"A majority of Americans say they want more stringent oversight of large-scale livestock operations, according to a national poll by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future released Tuesday. The polling follows a recent recommendation from the nation’s leading public health association to temporarily halt the creation of new concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, and increase their oversight and regulation.
The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters across the country, and another 400-plus voters each in Iowa and North Carolina, both of which have a high concentration of CAFOs. Fifty-seven percent of all voters surveyed said that there should be more oversight of large animal farms, and 43 percent favored a national moratorium on the creation of new CAFOs. More than 80 percent of respondents said they were concerned about air and water pollution caused by CAFOs and worker safety risks at large-scale animal farms.
Bob Martin, program director for food systems policy at the Center for a Livable Future, says that this polling demonstrates a “growing interest in halting the establishment and the expansion of [CAFOs] until we get a better handle on regulation of them."
Leah Douglas reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network December 10, 2019.
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