Do you know the true cost of your dinner?
Currently, more than 50 percent of the meat, milk, and eggs we eat in this country are produced in huge animal production facilities called CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations). Unfortunately, their operations harm the environment, our health, and the communities in which they are located.
The true cost of meat and milk produced in massive CAFOs includes billions in unaccounted-for taxpayer dollars that pay for the economic, health, and environmental problems created by these facilities.
But there are viable alternatives. More and more meat and dairy farmers are successfully shifting to practical, modern systems that work with nature instead of against it. These alternatives produce the quantity of food we need while safeguarding our health and protecting the foundations of our food supply-like healthy soil and fresh water. Please sign our petition to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), asking him to end policies that give an unfair advantage to the polluting CAFO industry and to support modern alternatives instead.
CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) are costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars in unaccounted for costs, according to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. "CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations" examines how misguided government policies force the public to pick up the tab to support these operations. This gives CAFOs an economic edge over small and medium-sized livestock, poultry, egg, and dairy operations that use modern, alternative methods to avoid the health and environmental problems that plague CAFOs.
As the leader of the government agency with the responsibility to regulate and research agricultural methods, we urge you to reject policies that support CAFOs at the expense of more sustainable alternatives, and to embrace policies that support those alternatives, including:
* enforcing antitrust and anti-competitive laws to prevent huge meat and poultry processors from dominating the production industry and shutting out smaller producers,
* allocating research dollars to methods of animal agriculture that benefit the environment, public health, and rural communities, especially smaller, smarter alternatives to CAFOs,
* reducing payments to CAFOs from agricultural conservation programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and
* updating slaughterhouse regulations to afford smaller, alternative producers better access to markets.
Your support for these measures would save taxpayers billions, while leveling the playing field for producers that can provide high quality, affordable food without threatening our health and the resources we depend upon.
Signed by:
[Your name]
[Your address]
