Buying trends show that pet owners are gravitating toward human-grade ingredients. “Dog food” is regulated loosely compared to human fare, allowing even meat deemed unfit for human consumption due to things such as disease and contamination and moldy grains, a recipe for endless pet food recalls. 

The pet food industry traditionally relies on factory farm byproducts for its ingredients, a practice the industry touts as more sustainable as it produces less waste and cheaper food. But dog owners distrust this mysterious supply chain. 

As shoppers seek more wholesome foods for pets, some also try to make eco-friendly choices, which seems to contradict a diet of human-grade foods, especially meat. Agriculture contributes at least 11 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions, and meat is the biggest contributor among foods. 

Is there a way to make healthier dog food that won’t burden the planet so much? Here is how a few companies are dishing up new models.

Farm Hounds

Family farms often struggle to stay profitable as agriculture becomes more concentrated. There were 141,733 fewer farms in the US in 2022 than in 2017, according to the Census of Agriculture. 

Livestock farmers who practice regenerative farming, improving soil and biodiversity with methods such as rotational grazing, strive to waste nothing and can still wind up with leftovers. Like the hog tails, hides, organs, and hooves that aren’t always suitable for compost. 

“From our experience, most regenerative farms don’t have much of an active market for these products,” says Stephen Calsbeek, co-founder of Farm Hounds, a company that partners with regenerative farms to make single-ingredient treats for dogs.

“It is rare to meet a new farm and hear they are already capturing and selling something we are looking for,” he says. Where items like muscle meat and organs have a route to human markets, Farm Hounds looks for trim, miscuts and excess volume.

It started sourcing scraps from places such as White Oak Pastures, a farm in Bluffton, Georgia committed to regenerative and humane farming techniques. 

Customers couldn’t get enough of the local grass-farmed treats. With that, the store’s pup-loving proprietors launched Farm Hounds, dehydrating raw items in their home kitchen, which they now sell online as well.

Over time, collaboration with a single farm grew into a whole network, with new partners continually being added to meet the demand.  

“We are talking with very busy farmers, who then have to sort out how to capture and store the products we are looking for,” says Calsbeek. “It can take six to 12 months before we see our first order.” Farms that use an offsite processor have to ask the processor to return parts they aren’t used to capturing. “Depending on how strict the USDA inspector is, it can require the farm and the processing facility to update their HACCP plan just to capture something for us.” 

For most of the farms, the added revenue from using every part of the animal has been “impactful,” says Calsbeek. Some have changed their practices. Polyface, a renowned farm in Virginia, now breeds its birds on-site, having learned that Farm Hounds would purchase the roosters (male chicks are culled at hatcheries). At times, it’s a safety net if a human market is lost; during the COVID lockdown, for example, a key buyer for one farm stopped ordering products that had already been raised. “We’ve seen farms able to hire more workers in their community due to our purchasing.”

Today, in addition to a variety of treats and chews of all sizes, Farm Hounds sells items that even make use of their own leftovers. In recent years, the company, which now has a nationwide following, has landed on the Inc. 5000 list, ranking among America’s fastest-growing independent businesses. 

The Conscious Pet

No discussion of vanishing farmland or concerns about wasting human grade food on pets is complete without a mention of food waste—when 30 percent to 40 percent of the entire US food supply gets dumped in landfills. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the US discards nearly 40 million tons of food every year, more than any other country. 

One solution is to upcycle it. The Conscious Pet, an Austin-based company started by Mason Arnold and Jessica Kezar Arnold, makes human-grade dog food and treats by dehydrating scraps from local restaurants, breweries, and food distributors.

This isn’t stuff they glean from trash cans. 

“Think of a kitchen that trims their steaks or chicken before cooking their meals,” says Arnold, a sustainability-minded entrepreneur who hosts a podcast with Kezar-Arnold called “A Mostly Green Life”—part of a community of people focused on “clean living” and environmental stewardship. 

Initially, they partnered with a composting facility, capturing suitable meat and vegetable scraps, which they now collect directly from a variety of sources. While composting helps keep waste out of landfills, they knew it wasn’t the best use of edible food. 

So, they experimented with recipes in their home kitchen, creating products to sell in the perfect incubator—Austin, home to 500,000 pups and owners who spend the most on dog food of any major city. A city ordinance requires restaurants to responsibly dispose of organic waste, which can mean a solution such as repurposed pet food.

“The first batches looked like dog food already, just not in the right shape as it was mostly powder with a few clumps,” says Arnold. “It took us six months or so to develop the first usable recipe and, honestly, it took over 1.5 years to perfect it.”

DoggieBag, the human-grade kibble, is lightly cooked and shelf stable. The recipe uses 85 percent sustainably sourced animal protein and about 15 percent organic vegetables. Only the vitamin additives aren’t from scraps.

The zero-waste company, which uses clean energy and compostable packaging, kicked off in 2022 by offering locals a chance to own a part of it. It is currently moving to a new facility and plans to relaunch its line of products this fall, says Arnold.

“It isn’t hard to get something going, but [it] does require investment in the machinery to accomplish the process,” says Arnold. Another challenge has been the stigma around food waste. People often imagine the ruins of meals in trash cans, not kitchen trimmings and dented packaging.

“That fresh product is still consumable and delicious and could be used to make soups and such for humans, but we take it and make pet food out of it.”

With the country’s ample supply of leftovers, it’s a model that could be used in other cities, says Arnold.

“We’re excited to start partnering with others who want to implement this technology, and welcome any inquiries from people or companies wanting to do it in their town.” 

