The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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Thirty Million Dollar USAID Grant Sees Soybean Innovation Through the Last Mile in Africa
October 4, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) URBANA, Ill. – Last month, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a new $30 million investment in the Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) at the University of Illinois. The competitive grant was awarded under Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative led by USAID.

The grant recognizes SIL’s nearly 10-year progress toward developing a robust soybean value chain across Sub-Saharan Africa and dedicates additional resources to ensure end-users adopt life-changing new products.

“We’ve done the discovery research, but we need to get end products through the last mile so that soybean farmers all across Sub-Saharan Africa can adopt these technologies,” says Peter Goldsmith, director of the Soybean Innovation Lab and professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at U of I. “Our technology solutions incorporate the product life cycle and directly address acute bottlenecks, such as the lack of seed, persistent low yields, and manual threshing challenges that limit a sustainable soybean value chain in Africa.”

The five-year project marks the initiation of “SIL 3.0,” the latest iteration of USAID-funded soybean value chain research from the center. SIL 3.0 seeks to remove “last-mile” obstacles to localizing technology adoption, including issues around licensing new soybean varieties; productivity-improving technology adoption by soy processors and food manufacturers; and mobilizing credit and investment to support organizations’ capital needs as they deploy these technologies through their large and active networks.

“The U of I has a long history of work building knowledge and capacity for agricultural development in Africa and an even longer record of research on soybean production and utilization. Under Goldsmith’s leadership and with USAID’s support, SIL has married our capabilities in international agriculture and soybean value chains to make a real difference globally,” says Alex Winter-Nelson, acting associate dean of research for the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at U of I. “We are delighted USAID has selected Illinois to lead its latest efforts in using soybean as a mechanism for addressing global poverty and hunger.”

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966845

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USDA Conservation Grants Prop Up Agribusiness as Usual
by Tom Philpott
October 3, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Every year, the US Department of Agriculture spends billions of dollars propping up large-scale farming of commodities like corn and soybeans. These crops in turn suffuse the food system, fattening animals on America’s factory-scale meat farms and providing the bulk of sweeteners and fats in processed foods.

This style of agriculture doesn’t just underwrite a health–ruining cuisine. It also contributes to environmental mayhem: soil erosion and water pollution on an epic scale and a gusher of greenhouse gas emissions from the concentrated manure of all of those confined cows, pigs, and chicken, and from the fertilizer used to grow all that corn. But the USDA doesn’t just pay farmers to churn out as much corn and soybeans as they can. It also operates “conservation” initiatives intended to mitigate the environmental harms of this commodity machine.

The department’s conservation spending adds up to a fraction of its outlay for programs that encourage maximum production, consequences be damned. The Environmental Working Group calculates that between 1995 and 2020, the USDA doled out a total of nearly $348 billion on commodity and crop-insurance subsidies vs. $52 billion on conservation. So for every dollar the department offers farmers in conservation funds, it dangles about $6.70 to entice them to farm all-out.

Still, those conservation dollars are an important countervailing force, right?

In fact, the USDA could spend its conservation resources in much more beneficial ways, a new EWG report suggests. The report focuses on the agency’s two largest conservation programs, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). Both give farmers money in exchange for implementing environmentally friendly practices. EWG combed through USDA data in search of funding for activities the agency deemed “climate-smart”—i.e., those that help farmers cut greenhouse-gas emissions or store carbon in the soil. The Natural Resources Conservation Service, a USDA agency, maintains just such a list.

Read more of the Mother Jones article here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... te-smart/

Read the EWG report here: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news ... k5w9KMC60

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Will the Next Farm Bill Be Climate Friendly? Depends on the Midterms.
by John McCracken
October 10, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) This year’s midterm elections will decide the direction of a massive legislative package meant to tackle the nation’s agricultural problems. Republican Senate and House members are already vowing they won’t pack it with climate “buzzwords.”

