Dairy farmers: polluters of the land?

There’s a story from John Burnett in New Mexico on Morning Edition this morning. It’s about the manure from giant 2,000 cow dairy farms polluting the air, the land, and the water. It’s a story that could be told in California, or Wisconsin, or Vermont, or right here in the North Country. Replace “New Mexico” with “northern New York” in this paragraph:

No one wants to drive the milk cows out of New Mexico. Dairies contribute an estimated $1.2 billion to the economy in a poor state with little private industry. Even Rodriguez, whose wellwater is contaminated, works at a dairy.

But after decades of acceptance, there’s a sense here in the state that the dairies’ free ride is over. New Mexico is currently in the process of rewriting and tightening regulations for dairy discharge permits. This year — for the first time ever — the state rejected a proposed dairy in the town of Caballo after citizens protested that it would pollute the Rio Grande watershed.

Nearly everytime I’ve interviewed a dairy farmer, they’ll say, “we’re stewards of the land.” Many also regularly complain about CAFO (Concentrated Animal Farming Operations) compliance regulations that cost their farms a lot of money.

Milk is the symbol of wholesome goodness in our society. And the farmer is the symbol of hard work and good values. Is the dairy industry mortgaging that iconography and public trust for big farms that have a bigger profit margin than the family 150-cow farm, or even the 300-700 cow mid-size farm?

This issue isn’t new. But will there become a tipping point when the public trust erodes and people clamor for farms to be more environmentally controlled like any other industry?