Open Farm

A new national strategy for reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2030 includes “raising and breeding insects as livestock.” 

Even meat giant Tyson Foods is getting into insects for use in the pet food, aquaculture, and livestock industries.

Vying to be the next big protein are crickets, black soldier fly larvae (grubs) and mealworms, all approved for use in dog food in the US. These tiny animals yield high-quality protein, can eat food waste, and can be eaten as food. Their excrement, frass, is a rich fertilizer for agriculture.

When it comes to sustainability, experts say insect farming uses less land and water, and it has fewer emissions. With their high food conversion rate, insects can convert two kilograms of feed into one kg of insect mass, while cattle require eight kg of feed to produce one kg of body weight gain. Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and two times less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Black soldier fly larvae, among the most efficient insect species, develop in two to three weeks.

So far, consumers aren’t rushing in. Only one US company has developed an insect-based kibble, while one that started with a bang—Grubbly Farms—has switched its promising entry into dog food to backyard chickens.

But the infrastructure is growing. EnviroFlight, a company that produces black soldier fly larvae, opened the first US production facility in Maysville, Kentucky in 2018, while Oregon-based Chapul Farms is working on various aspects of insect agriculture. Tyson plans to build a US facility that supports every stage of insect protein production from breeding to hatching of larvae. All the companies, even leading dog food brands, see insect-based pet food as a growing market.

It’s similar to traditional dog food, trading ground-up meat or fish for insects as the main protein. Grubs, the most common source, provide all 10 essential amino acids dogs require.

Adding an insect kibble made sense to Canadian dog food maker Open Farm, which put grubs on the menu in 2022, sourcing protein for its black soldier fly larvae kibble with consideration of its environmental impacts and processing. Since there’s no animal welfare certification for grubs, it  sought suppliers that adhere to the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare, ensuring healthy living conditions. The grubs are humanely euthanized with high heat.

But it turned out that “the demand was a little low,” says spokesperson Bridget Trumper. The company has discontinued its Kind Earth Insect recipe. “We hope as these options become more popular, we will be able to bring this recipe back, and introduce additional insects.”

There was a twist, however, in pet owners snubbing the unconventional animal protein.

“Surprisingly, our plant-based recipes were more popular and we will be continuing to offer those,” says Trumper. The company thinks it has to do with greater familiarity with a vegetarian diet. For now, it plans to monitor the trends and educate pet owners on the environmental benefits of alternative proteins.

“We believe, in time, pet parents will come around to the idea,” says Trumper.

Innovations in pet food can make a difference on a local scale and beyond. Farm Hounds’ use of farm waste can be adopted in other areas, and the company has gone from selling products in its local stores to a nationwide online business with a network of farm partners that has extended to other states, including California—and it ranks as one of the fastest-growing independent businesses, making the Inc. 5000 list the past two years. Food waste is another resource that could be tapped around the country to improve pet health with human-grade by-products. As Mars, the world’s largest pet food manufacturer, Tyson, and other companies add insects to the menu while researchers seek ways to breed bigger insects faster, the potential grows for reducing the impacts of factory meat farming.

The post Your Dog’s Food Probably Comes From a Factory Farm. Meet Some Folks Who Want to Change That appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Two hours into the journey, the truck stopped for fuel in South Dakota. The Animals’ Angels investigators were able to approach the truck and see the ear tags for the calves. They were about one week old, and crammed together so tightly they were stepping on each other.

The truck continued to Kansas, where it stopped again for gas. At this point, temperatures had reached 100 degrees, but at no point were the calves given water or milk. The investigators could hear the calves bellowing in discomfort.

Video courtesy of Animal Welfare Institute/Animals’ Angels

There are a few issues here, says Adrienne Craig, senior policy associate and staff attorney for the Animal Welfare Institute. First is that these calves were being transported so young—sometimes just a day or two after they are born—before they had the chance to develop mature immune systems. This makes them vulnerable to disease during transport, potentially resulting in death. In this particular truck, the calves still had their umbilical cord attached, creating a risk for infection.

Second is that the conditions of the trip are stressful. The vibrations, noise, fumes, and abrupt motion of the road cause discomfort for the calves. During the 19-hour transport that Animals’ Angels investigators documented, they witnessed this truck reach risky speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, maintaining speed on curves. The investigators felt confident the calves were tossed around in the back. 

Typically, calves this age will eat every few hours or so. During the entire trip, the investigators did not see the calves get fed even once.

“We know that they’re not being fed on these journeys, because the logistics of stopping and bottle-feeding 200 neonatal calves is entirely unfeasible,” says Craig. 

When the truck reached its final destination, Animals’ Angels was not able to follow it inside to see the condition of the calves. But they drove by the next day to see where the calves were kept. It’s called a ranch, but it’s anything but idyllic—the investigators drove by and saw row after row of confined hutches filled with calves.

Product of consolidation

The long-haul transportation of newly born calves is a practice that has become common for very large dairies with tens of thousands of cows. According to research by the Animal Welfare Institute, hundreds of thousands of newborn calves are transported long distances every year to ranches where they are raised, either to be returned to the dairy as milking cows or slaughtered for dairy beef.

The problem is that the conditions of this travel at such a young age put these calves in a vulnerable situation, says Craig. Despite this, there are virtually no enforced legal protections for calves in this position.

“Some producers don’t prioritize…feeding them in such a way that they’re in the best shape to be transported these long distances,” says Craig. “Unfortunately, there just really isn’t any oversight on this.”