Roughly every five years, lawmakers pass The Farm Bill, a spending bill that addresses the agriculture industry, food systems, nutrition programs, and more. This legislation is up for reauthorization next year. The political fighting comes on the heels of both the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law including billions of dollars for climate provisions.

John Boozman, a Republican Senator from Arkansas who is a high-ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, is among a growing number of Republicans who have said they will not allow additional climate provisions into the upcoming Farm Bill. If Republicans win back the House this November, which is still a possible outcome despite tightening Democratic races across the country, GOP members will be in control of drafting next year’s Farm Bill.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/author/john-mccracken/

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Banana Genomes Hint at Hidden Species We Urgently Need to Find
by David Nield
October 11, 2022

Introduction:

(Science Alert) The history of the banana is more complicated than you might have ever imagined (if you ever thought about it at all).

More than 7,000 years ago, Oceania communities began to selectively grow wild Musa acuminata plants for their choice characteristics. Over time the plant's fruit gradually evolved into the famous sweet, seedless, conveniently-packaged banana we've all come to love.

Unfortunately today, most of the bananas we consume are clones of a single variety. Without diverse genetic approaches to handling diseases, it wouldn't take much for a single plague to decimate the global supply.

A close look at the genomes of various banana cultivars and their wild relatives has now uncovered signs that other banana plant relatives contributed to its development, with evidence of three previously undescribed species or subspecies lurking within.

Learning more about them could give us new ways to protect existing cultivars from pests and infectious disease.

Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/banana-ge ... d-to-find

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Millions of People are Missing Out on Their Fair Share of the $424 billion Aquatic Food Industry
October 18, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Social, economic and political barriers are preventing millions of people from benefiting from the world’s fastest-growing food-producing sector, a new study has revealed.

Marine and freshwater foods, or blue foods, are a vital source of income and micronutrients, sustaining livelihoods for up to 800 million people worldwide. However, a ground-breaking new study of 195 countries has revealed that despite generating more than $424 billion globally, the benefits of the aquatic foods sector are distributed unequally, and even directly contribute to ongoing injustices.

The authors of the study, published in Nature Food, call for urgent action to ensure the most marginalised people, communities, and countries, have more equal opportunities to benefit from aquatic foods in terms of trade, income, and nutrition.

“Current ongoing crises – from conflicts to pandemics – have only exacerbated global inequalities, and blue food systems are more vulnerable than ever,” said Professor Christina Hicks from Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University and lead author on the paper.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968074

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‘Farmer-Researchers’ Join Front Line In Testing Crops
October 20, 2022

Introduction:

(Eurasia Review) Farmers are becoming more involved than ever in the work of developing new, sustainable crop varieties, with a recent study from researchers at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT showing how a “citizen science” approach for on-farm experimentation called tricot, generated agricultural data via local organizations in Central America.

Jacob van Etten, Principal Scientist and Director of the Digital Inclusion research program at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, explains that the idea for tricot (an abbreviation for triadic comparison of technologies), came from a frustration that he felt years ago, when participating in formalized experimental plots designed to test crop varieties that are conventionally bred for selected traits.

“In the 1990s, some felt the role of the scientists was to get feedback from farmers but it wasn’t an interesting exercise, the farmers weren’t excited about it,” he said, “It’s also not as useful for scientists as the breeders didn’t trust the information from the farmers.”

So, instead of crop varieties and other technologies being tested in large-scale field plots under generic conditions, tricot allows new crop varieties to be tested directly in farmers’ fields, the same context where they will hopefully be grown after the study.

In the paper “Rank-based data synthesis of common bean on-farm trials across four Central American countries” published in the journal Crop Science, 14 trials of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were established by five organizations working in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/20102022 ... ng-crops/

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This Nearly Lost Ancient Grain Tradition Could Be the Future of Farming
by Gemma Tarlach
October 23, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) When Zemede Asfaw was growing up on a farm in eastern Ethiopia, he soaked up plant lore and other traditional knowledge the way a tree takes in sunlight and converts it to energy. “I knew the crops, and the wild plants, and the fruits and other things,” says Zemede, who goes by his given name.

