to be a vital source to Wisconsin’s economy.
To keep the agribusiness in game, Wisconsin has also agreed to maintaining and forming CAFOs. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations are factory farms designed to “provide a low-cost source of meat, milk, and eggs, due to efficient feeding and housing of animals, increased facility size, and animal specialization”.
These mega farms crush any chance local farmers have of producing at all and have horrendous implications on our environment. A government document written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes the massive and uncontrollable insanitary conditions created by CAFOs. It describes how the manure at some of these farms “is one and a half times more than the annual sanitary waste produced by the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania”. Is it possible for one farm to correctly and healthily control this?
But in April 2013, judge Thomas Eagon granted Golden Sands Dairy the right to build their 7,000 acre dairy farm in Saratoga, Wisconsin. The judge decided there was “no basis for denying the company it's permits”. But really, there are many.
All the environmental impacts of this farm don’t only directly impact the planet, but humans. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states this in their article describing all the terrible side effects this farm will not only inflict on central Wisconsin, but the entire state.
After years, the farm continues to fight protesters, lawsuits and the Town, in order to compromise a plan to get the farm up and running. Testing by the DNR allows the farm with the requirement of a pollution protection permit (WPDES).
Construction was planned to begin in 2016 but has not yet started. I have lived in Wisconsin all my life, have family who are farmers, and don’t know a single soul who is advocating for this farm.
I contacted my district Congressman Ron Kind regarding the factory farms being built. I didn’t expect any real answer but about a month later I did receive a standard prewritten response. The whole letter was about his thoughts and his acts of preventing animal cruelty. Animal cruelty is just one part of factory farms. Factory farms hurt us all more than just through animal suffering. The reality that there wasn’t even a rubric response about the issue of mega farms in Wisconsin to send back is scary. This farm will impact our county and district like nothing ever before.
How does the construction of this help anyone? Will one permit really prevent this mega farm from letting our groundwater becoming contaminated, from letting this groundwater runoff and spread, from stopping all the disease and contamination of containing thousands of animals, from polluting the world and hurting us? Wisconsin’s local farmers are not only hurt, but every one of us is hurt by the power of these factory farms. And it is all just so we can have moderately priced meat, milk and dairy products at the grocery store.