The dairies that participate in this practice are the ones with tens of thousands of cows, commonly called mega-dairies. It’s unclear when exactly this practice began, says Craig, but it has likely increased since dairy cows and beef cattle began being bred together to produce cows raised for “dairy beef,” dairy industry cattle that are butchered for consumption.

Dairies require pregnant cows, but at mega-dairies, many of the calves do not remain there after they’re born. Many mega-dairies ship these calves to the southwest where they are raised. Some of the females will be returned as dairy cows and the rest, both male and female, are butchered as dairy beef.

The industry dominance of megadairies at the expense of independent farms is a factor here. These systems prioritize efficiency, and transporting calves as quickly as possible is the most expedient option.

“It is certainly a product of consolidation of the dairy industry,” says Craig.

Solutions 

Waiting until the calves are older, perhaps a month old, or at least until their navel has healed from the umbilical cord, would make transport a lot safer for them, says Craig. The AWI has filed a petition with the USDA to improve regulations for interstate transport of young animals. 

Existing protections for interstate animal transport begin and end with the Twenty-Eight Hour Law, which states that animals must be offloaded for rest, food, and water if they have been traveling for 28 hours. However, this law is not consistently enforced. 

In June, Representative Dina Titus of Nevada introduced the Humane Transport of Farmed Animals Act to Congress, a bill that, if it becomes a law, would require the USDA to come up with a way to enforce the Twenty-Eight Hour Law, and it would make it illegal to transport animals deemed unfit to travel. This could be because of sickness, injury, or being too young.

Craig recommends that shoppers who are hoping to avoid supporting these kinds of practices can look for the third-party certifications Global Animal Partnership and Animal Welfare Approved on their dairy products, both of which have a minimum age requirement for transport. Another option is the Certified Humane certification, which does not have a minimum age but does have a time limit on how long animals can be on the road. You can read AWI’s full certification guide here.

The post The 1,000-Mile Journey of a Newborn Calf appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Communities living near these operations bear the brunt of air and water pollution, among other things. Animal advocates say that the way animals are raised in this system is inhumane from start to finish. Lakes, rivers, and streams experience unprecedented environmental degradation. The producers themselves, many of whom get into the business for a stable farming job, experience demoralization and unsafe working conditions. 

All of us, in some way, are impacted by industrial animal agriculture. This series of stories looks at the impacts, but also some of the ways that people are advocating against this system and looking for a way of farming that is sustainable—for communities, the environment, animals, and farmers themselves.

The post Fighting Factory Farms appeared first on Modern Farmer.

That’s how a farmer who used to work for Perdue described his chicken house—a sight so upsetting that it led him to transition out of this kind of work, often referred to as “factory farming.” 

Factory farming is a colloquial term, one meant to evoke the mechanized and impersonal nature of the process—although the phrase itself is somewhat vague. How big of an operation are we talking about, and why is it a problem? To get at the heart of the issue, it helps to be more specific.

What the term is actually referring to can be more or less encapsulated in large-scale CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations. 

Concentrated animal feeding operations

CAFOs are defined by the EPA as intensive feeding operations where many animals are confined and fed for at least 45 days per year (though it can be much more) and inevitably their manure and waste come in contact with ground and surface water. 

There are small, medium and large CAFOs, with the largest of these embodying the truest definition of a “factory farm.” A large CAFO is at least 1,000 “animal units. ”An animal unit is roughly 1,000 lbs of live animal so to be classified as a large CAFO an operation would need to have at least:

Or combinations of all types of animals totaling 1,000 animal units. 

The largest of these CAFOs hold tens of thousands of animals in one place. 

Rationalized as a way to feed more people, large CAFOs are pervasive in our food system. But industrial animal agriculture comes with a lot of downsides.

What’s the problem?

The main problems with concentrated animal agriculture are its impacts on human health, its impact on the environment, and its threats to animal welfare. Many of these issues can be boiled down to the fact that these operations produce a lot of manure in one place. And those pollutants are released directly into the air and water. A single large CAFO can produce as much waste as a human city but without the same sewage treatment processes in place.

Human Health

For people who live near these CAFOs, pollution of the air and water pose serious health concerns. Respiratory issues such as asthma can be caused or made worse, and nitrate pollution in water can cause conditions such as blue baby syndrome. Although it can be difficult to prove causation, there have been many instances of serious issues believed to be caused by living close to CAFOs, such as cancer, miscarriages, and more. In the US, research has indicated that the impacts of agriculture on air quality lead to 17,900 deaths per year.

Additionally, these large-scale animal operations are often built in communities of color. For example, in California’s Central Valley, people of color are 1.29 times more likely to live within three  miles of a large dairy CAFO than white residents. With examples of this spanning the country, from California to North Carolina, this kind of pollution is a pattern of environmental injustice.

Farmer Health and Well-being  

Often, the farmers who enter into contracts with big meat companies such as  Tyson or Perdue find themselves taking on extensive debt to keep up with the equipment demands of the company. Due to the pay system that some of these companies use, farmers don’t make enough money to get out of debt. Instead, the company keeps the profits while the farmers shoulder the overhead costs. Ultimately, contract farming has caused many producers to lose their farms.

Environment 

Air and waterways can be seriously polluted by CAFOs. In Iowa, the state with the most hog waste in the country, the number of polluted waterways has increased dramatically in the last few decades. In North Carolina, flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew had caused substantial pollution when hog waste overflowed from their lagoons. The reason CAFOs are designated by the EPA is because the Clean Water Act specifically regulates waste and pollutants in our water and this concentration of animals and their waste is seen as a major source of potential pollution.

