PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10 December 2018

Contacts:

Jessie J. Green, 870.577.5071, jessie@whiteriverwaterkeeper.org

HARRISON - White River Waterkeeper (WRW) joined a coalition of eight groups representing family farmers, sustainable agriculture advocates and concerned citizens throughout the country in filing suit against the United States Department of Agriculture last week. The suit aims to stop a policy exempting industrial animal operations that receive federal loans from undergoing an environmental review or providing any notice of their planned operations to neighbors.

 “Public comment opportunities provide a chance to review and give feedback on localized environmental and human health concerns that are often not considered by agency reviewers. Poor environmental review and insufficient public notice are how we ended up with a large hog CAFO in the Buffalo River watershed. We can all agree that the most appropriate time for environmental concerns to be raised is prior to CAFO installation, before loans are disbursed and before families risk their financial well-being to enter the low-reward corporate agriculture scheme,” said Jessie Green, WRW’s Director and Waterkeeper.

The USDA’s rule change, adopted in 2016 by its Farm Service Agency, grants exemptions from the usual process of notice, comment and oversight in cases where the government is providing taxpayer-subsidized loans to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) considered “medium-sized” by the USDA. Such facilities are authorized to hold nearly 125,000 chickens, 55,000 turkeys, 2,500 pigs, 1,000 beef cattle, or 700 dairy cows. Failing to review the financing for these facilities under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), has helped cloak their planned operations in secrecy, preventing rural communities from obtaining information regarding the impact of these operations on local air and water quality. In so doing, the Administration promotes factory farms over family farms. 

The lawsuit alleges that both the rulemaking process and the final rule violate NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide adequate notice of the proposed rule change, and refusing to clarify why medium-sized CAFOs should be provided this special treatment and automatically exempt. Between the rule’s implementation in August 2016 and December 2017, the government allowed 40 such operations in four Arkansas counties alone with no public comment or environmental assessment. During the same time frame, eight such operations in Iowa, housing nearly 20,000 pigs and generating as much untreated sewage as a town of 200,000 residents, were also allowed to escape any assessment or comment period.

“CAFOs leave farmers and rural communities on the hook for many of industrial agriculture’s negative impacts and take wealth out of local economies. According to 2012 USDA poultry census data, contract farmers accounted for 48 percent of broiler farms but 96 percent of production. Although growers invest the most capital in the operation, and work long, laborious hours to raise the animals, their profit margins are small. When environmental impacts come to light, contract growers often aren't in the financial position to properly address concerns. Limiting environmental review and transparency on the front-end places farmers in a position to be blindsided by concerns after they are trapped with debt and unable to negotiate better contracts which would allow them to upgrade environmental controls. We don’t need more loopholes for corporations; we need a system that promotes independent farming and wealth for rural communities,” added Green.

“Responsible agricultural operations that are committed to being both good neighbors and good stewards of the communities in which they operate have nothing to fear from notice to the community and an assessment of their operations,” the coalition of groups in the lawsuit said. “This irresponsible change in the rules that have helped protect rural and small communities for decades is, instead, designed to protect polluters and undermine transparency. Small, family farms and their neighbors are disadvantaged while huge corporations are given a government green light to operate with impunity. That’s not only morally wrong; it’s clearly illegal, too. Though we represent a broad and diverse coalition of citizens and advocates from across the country, we are all alarmed at the impact of this change and share a common goal of ensuring USDA looks out for family farms and rural communities, and not just the interests of giant corporations.”

The groups bringing the suit are Animal Legal Defense Fund, Association of Irritated Residents (Cal.), Citizens Action Coalition (Ind.), Dakota Rural Action (S.D.), Food & Water Watch, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and White River Waterkeeper (Ark.).*

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