Jo Manhart, I appreciate your cheerleader approach to concentrated animal feeding operations in Missouri (Globe, April 13). But since you work for the companies that need CAFOs and are paid by them, you really should register yourself as a lobbyist.
While I applaud you for not taking on the argument of karst geology and how fragile it is in the Ozarks, I wish you would study further the oversight of manure management. The Department of Natural Resources, the agency in charge of oversight, is so short-staffed that inspection of CAFOs is rarely done but once every two or three years if at all. Following the trail of manure application on land is not even attempted and at worse is compounded by the fact that other states are bringing their litter into Missouri with no oversight.
While it is true that we have a great agricultural system and they are very efficient, I would like to ask a few questions of you. Why do we continually overproduce livestock and ship them overseas when we cause a food-price inflation to our own people? This overproduction does generate revenue, but at what cost? We are depleting our groundwater (all CAFOs use wells) at the rate of 7.7 gallons per 100 chickens per day. In the Elk River and Spring River Watershed, there are around 190 million chickens and turkeys. To produce more and more feed requires that grasslands, forests and marginal land be converted to cropland and sometimes irrigated at a cost to groundwater. Doing this depletes soil fertility, aids the erosion of our precious soil and places further strain on our streams to absorb the chemicals used for high production quotas. We use fuels imported from foreign governments to farm this additional land and worse yet to fly these products to foreign countries. I suggest you and the economists do the math and decide what is the real net, not gross, profit from these industrial agribusiness operations. I have not the space to go into pesticide use, pharmaceuticals used in production, genetically engineered disasters or other related topics.
We cannot afford to continually use up our precious resources and then find down the line that we are out of water or have insufficient soil fertility to feed the citizens. I ask you what is enough, or is there ever enough, and when do we clean up our streams from the residue of bad business? How do we compensate for the loss of the true family farm that is being run out of existence by agribusiness trying to control a global market?
Dwayne Miller
Goodman
Opinion
Voices: CAFO is a bad word?
- Opinion
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Our View: Great divide
In 1975, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the United States began meeting on an annual basis to coordinate economic policies.
Canada and Russia later joined this forum. Today and Saturday the G-8 summit will be held at Camp David, Md. -
Our View: Fiscal cliff
In August 2011, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to tax increases and spending cuts to automatically take place in January of 2013.
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Our View: Ditto that
Lots of angry words are being tossed around about a secretive ceremony held Monday in our state Capitol to honor Rush Limbaugh’s induction as a member of the Hall of Famous Missourians. Let us add our “ditto” to that criticism.
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Our View: Linked for success
Dr. Richard Reed, a Joplin dentist, lost his office and equipment in the May 22 tornado.
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Your View: An alternative candidate
The bane of Duane Graham’s existence apparently is GOP politicians, other than those who provide him with derogatory commentary about the only competition his personal choice for president has (Globe, May 6).
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Your View: Disregard for humans
Let’s talk about disregard for human life.
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Your View: Thumbs up, thumbs down
“Thumbs up” on the Globe’s front-page article (May 3) on racism and the elderly black gentleman. At age 93, I have lived through the Ku Klux Klan epidemic, and I remember it well.
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Your View: A mother’s heart
No one knows the depth or width of the love that dwells in a mother’s heart for her children.
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Your View: Still rooting for Joplin
On May 5, I was overjoyed to see the trees delivered that I had ordered from FBLA-PBL, Rooting for Joplin.
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Other Views: It's safe to plan for 2013
It’s scientifically safe to make plans for 2013. The world will not end on Dec. 21 or the default date of Dec. 23, according to a newly discovered Mayan calendar.
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