Animal Welfare 

In these operations, chickens, cows, and hogs are kept in conditions where they can hardly move or stand up. They are dirty and ill for most of their lives. Animal rights groups have long sounded the alarm on these conditions, but Ag-gag laws are in place in many states in an attempt to prevent these conditions from being documented.

Additional Issues

Living near a large CAFO can impact people in a lot of other ways,  too. There is an ever-present bad smell, flies, property values go down, mental health implications, and more. Even if you do not live next to a large CAFO, the issues with this type of animal production can include the spread of disease and strain on water supply.

No. Advocates would not equate large-scale CAFOs with farming at all. There are many farms—farms that practice animal agriculture—that operate in a way that protects the environment, practices responsible animal care, and does not harm the human communities close to them. These farmers are in a different category from industrial animal agriculture, which many farmers and advocates in this space would say is actually not agriculture at all, but more similar to manufacturing—hence the “factory” moniker. 

Still, this industry will often present itself as representative of the American farmer. As a result, critics are branded as “anti-agriculture” when in fact, the opposite is true. What many advocates call for is not the end of farming, but the end of a brand of food production that harms more than it helps.

The post Factory Farms Explained appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Sonoma County is the heart of California wine country. With a population of almost half a million, the region is known for its arable land and stunning vistas – the “Tuscany of America,” according to local rancher Bronte Edwards.

But Sonoma has a less genteel side: The area is also home to approximately 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farms not only force animals to live in overcrowded, dirty conditions, they also produce copious amounts of manure, which can cause water pollution and other health hazards.

In November, county residents will have the unique opportunity to ban CAFOs with a ballot initiative that would completely prohibit industrial livestock operations. If “Measure J” passes, Sonoma will be the first county in the United States to ban CAFOs. It would call for a moratorium on the creation of future facilities, along with a three-year phase-out period for current operations. The petition to get Measure J on the ballot garnered 17,000 signatures more than the minimum of 20,000 needed to get on the ballot.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind,” said Cassie King, an organizer with the Coalition to End Factory Farming, a collection of groups backing Measure J.

According to the Sierra Club, “large, high density CAFOS have reduced the number of livestock farmers in the U.S. by 80%.” In a tight-knit agricultural county like Sonoma, though, even the big players are friendly faces at the grocery store. And if Measure J passes, it would force these larger enterprises in Sonoma to change their practices or shut down.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind.”

The measure faces strong opposition, even from some small-scale farmers and ranchers, who fear that banning CAFOs will disrupt an economy grounded in agritourism and gastronomy. The measure has split Sonoma County, with local farmers and concerned citizens lining up on both sides of the proposed ban. Both the “Yes on J” website and the one belonging to “No on J” feature numerous local farms and advocacy groups.

In an email to High Country News, Roy Smith, a Sonoma County farmer who runs a seven-acre hay operation, wrote that the debate lacks nuance: “Both sides argue a truth, and both sides permit a falsehood,” he said. Still, he applauded Measure J for “rais(ing) awareness of the presence of industrial confinement facilities in our backyard.”

In a country dominated by large-scale farming operations comprising thousands of acres of monocrops, Sonoma County is an outlier. Forty-three percent of its farms are very small — around one to nine acres — and 32% are 10 to 49 acres. (The average U.S. farm is 464 acres.) In 2022, Sonoma County farmers produced half a billion dollars’ worth of wine grapes. Livestock, poultry and animal products brought in approximately $140 million.

A series of recent legal fights over water pollution set the stage for Measure J. Last year, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs), a nonprofit that focuses on chemical pollution, sued Reichardt Duck Farm, a 373-acre duck-processing facility in Sonoma County. CATs alleged that Reichardt was discharging storm water into an unnamed creek, which eventually made its way to Tomales Bay and ultimately the Pacific Ocean. Reichardt Duck Farm settled the suit.

“We heartily support curbing CAFOs. They’re disgusting. They have a horrific impact on the environment,” said Patty Clary, executive director of CATs, which is a member of the coalition backing Measure J.

This year, on July 5, CATs gave a dairy CAFO in Sonoma a 60-day notice of the group’s intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act. Almost all waterways in Sonoma County are considered “impaired” by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning they’re too polluted for swimming and boating.

Clary, who grew up in Sonoma County, is not only concerned about the animals in CAFOs, but also the lives of the people who work in them. Measure J declares that the county must provide “a retraining and employment assistance program for current and former CAFO workers.” She hopes that a ban on CAFOs would create a “lower-key” agricultural environment.

“Without a giant CAFO, this sort of animal production would be more spread out in the community, where people could develop little co-ops and have a number of small farms providing the product that one big CAFO is producing,” she said.

Measure J is more complicated for many local farmers, including Smith, who raises sheep, poultry and swine, in addition to hay. But he agrees with one major aspect of it: a ban on poultry confinement facilities in Sonoma.

“They are an abomination in every possible way,” he said.

Smith grew up in Sonoma and laments the changes he has witnessed; a shift from small-scale operations dotting the landscape to large-scale enterprises that gobble everything up. “CAFOs, local and national, continue to drive retail prices down below levels that can sustain small, humane, agroecological producers,” he said.

But he fears that Measure J will impact some medium-sized dairies that, in his opinion, do not meet the standard definition of a CAFO.