The practical methods he learned covered every aspect of farming: Instead of stone walls or wire fences, plant field edges with darker crops, so the bold colors of red sorghum, for example, create a clear border between the family’s plot and that of a neighbor. Leave a few wild olive or acacia trees in the fields to harvest sustainably, over time, for firewood, animal fodder, or building materials. And instead of sowing the seeds of a single grain in orderly rows, spread a mix of grains all over the field, “mimicking nature so crops have random distribution patterns, as in natural forests,” he says. Once harvested, these grain mixtures could be turned into many things: nutritious bread, a kind of roasted-grain trail mix called kolo, beer, and the potent clear spirit known as areki.

Now an ethnobotanist at Addis Ababa University, Zemede conducts field research in northern Ethiopia. The dominant grains grown there are different than in the region of his youth—his family grew sorghum and maize, while the northerners prefer barley and wheat, better suited to their mountainous highlands—but the principle is the same: “We’ll plant the things that go together and are compatible with each other,” Zemede says. “Our farmers are good at mirroring nature.”

Ethiopia is one of the few places in the world where farmers still grow maslins, the general term for different varieties and species of grain that are sown in the same field, or intercropped. Maslins sustained humans for millennia, possibly predating the rise of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago. These grain mixtures tend to be more resilient to pests and drought, and to lend more complex flavors to breads, beer, and booze.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/food/2022/ ... -climate/

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The Environmental Footprint of Food
October 24, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) (Santa Barbara, Calif.) — In an age of industrialized farming and complex supply chains, the true environmental pressures of our global food system are often obscure and difficult to assess.

“Everyone eats food, and more and more people are paying attention to the planetary consequences of what they eat,” said UC Santa Barbara marine ecologist Ben Halpern. Figuring out this impact to the planet proves to be a gargantuan task for many reasons, including the fact that around the world there are a lot of different foods produced in many different ways, with many different environmental pressures.

By ranking foods on factors such as greenhouse gas emissions or water pollution, scientists have made useful headway on assessments of the environmental impacts of food by pound or kilogram. While these evaluations are helpful in guiding consumer choices, Halpern explained that a more comprehensive examination of the environmental footprint — the locations affected by the various pressures from food production and the severity of that pressure — is needed for decisions that have to be made in a world with a booming population.

“The individual choice of eight billion people adds up,” he said, “and we need to know the overall impact of total food production — not just per pound — especially when setting food policy.”

To fill that need, Halpern and colleagues at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis (NCEAS) have mapped for the first time the environmental footprint of the production of all foods, both in the ocean and on land. Their research is published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968950

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Honeycrisp Genome Will Help Scientists Breed Better Apples
October 26, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) ITHACA, N.Y. – A team of researchers has sequenced the Honeycrisp apple genome, a boon for scientists and breeders working with this popular and economically important cultivar.

Sequenced with state-of-the-art technologies, the genome – available open-sourced for anyone to access – provides a valuable resource for understanding the genetic basis of important traits in apples and other tree fruit species, which can be used to enhance breeding efforts, according to the paper.

The U.S. apple industry is worth $23 billion annually, and Honeycrisp is its most valuable cultivar, bringing growers roughly twice the value per pound than the second-most valuable cultivar, Fuji. Due to its favorable traits, including crispness, flavor, cold-hardiness and resistance to apple scab fungal disease, breeders have used Honeycrisp as a parent in nine new cultivars on the market, including the Cornell University-developed Snapdragon.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/969288

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Researchers Indicate Bacteria-based Whipped Cream Could Be the Future
October 31, 2022

Introduction:

(University of Copenhagen via Futurity) Food researchers have developed a fat-free prototype of the much-beloved substance using bacteria instead of milk fat—in both velvety and stiffer varieties.

The concept opens up the possibility of producing alternative whipped creams using beer brewing residues and plants, which increases sustainability.
Whipped cream is composed of 38% saturated fat, making it a not so fluffy caloric and climate issue as well. Therefore, the researchers set out to develop a low-fat, more sustainable alternative.

