Greenfield Advisors Chairman and Co-Managing Director Dr. John Kilpatrick recently spent some time in Hawaii where he worked as a consultant with residents of Maha`ulepu Beach, located on the island of Kauai. Dr. Kilpatrick was there to discuss the negative effects of a proposed concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).
Dr. Kilpatrick spent three days examining the area surrounding the proposed site as well as meeting with the Friends of Maha`ulepu, a group consisting of residents opposed to the CAFO. His presentation to the group was recorded and later posted on YouTube.
In the below video, Dr. Kilpatrick explained that the problem is not with the animals on the property, but the waste they will produce.
“Livestock give off 130 times of the total manure of humans in the United States. Very important point,” Dr. Kilpatrick said. “A typical 1,000-pound cow is going to give off somewhere between 75 and 95 pounds of manure a day.”
Dr. Kilpatrick went on to say that a 2,000-cow operation would create around 150 tons of manure every day, endangering nearby groundwater as well as farms and crops downwind that could be contaminated by manure particles carried through the air.
Later in his talk, Dr. Kilpatrick focused on the economic effects of the CAFO. He cited a study that found economic growth rates in communities with traditional farms were 55 percent higher than communities with factory farms.
Dr. Kilpatrick also discussed how property values near a CAFO would decrease, and that the CAFO would negatively affect the city’s overall property tax revenue.
Watch the entire presentation below by clicking on the image of Haula Beach, the eastern most part of Maha`ulepu Beach:
By DarTar (Own work) (CC BY 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Recent Comments