Bronte Edwards and her wife, Liz Bell, who run Rainbow Family Ranching, share these concerns. Edwards and Bell are self-described “queer first-gen livestock ranchers.” They describe their farm as “carbon negative” and try to purchase locally grown hay. The prospect of Measure J worries them, especially its proposed definition of a CAFO, which denotes facilities where “animals … have been, are, or will be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period.” This “45-day” rule is part of the same definition that the EPA uses for CAFOs.

Other provisions in the measure — such as language specifying the number of animals confined and how waste is discharged — appear to protect farms like the Rainbow Family Ranching from the ban. Advocates for Measure J have identified 21 “large CAFOs” in Sonoma County that house anywhere from 900 to 600,000 animals. A spokesperson for “Yes on Measure J” said that an operation that meets the 45-day rule, but none of the other CAFO definitions, would not be affected.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed.”

Despite this, Edwards and Bell remain concerned about what the measure will mean for their neighbors, some of whom operate facilities with over 200 head of livestock — which might render them a CAFO under Measure J.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed,” Edwards said.

She added that keeping farms together is important for conservation, as it allows wildlife to move between open spaces and grazing lands. In her day job, Edwards works with a land trust to purchase development rights and easements to keep farms whole, preserving land for future generations.

Regardless of the result at the ballot box in November, both sides of the Measure J debate agree on one thing: The proposal will leave a mark on Sonoma County. According to Clary, if Measure J passes, it could set an example to other counties across the nation.

“If it loses, it will have made a crack in the in the eggshell, and it will still have an impact,” she said.

This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Banning Concentrated Feedlots is on the Ballot in Sonoma appeared first on Modern Farmer.

If you live anywhere in or near suburban or urban America, chances are you have personally encountered—or at least heard about—sightings of carnivorous mammals such as coyotes and bears in your neighborhood. As we take over more of their territory, they enter ours, often looking for food. 

The starkest evidence of unwanted human-wildlife interactions happens on our roadways. Every year in the US, vehicle-animal collisions result in 200 or so human fatalities, millions of animal fatalities, tens of thousands of injuries, and billions of dollars in damage to cars and other property. 

That’s just the roads. There are also broader issues of connectivity. While there are large swaths of protected wildlands across the country dedicated to keeping grizzlies, wolves, pronghorn, wild cats, and other large animals safe, they are often isolated in those protective zones, unable to reach other individual animals or packs in other protected areas, leaving these groups vulnerable to inbreeding, not to mention stymieing their natural rhythms of hunting and migration. 

A bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021 contained $350 million for wildlife road crossings. The structures are built under or over roads, with fencing that guides animals to safety, and they are thought to reduce wildlife-car run-ins by up to 97 percent. 

These crossings, constructed over or under human-made incursions in the landscape like roads, can include underpass tunnels or viaducts for mammals and amphibians of all sizes, or bridges, generally for larger mammals. These crossings provide safety and connection for animals whose habitats have been fragmented by roads and buildings. (The largest one ever made is currently being constructed in California. See its progress here). 

Now, a network of activists and policy makers are working to both help heal and create links between wild areas across the US for commuting critters, and ease animals’ way under and over major roads that cut through their ranges. 

Working for wolves

“We are really lucky to have a partner in North Carolina’s Department of Transportation,” says Will Harlan, southeast director and senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The team there understands that building wildlife corridors across Highway 64 will potentially save the species, help other wild animals, and prevent human death and property loss.” 

There are fewer than 25 red wolves in the wild right now, and Harlan says that five have died in the past year along that stretch of highway, which is the longest in the state, running from 604 miles from the Tennessee state line to the Outer Banks. Red wolves used to range from Texas to New York. Today, the only place red wolves still exist in the wild is in the 3,200-square-mile Abermarle Peninsula in North Carolina. 

“In North Carolina, we have a super high rate of vehicle accidents, and seven percent of all road accidents are wildlife collisions,” he says.In 2010, the Department of Transportation considered widening the highway; it identified five major animal crossing areas. Harlan is currently in the midst of a major fund-raising effort to get the crossings built, with the goal of raising $2 million by August 1. 

“Wolves are my personal priority, but, of cours,e I will be thrilled to see other species like [the] 700-pound black bear, rare snakes and turtles, beavers, bobcats ,and dozens of others able to safely get across the road.”

Recreating landscape links

Grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, Mexican wolves, and bull trout are particularly vulnerable to death or extreme isolation due to the loss of natural links between landscape areas in the Northern Rockies, New Mexico and Arizona, where WildEarth Guardians focuses its efforts on restoration and safety. 

“That often means protecting important areas from logging projects and pushing the agency to remove roads and motorized trails instead of building and punching in new ones.” says Adam Rissien, rewilding manager with WildEarth Guardians. 

This kind of work often requires the covert monitoring of trails. Last winter, WildEarth discovered illegal activity in Northern Idaho’s Kaniksu region with the help of LightHawk, a nonprofit conservation aviation organization that sponsored a monitoring flight. Using aircraft as an asset in conservation has been on the rise, especially with volunteer-based groups such as LightHawk, which taps into its network of more than 300 pilots who donate expertise, time, aircraft, and fuel to support investigative flight campaigns with organizations like WildEarth. 

Volunteers also contributed photographs documenting over-snow-vehicle tracks in essential habitat for wolverines, grizzly bears, lynx, and mountain goats. This kind of disturbance can imperil the viability of all of these species, especially as many will abandon or move dens, reducing reproductive success. 

WildEarth is currently in the process of “evaluating the potential for a lawsuit to protect the habitats,” says Rissien. 