A delicious whipped cream needs to be versatile. For a tart, it needs to be velvety, smooth, light, and airy. And at other times, it needs to be stiff enough to hold the shape of a cake for hours. The thing most special about whipped cream is its consistency.

“The most difficult aspect of developing an alternative food is getting the texture right. Whipped cream undergoes a unique transformation that occurs in a complex system where a high saturated fat content makes it possible to whip the cream stiff,” explains Jens Risbo, an associate professor of the food science department at the University of Copenhagen.

Read more here: https://www.futurity.org/whipped-cream ... -2823112/

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Personally, I do think there is a lot of desirable potential in the field of genetically engineered (GE) and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Still, the article cited and linked below brings out a lot of good points about potential pitfalls.

Agri Biotech Sector Motivated by Monopoly Control and Sacred GMO Cash Cow
by Colin Todhunter
November 6, 2022

Introduction:

(Janata Weekly) We are currently seeing rising food prices due to a combination of an engineered food crisis for geopolitical reasons, financial speculation by hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks and profiteering by global grain trade conglomerates like Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, ADM and Bunge.

In addition, agri firms like Bayer, Syngenta (ChemChina) and Corteva cynically regard current circumstances as an opportunity to promote their agenda and seek commercialisation of unregulated and improperly tested genetically engineered (GE) technologies.

These companies have long promoted the false narrative that their hybrid seeds and their GE seeds, along with their agrichemicals, are essential for feeding a growing global population. This agenda is orchestrated by vested interests and career scientists – many of whom long ago sold their objectivity for biotech money – lobby groups and disgraced politicians and journalists.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to deflect and sway opinion, these industry shills also try to depict their critics as being Luddites and ideologically driven and for depriving the poor of (GE) food and farmers of technology.

This type of bombast disintegrates when confronted with the evidence of a failing GE project

Read more here: https://janataweekly.org/agri-biotech- ... cash-cow/

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Tunas, Billfishes Recover Yet Sharks’ Extinction Risk Rises
November 10, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Although some tunas and billfishes are recovering after decades of decline from overfishing, due in large part to successful fisheries management and conservation actions, shark biodiversity continues to decline, according to a new study evaluating yearly changes in these species’ extinction risk for the last 70 years. The findings simultaneously illustrate the value of conservation and management in protecting large ocean species and underscore the immediate need for these protections to be extended to sharks. It’s estimated that intense fishing across the planet’s oceans has led to roughly half of all commercially harvested fish and invertebrate stocks becoming overfished during the 20th century, including iconic large predatory fishes like tuna, billfishes, and sharks. However, while intense fishing activity has been increasingly monitored and managed, its overarching effects on ocean biodiversity are generally poorly understood. Based on International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List categories and criteria, Maria José Juan-Jordá and colleagues created a continuous Red List Index (RLI) of yearly changes in extinction risk of oceanic tunas, billfishes, and sharks spanning the last 70 years to better understand the health of oceanic biodiversity as well as the overall impacts of fishing mortality and conservation efforts on these populations. Juan-Jordá et al. found that after more than half a century of increasing risk of extinction due to increasing fishing pressure, effective fisheries management and conservation strategies have allowed populations of tuna and billfish to recover over the past decade. However, the extinction risk for sharks, which remain largely undermanaged, continues to rise. The findings suggest that while target species are increasingly and successfully sustainably managed to ensure maximum catch, other functionally important species like sharks, which are often captured as bycatch in these fisheries, continue to decline because of insufficient management actions. “The conservation statuses of threatened target species can be improved by managing the fishing industry, which can benefit the industry economically in the long run while allowing the threatened species to recover,” write Matthew Burgess and Sarah Becker in a related Perspective. “However, the protection of high-vulnerability bycatch and nontarget species is expected to be more difficult because they will require fisheries to invest in better fishing gear and targeting practices, or reduce fishing efforts, without directly benefiting from these changes.”

