A factory farm containing thousands of animals may soon be coming to your community, unless the Utah House of Representatives rejects or revises Senate Bill 130, Regulation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO).
A researcher takes a sample from an animal. Credit: CDC Global via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us how vulnerable we are to deadly infectious diseases. How we got here has been decades in the making, with plenty of warning signs along the way, from SARS to MERS to Ebola to Zika. And we’ve known for a long time what drives zoonotic diseases to spill over into humans: the wildlife trade, intensive agriculture, deforestation, to name a few factors. As human populations grow and demands for food and natural resources increase, we must anticipate more deadly pandemics, leading to more lockdowns, more fear, and more disruption, economic and otherwise, in our lives. We must remember that we interact with the natural world everyday by breathing air, drinking water, and eating plants and animals.
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President Biden, we’re pleading with you please take steps to ensure American family farms can still make a living, that rural communities thrive, and that we have a food system that works for consumers, our environment, national security, and our democracy. We’ve been going in the wrong direction for far too long.
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
Sun Aug 10 2008 at 21:17:29 As a general principle, the concentration of humans or animals in proximity enhances potential transmission of microorganisms among members of the group. It also creates greater potential for infecting surrounding life forms, even those of different species. The conditions created also may be a breeding ground for new, more infectious, or more resistant microorganisms. (Gilchrist 2006)
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or (CAFOs), also called confined animal feeding operation, are large farms with massive amounts of swine, cattle, hogs, or other animals. The high density of stock is where the name comes from. Although they re very economical, recent studies have shown that CAFOs have increased the risk of Nipah virus infections and Avian influenza not only infecting animal populations, but also causing zoonosis, diseases being transferred to humans from animals. The rural and agricultural community has cha
Commentary: The rising tide of alternative meat is here and we are the better for it Toggle share menu
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Commentary: The rising tide of alternative meat is here and we are the better for it Viruses, which jump from animals to humans, will not go away anytime soon and this is why it is ever more urgent for us to embrace alternative proteins, says this observer.
FILE PHOTO: A burger patty made with black beans and canola protein powder at Burcon s alternative meats protein lab in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon VanRaes
04 Feb 2021 01:58AM) Share this content