The organization has also moved to challenge a Forest Service logging project outside of Yellowstone National Park on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest that it says will reduce habitat security for grizzly bears. Last year, 50 grizzly bears died within the natural park. If the project goes through, more than six square miles will be clear-cut, and another six square miles of mature forests will be logged. 

“The Yellowstone grizzlies need more habitat to recover, not less,” says Rissien. 

Using science to drive policy 

Development isn’t the only foe of wildlife safety. Climate change, and the manner in which it is affecting where animals can and want to live, is intensifying the challenges faced by wildlife. 

“Protecting and improving wildlife connectivity will help us fight against the extinction and climate crisis,” says Tiffany Yap, PhD, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Urban Wildlands Program. “As climate change intensifies and resources on the landscape shift, connectivity will give wildlife a chance to find the resources they need to survive and keep our ecosystems healthy.” 

Enhancing connectivity across roads and through landscapes is most effectively accomplished through science-driven policy, says Yap. 

In 2022, the Center co-sponsored AB 2244, the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act with the Wildlands Network. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the act into law, which received bipartisan support and requires Caltrans to identify barriers to wildlife on roads and build crossing structures when building or improving roadways. 

The center also co-sponsored AB 1889, aka the Room to Roam Act with the Wildlands Network, which aims to reconnect fragmented areas for wide-ranging pumas and slow-moving newts. 

“Overdevelopment and careless development along with our roads have fractured the habitat so much that animals are unable to find food, shelter, and unrelated mates,” says Yap. “This act requires local governments to consider and minimize impact to wildlife movement and habitat connectivity as part of the conservation element of their general plan.”

The legislation encourages wildlife-friendly fencing, reduced light pollution, and the planting of drought-resistant native plants that will attract native pollinators. (Wildlife-friendly fencing is highly visible to animals and birds and allows for the safe passage of animals over or under fences; typically, this means a 40-inch-tall fence with a minimum of 12 inches spacing between wires. Light pollution can be reduced by minimizing light installations, using LED lights, pointing lights downward, and using shades or covers on lights.) 

“By keeping ecosystems healthy, we can better maintain the co-benefits people receive from them, like clean air and water, buffers from extreme weather, crop pollinators like bees and pest control like bats, which hunt crop-eating insects,” says Yap. 

The post On The Ground With Groups Creating Wildlife Corridors appeared first on Modern Farmer.

And despite the name, bird flu doesn’t only impact birds. Since 2022, there have been four cases reported in humans and, more recently, more than 100 herds of dairy cattle in the US alone. The infection has also been found in both the milk and meat of these animals. This month, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency updated its testing eligibility for cattle and said it would now cover some of the testing fees, to ensure any outbreaks are dealt with swiftly. Luckily, in humans, the disease isn’t known to be fatal, but it can lead to high temperatures, breathing trouble, diarrhea, conjunctivitis and potentially more serious complications such as pneumonia or respiratory illness. 

So, what does this mean for your grocery order? Let’s break it down. 

First, poultry. Is it safe to eat?

Yes. Experts say it is highly unlikely that humans can contract the virus from properly cooked meat or eggs. This means cooking eggs until the yolk and whites are firm and chicken to at least 165°F. And to be safe, keep raw poultry away from any other foods. 

But what’s even more important is that infected meat or eggs are very unlikely to reach grocery store shelves in the first place. According to a USDA predictive model, there is a less than five percent chance that infected eggs or meat might make it to the grocery store—and the model also predicts that if that did happen, 98 percent of infected eggs could be recalled immediately. 

But what about milk?

Recent studies of about 300 commercially available dairy products revealed inactive HPAI in one in five samples. That number seems like a lot on the surface, but there’s one key element: pasteurization. There is increasing evidence that the pasteurization process neutralizes the virus, making pasteurized dairy products safe to consume. 

In the 297 samples tested by the USDA, there was no instance of a live, viable virus in any pasteurized product. 

Is beef ok?

As with poultry and eggs, it’s highly unlikely that infected beef would make it to store shelves in the first place. However, if it does, experts also agree that properly cooked beef carries very little risk of transmitting the virus to humans. Cooking your meat to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 degrees Celsius) will neutralize avian flu, E Coli and any other bacteria. 

So, what do I need to know?

The main thing to ensure when shopping for or preparing food is that you’re following safe food guidelines. Consuming raw eggs (looking at you, cookie dough) or unpasteurized dairy products could increase your risk of not just HPAI but salmonella, E Coli, listeria or other food-borne illnesses. Raw ground beef can also be a transmitter of those illnesses, so store beef at 40 degrees F or below, and use it within a few days. It’s also best to cook ground beef to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees F. 

If you are someone who regularly comes in contact with farms, be they poultry or cattle, following a strict biosecurity plan will help reduce the risk of transmitting infections. That means tightening visitor access to your farm, wearing clean boots and clothes and removing or controlling any standing water. In the meantime, officials are looking at several solutions to mitigate these outbreaks, including new vaccines.

The post How Much Do You Really Need to Worry About Bird Flu? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But the fight with bird flu isn’t over yet, and we may come out on the other side with healthier birds (and new menu options).

Rats with wings

The humble pigeon, thought by many to be a pest, has much to offer us in this fight against bird flu. Pigeons were once revered as war heroes, used to carry messages during the world wars; the Dickin Medal, the highest possible decoration for valor in animals, has been given to 32 pigeons, beginning with Winkie the pigeon in 1942. Before that, we used pigeons for meat and eggs, and squab (juvenile pigeons) remain a delicacy in much of the world. Texts from Spain regarding raising pigeons for their meat date back as far as 60 A.D. 