Read more of the EurekAlert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/970363

For a detailed presentation of the findings: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sci ... okieSet=1

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Replace animal farms with micro-organism tanks, say campaigners

Sat 12 Nov 2022 04.00 GMT

Enough protein to feed the entire world could be produced on an area of land smaller than London if we replace animal farming with factories producing micro-organisms, a campaign has said.

The Reboot Food manifesto argues that three-quarters of the world’s farmland should be rewilded instead.

Emissions from livestock farming account for at least 16.5% of the planet’s greenhouse gases, according to a study. A number of experts have been calling for a reduction in animal protein in our diets.

Henry Dimbleby, the UK government’s food tsar, has suggested people eat 30% less animal protein, and replace meat and dairy with plant-based protein. About 85% of agricultural land in England is used for pasture for grazing animals such as cows or to grow food that is then fed to livestock.

Vegan activists are protesting at the Cop27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, arguing that animal agriculture is a big contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -emissions

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Stanford Researchers Indicate Dams Could Play a Big Role in Feeding the World More Sustainably

November 14 , 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) A bogeyman to many environmentalists, dams could actually play a significant role in feeding the world more sustainably, according to new Stanford University research. The study, published the week of Nov. 14 in PNAS, quantifies for the first time how much water storage would be required to maximize crop irrigation without depleting water stocks or encroaching on nature, and how many people this approach could feed. While the researchers find that dammed reservoirs could be used to store more than 50% of the water needed for such irrigation, they emphasize that large reservoirs are only part of the solution and recommend evaluating alternatives to building new dams due to their damaging impacts on river ecosystems.

“There is an urgent need to explore alternative water storage solutions, but we have to acknowledge that many dams are already in place,” said study lead author Rafael Schmitt, a research engineer with the Stanford Natural Capital Project. “Our research illuminates their crucial role in ensuring food security in the future.”

Typical agricultural practices in many parts of the world deplete and pollute water resources, damage natural landscapes, and together generate one-fourth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Two-thirds of global cropland depends on rainfall and often makes up for its absence by using non-sustainable water resources, such as non-renewable groundwater, or impeding environmental flows.

Sustainable irrigation’s potential

The researchers analyzed the amount of freshwater in surface and groundwater bodies generated and renewed by natural hydrological cycles, as well as water demands of current crop mixes on irrigated and rainfed lands. They estimated that the full potential of storage-fed irrigation could feed about 1.15 billion people. If all 3,700 potential dam sites that have been mapped for their hydropower potential were built and partially used for irrigation, the world’s dams could supply enough water storage to irrigate crops for about 641 million people or 55% of the total.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/970830

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FDA says lab-grown meat is safe for human consumption

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/fda-say ... ption.html

The Food and Drug Administration for the first time cleared a lab-grown meat product developed by a California start-up as safe for human consumption, marking a key milestone for cell-cultivated meats to eventually become available in U.S. supermarkets and restaurants.

The FDA cleared Upside Foods, formerly known as Memphis Meats, to use animal cell culture technology to take living cells from chickens and grow the cells in a controlled environment to produce cultured animal cell food.

The agency said it evaluated Upside Food’s production and cultured cell material and has “no further questions” about the safety of its cultivated chicken filet. The company will be able to bring its products to market once it’s been inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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The Midterm Culture War Over Plant-based Meat
by Kenny Torrella
November 18, 2022

Introduction:

(Vox) Last week, Nebraskans elected Republican businessman Jim Pillen to be the state’s next governor. It’s no surprise he won: Nebraska has picked a Republican in every gubernatorial election since 1998. But what made Pillen’s campaign so peculiar — and alarming to those who care about animal welfare and climate change — is that no other political candidate has campaigned so vehemently against veggie burgers and soy milk.

Throughout his campaign, Pillen vowed to “stand up to radicals who want to use red tape and fake meat to put Nebraska out of business,” and promised to work to pass laws that ban plant-based food producers from using words like “meat” and “milk” on their packaging.

