Factory egg farm
Credit: shutterstock

The consolidation of animal agriculture has allowed American agribusiness to produce huge amounts of cheap meat at an astonishing rate. But that access to cheap meat comes at a cost: millions of tons of manure and toxic pollutants, which can threaten some of America’s most important waterways.

According to a new report released by Environment America, five major animal agribusinesses — Tyson, JBS, Cargill, Smithfield, and Perdue — produce a combined 162,936,695 tons of manure every year. But it’s not just the manure that is threatening America’s waterways. The report also points to the huge volumes of grain that need to be grown to feed animals in factory farms, noting that the chemical-intensive farming often associated with the production of feed like corn and soy can also create runoff that threatens rivers, lakes, streams, and bays. Moreover, factory farms are some of the largest contributors to water pollution, dumping more toxic pollutants into waterways annually from their processing plants, by volume, than companies […]