But today, it’s the pigeons’ DNA that can help us. Pigeons have high numbers of interferon-stimulated genes (which signal to infected cells when a pathogen is present), giving them what researchers hypothesize is an inherent ability to prevent viruses from entering their cells and spreading. After being exposed to bird flu in a lab environment, pigeons showed a low immune response and had low levels of the virus in their bodies. In comparison, chickens and turkeys with the same exposure had high levels of the virus concentrated in their organs, particularly in the brain. 

Further studies have shown pigeons to be resistant and/or minimally susceptible to the virus. One hundred rock pigeons were tested for the virus during the 2022 outbreak; only two were positive. However, their deaths were not attributed to the virus.

Obviously, the poultry industry’s showing no signs of restructuring to push pigeon quesadillas or pigeon tenders as your weeknight dinner. Despite pigeons’ benefits in bird flu resistance, much of our industry is focused around the more traditional chicken and turkey. But for those in favor of pigeon, they claim to reap the benefits. 

Squab Producers of California, founded in 1943, is the largest squab producer in the US, producing more than 400,000 squab yearly. Although SPOC owns a commercial processing plant, the squab are raised in more than 600 different local farms that work together as a co-op, so that the birds don’t have to face the traditional factory farming environment.

The federation’s president, Dalton Rasmussen, notes that the birds produce better when they’re happier—so they try to give each bird a short but sweet life. The birds processed by SPOC spend their short time in small, locally owned farms, often with outdoor flight pens that allow older breeder birds a taste of the good life. “It’s one of the tastiest, tenderest meats that you can get,” says Rasmussen. “It used to be known as the meat of kings, because it was served to royalty all the way back to the Egyptian days.”

Prices for conventional chicken and turkey meat, as well as eggs, have suffered through the bird flu epidemic. In addition, fear associated with the virus has dampened consumers’ enthusiasm for poultry dinners. Tyson, one of the largest poultry producers in the US, reported slipping sales through 2023, leading to the closure of four of its plants. US poultry sales overall declined by 13 percent between 2022 and 2023. It’s hard to say whether it’s impacted squab farmers, with so few commercial farmers to reference, but, so far, there has yet to be a bird flu breakout at any US pigeon farming facility. In an uncertain time of H5N1, we may see more consumers trying pigeon. And with many neighborhoods restricting chicken ownership, maybe we’ll see backyard pigeon roosts gaining in popularity, too.

We can’t change Bird Flu. Can we change chickens?

There are some possible pigeon-less solutions in the works, such as gene editing. However, it’s a tricky business, and it rarely has a guaranteed payoff. 

Scout Thompson, a PhD student in biology at Western University, says the technology might not yet be sophisticated enough to prevent the spread of avian flu. “Even if [gene editing] could successfully eradicate the current strains of concern in domestic flocks, the virus could still persist in wild waterfowl and be reintroduced with mutations.” 

And, with the current state of bird flu infections, that possibility doesn’t seem unlikely. Many different species of waterfowl have already fallen victim, and experts are concerned that migratory patterns of waterfowl may cause seasonal surges in infection. Researchers have begun making progress with the CRISPR gene-editing technique, but we simply don’t yet know if this could result in long-term progress for the battle against H5N1. 

Betting on biosecurity

Vaccines are always an option, but it’s not always possible to mass-vaccinate poultry on the scale that would be required on a factory farm; after a positive test, just one major poultry farm in Texas was forced to cull close to two million chickens. 

But for smaller flocks, vaccines can be a source of hope. “I think we should make it easier for very small flocks to purchase vaccinations, medications and other treatments for their birds,” says Saro Nortrup, an urban flock owner in Nebraska. “Most of these, such as [medication for] Marek’s disease, are very expensive with large dosage options and a very limited shelf life.” 

According to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, all of the UK’s native breeds of chickens, ducks and geese are under threat from bird flu. While bird flu losses that make the news typically number in the millions, Nortrup noted that any bird’s death can cause a cascade of damage. “If you have a rare breed, for example, the loss of your flock could have a serious impact on the genetic pool of an entire breed.”

Many American producers grew frustrated as it seemed to be an endless wait for bird flu vaccinations that weren’t coming; even now, many farms don’t have access to preventative vaccines. However, renewed interest has led to new developments and increased accessibility for these vaccines; scientists are working on a vaccine for humans, in the case of a potential pandemic if bird flu begins inter-human transmission.

We don’t have all the answers to bird flu yet. But, with so many partial solutions in the works, we’ll find a way to push forward—even if the poultry industry is never quite the same.

Correction: A previous version of this article referred to HPAI as H1N1. That has been corrected to H5N1. 

The post Rats With Wings, Vaccines, And New Breed—2024’s Solutions to the Bird Flu Crisis appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I’ve worked with birds in many different settings, which allowed me access to many different species. For the exotic birds, it ranged from rescued wild-caught African Greys who wanted nothing to do with me to aviaries full of friendly budgies and cockatiels clamoring for a little one-on-one affection. For domestic birds, such as poultry, I worked with total “mutt” chickens to Bourbon Red Turkeys to the coveted Ayam Cemani, a breed of chicken that is fully jet-black, inside and out. (No, I didn’t crack any open to check.) Aside from my own pet birds, I worked on a farm where I raised chickens, ducks, and turkeys, and I volunteered for years at an avian sanctuary primarily for exotic birds like parrots. Some of the exotics I’d worked with were abused, while some were treated like royalty. With the domestics, there was one sad consistency—nobody seemed willing to care about the birds as individuals, and some barely saw them as living creatures whatsoever.