While Pillen has a financial interest in such a ban — he runs Pillen Family Farms, the nation’s 16th largest pork company — “fake meat,” or more accurately, plant-based meat, currently poses little actual threat to Nebraska’s farmers, as it accounts for just 1.4 percent of US meat retail sales. Plant-based milks like oat milk or almond milk have captured a much bigger share of the dairy aisle — around 16 percent — but the dairy industry says it’s a minor factor in the decline of milk sales.

Pillen also has a financial interest in maintaining Nebraska’s hands-off regulatory landscape: His giant hog operations have been trailed by air and water pollution complaints since the 1990s. Pillen’s campaign did not respond to an interview request for this story.

The real aim, it seems, of his vitriol toward bean burgers — a tactic increasingly deployed by Republican politicians — is to ensnare plant-based meat into the culture war and further cleave an already divided electorate.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/202 ... -nitrates

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Food Marketing and Research on Kids Lacks Government Oversight
November 18, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Federal regulations ban tobacco companies from advertising to kids and prohibit profanity on television before 10 p.m. But what is protecting children from predatory advertising of junk food, especially with sneaky online marketing tactics like the use of influencers?

Very little, thanks to outdated and weakened government oversight, according to a new legal analysis published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics by researchers at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

“The U.S. overwhelmingly relies on industry self-regulation, which has not kept pace with modern marketing practices,” says study author Jennifer Pomeranz, assistant professor of public health policy and management at NYU School of Global Public Health.

Self-regulation falls short in today’s marketing landscape

Commercial speech, including advertising, is largely protected by the First Amendment. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which protects consumers from deceptive and unfair business practices, has limited authority over advertising directed at kids. While the FTC gathers and reports data on food advertising to youth and brings cases against food companies for specific unfair and deceptive practices, Congress stripped the agency of its authority to regulate marketing directed at children considered unfair in 1980, after the FTC tried to limit sugary food and drinks in commercials during children’s television. The FTC has not attempted to use its authority over deceptive acts and practices, in part out of concern over similar backlash.

Instead, the U.S. largely relies on food and beverage companies to self-regulate. The industry-created Children’s Food and Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) includes voluntary—and sometimes lax—nutritional standards for marketing to kids. However, the researchers say gaps in CFBAI allows for questionable marketing that makes the nutrition standards irrelevant: the initiative only applies to children under 12 and media directed at young kids, it does not apply to packaging or stores, and allows companies to market their brands by showing somewhat healthier products that introduce kids to unhealthy brand lines.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/971840

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The article linked below is a rather technical discussion of the titled subject matter. Technical in that it closely examines bureaucratic considerations of federal versus state responsibilities. It is a difficult issue. On the one hand, one can argue that “excessive” regulation will increase the cost of food. Yet, protecting drinking water supplies and watery habitats from pollution is a very important consideration. Personally, I have cut my consumption of beef and hog products down to almost zero. In part that is also due to animal cruelty considerations. Still, I don’t expect such eating patterns to be widely adopted. Unless, of course, cultured food products and other such substitutes become widely available and popular

Large Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations are Known Polluters. Here’s Why EPA Permits Only Cover One-third
by Madison McVan
November 17, 2022

Introduction:

(Investigate Midwest) The Environmental Protection Agency is charged with protecting important waterways from pollution, but manure from concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, continues to harm waterways — and only one-third of the largest facilities have a federal permit.

EPA permits require CAFO operators to tell the agency how much waste the animals will produce and how the manure will be disposed of.

States are largely responsible for issuing these permits, but that has resulted in patchy oversight, despite CAFOs being known environmental dangers.
In some states with hundreds of large CAFOs, including Indiana, Idaho and Arkansas, zero facilities have a federal permit.

Large CAFOs are defined by the EPA as housing the equivalent of 700 dairy cattle, 2,500 swine or up to 125,000 chickens.

Read more here: https://investigatemidwest.org/2022/11 ... ne-third/