CAFO'S

Every time we head back to Washington, once every spring and once every fall, we pass by Harris Ranch CAFO. CAFO stands for Confined Animal Feeding Operations and there are several in California. These Operations often confine several thousand cows, in long steel barns, year-round. CAFO cows never graze. CAFOs look like factories, and they are -- animal factories. Miles before we even see the feedlot close to Stockton we can smell the horrific odors that eminate from it. The disgusting odor of excrement from thousands of cows, standing, eating, and sleeping in their own rotting feces. I understand it is common practice to send cows raised for their meat, to lots such as Harris Ranch, for the final weeks prior to slaughter, to be fed a totally grain diet, it adds "marbelization" to the meat.

I don't know about most who pass by these types of lots, witness the horrific circumstances the animals are placed in, but I for one find it extremely difficult to eat beef anymore and only on rare occasion do. I understand chickens are raised from birth in even worse (if possible) conditions for their meat, yet I still eat chicken, but imagine were I to visit a chicken farm I wouldn't be eating chicken anymore either, and its a sad statement that this is the best America can do to provide meat for our table. The torturing of animals on a massive scale, when surely there are alternatives that would be easier on the animals themselves and healthier for all of us to consume.

Our last trip "home" to Washington I found myself constantly snapping pictures of cows in open beaucolic fields and meadows, when Rod asked what was I doing I replied I was taking pictures of cows "as they should be".

I've read articles of the horrors CAFO's have brought to the state of Michigan, and the activist groups that have risen up to fight these huge corporations. The stench and sight of the farms is bad enough, but the toxins that result and seep into community drinking water, and the rotting cow manure that they liquify and spray on the fields of grain grown to feed these animals pollutes the very air.

When we bought this house in south Bakersfield we loved it was in the 'burbs, that just a mile away were miles and miles of agricultural fields. We noticed the large, what we had thought was a dairy farm, just beyond the corn fields, and at that time, just 2 years ago, didn't detect any smells whatsoever wafting from that farm. This past summer however, for the first time, we are smelling on a more and more regular basis, the same stench in the morning air, as that we pass at Harris Farm. On clear sunny days its often not noticeable, but on overcast days, when cloud cover keeps the toxins and smog closer to the ground, it gets pretty bad. But I fear this is just the beginning, and I don't know that most Bakersfield residents are yet aware of where this could lead. I have searched websites re CAFO's in the Bakersfield area but so far have not come across any or any complaints directed at them. I will keep looking, surely I'm not alone in noticing this new undesireable element in our community.


Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight. ~Albert Schweitzer