From John Hagen
Monroe
To the editor:
On April 22, President Obama signed the Paris treaty that commits the United States to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the EPA, 9 percent of the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are directly produced by the agricultural sector. Since agriculture is a major source of emissions, it seems likely that this sector will have to produce some of the reductions.
Probing the agricultural sector's sources of emissions more deeply it becomes obvious that the CAFO agricultural system is the major generator of three of these gasses. These facilities waste ponds directly produce methane a greenhouse gas 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The remaining gasses are produced indirectly. They are carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide which is 298 times stronger.
Nitrous oxide accounts for 5 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the U.S. It originates from chemical fertilizers and by excessive amounts of manure deposited on fields. The other major source of agricultural greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. There are several sources of carbon dioxide, from fossil fuel energy consumed by the facility and that used to produce feed which is almost entirely comprised of grain.
If we consider two of the major CAFO industries oil usage we find that 284 gallons of oil are consumed to produce a CAFO steer and CAFO hogs require 70 gallons per head. According to the USDA around 34,000,000 head of cattle and 106,900,000 hogs were slaughtered last year. Using these numbers we find that 17.139 billion gallons of oil were consumed by these two CAFO industries which produced about 585 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. This is the amount of carbon dioxide produced by 88.4 million cars.
The question is are there effective safe alternatives to the CAFO system? The answer is obvious. We can shift to an emphasis on modern grazing methods with supplements. Grazing has been used for thousands of years and is environmentally benign as long as it is managed properly. It doesn't have waste ponds so no gasses are produced. Nitrous oxide production is minimal and it's essentially solar powered requiring only minute amounts of oil.
The CAFO system is also dependent on large taxpayer supported subsidies to remain viable. In essence our taxes are being used to prop up an outmoded agricultural system that is highly destructive to the environment while other environmentally benign systems go wanting.
Monroe
To the editor:
On April 22, President Obama signed the Paris treaty that commits the United States to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the EPA, 9 percent of the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are directly produced by the agricultural sector. Since agriculture is a major source of emissions, it seems likely that this sector will have to produce some of the reductions.
Probing the agricultural sector's sources of emissions more deeply it becomes obvious that the CAFO agricultural system is the major generator of three of these gasses. These facilities waste ponds directly produce methane a greenhouse gas 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The remaining gasses are produced indirectly. They are carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide which is 298 times stronger.
Nitrous oxide accounts for 5 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the U.S. It originates from chemical fertilizers and by excessive amounts of manure deposited on fields. The other major source of agricultural greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. There are several sources of carbon dioxide, from fossil fuel energy consumed by the facility and that used to produce feed which is almost entirely comprised of grain.
If we consider two of the major CAFO industries oil usage we find that 284 gallons of oil are consumed to produce a CAFO steer and CAFO hogs require 70 gallons per head. According to the USDA around 34,000,000 head of cattle and 106,900,000 hogs were slaughtered last year. Using these numbers we find that 17.139 billion gallons of oil were consumed by these two CAFO industries which produced about 585 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. This is the amount of carbon dioxide produced by 88.4 million cars.
The question is are there effective safe alternatives to the CAFO system? The answer is obvious. We can shift to an emphasis on modern grazing methods with supplements. Grazing has been used for thousands of years and is environmentally benign as long as it is managed properly. It doesn't have waste ponds so no gasses are produced. Nitrous oxide production is minimal and it's essentially solar powered requiring only minute amounts of oil.
The CAFO system is also dependent on large taxpayer supported subsidies to remain viable. In essence our taxes are being used to prop up an outmoded agricultural system that is highly destructive to the environment while other environmentally benign systems go wanting.