Birds are some of our most underappreciated species. Despite America’s love for birding and bird feeding (it’s estimated that the US alone had over $3 million in sales of bird food and supplies through 2023), we often underestimate their importance both to humanity and to the natural world. In the wild, birds are often keystone species (animals that have a disproportionately large impact on their surrounding environments). By spreading seeds, controlling insect populations and providing prey for larger birds and mammals, birds contribute to their ecosystems. In addition, their sensitive nature means that decreases in bird populations can often be a warning sign for impending danger to other species.

Sometimes, it seems problems the agricultural industry faces could have been avoided by simply looking ahead. Bird flu is one such circumstance that has many gritting their teeth—especially the researchers who sounded the alarm in 2022, when the same strain of bird flu that devastated farmers in 2015 re-emerged. Now, in 2024, we’re still deep in the throes of a bird flu pandemic (so far, mostly contained to animals)—and we have no signs that infections will slow. From January 2022 to June 2024, the USDA found 96.5 million infected birds—and there’s more to come. With so many years of research, loss of animals and stress to the public, one might expect that we would be closer to solving the bird flu crisis, but we’re lagging on actionable answers.

A problem of our own making

Sadly, as it stands today, bird flu isn’t being handled humanely, which should be our bare minimum for epidemics like this. A common method is ventilation shutdown, which is exactly what it sounds like. The ventilation of an enclosure is shut off until the birds die “naturally.” Ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) is a method where ventilation shutdown is combined with additional heat or gas in attempts to make the process more efficient; there’s no doubt that the birds subjected to this method still suffer excruciatingly. 

According to Ben Williamson, director of Compassion in World Farming, the leading methods of euthanasia for infected birds is “ventilation shutdown, which involves killing birds by an excruciating combination of asphyxiation and heatstroke, is inhumane, contrary to WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) standards and should be banned.”

According to the Animal Welfare Institute, about 77 percent of birds infected with bird flu, or 44.9 million birds, were killed via ventilation shutdown from February 2022 to March 2023. In these situations, the WOAH recommends the use of inert gasses, such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide, to be pumped into enclosures, which is a more humane method of slaughter. 

AWI’s analysis of USDA records indicates that operations with large flocks (at least 100,000 birds) were much more likely to employ VSD+ as a mass-killing method. Even with the widespread use of VSD+ in such situations, however, the USDA’s depopulation timeline was not met in a majority of cases. Of the 37 large flock depopulation events that involved VSD+ during a 16-month timespan between 2022 and 2023, nearly two-thirds took at least three days to complete. That’s far from a humane end for birds who were already potentially infected and suffering. In the most extreme cases, in which at least one million birds were involved, depopulation took more than two weeks. 

The USDA has requested that organizations only deploy VSD+ as a last-resort method of culling—and yet, in cases of such large populations of birds, humane options are rarely efficient, and so they are ignored. In addition, turning the ventilation off within a farm is essentially a free method of euthanasia, even if it’s slow and painful. More humane methods are associated with costs for which farms might not want to foot the bill. Chickens are already one of the least protected species when it comes to slaughter. They are exempt from the Humane Methods Of Slaughter Act, largely due to industry lobbying, and are instead given a provision in the 2005 Treatment of Live Poultry Before Slaughter notice by the USDA that they should be handled and slaughtered in a way that “is consistent with good commercial practices.” What this means, however, is not clearly defined. 

No easy way forward

Despite factory farms supplying the majority of the world’s poultry supply, growing concerns are also mounting over their inability to efficiently manage or stop the spread of disease. As of 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 164,099 registered poultry farms in the US, and the majority of them are factory farms.  According to analysis by the Sentience Institute, 99.9 percent of America’s broiler chickens live on factory farms, only slightly higher than 99.8 percent of America’s turkeys. 

“Factory farms create the ideal conditions for the spread of the disease, as they give viruses a constant supply of genetically similar hosts in close proximity to each other—allowing infections to spread rapidly—and for highly harmful new strains to emerge,” says Williamson. “Most worrying of all, keeping large numbers of immune-suppressed birds in close proximity also increases the risk of viruses mutating, perhaps with the risk of evolving into new more pathogenic strains, which can then multiply and spread.” Not only are factory farms a breeding ground for diseases, but stress suppresses the immune system in poultry, and there’s data showing that poultry in factory farms are indeed stressed. Many environmental factors that we’d find unpleasant—heat, crowding, light, noise—all negatively impact chickens, too.  

“When a farm has hundreds of thousands of birds per shed (or tens of thousands of birds per shed in some cage-free systems), rapid disease spread is unavoidable. What’s more, on a policy level, the government and farms are not treating these outbreaks as something that can be mitigated within a farm—if disease is detected, the entire flock is killed,” says karol orzechowski, from Faunalytics, an organization that collects data and research to improve animal welfare. “In this framework, mitigating disease within a farm becomes a moot point.” While there is no cure for HPAI in chickens, there’s no efficient way to test large flocks, meaning uninfected birds are culled along with their infected shedmates. 

There’s no easy answer here. There are plenty of expedient ways to cull chickens without prolonged suffering—cervical dislocation by hand, throat slitting, individualized gassing—that produce much less suffering. But these methods take additional time and money, leading many corporations to opt for the easier method, regardless of  the torment the animals endure.

The Better Chicken Initiative, headed by Compassion in World Farming USA, is a program intended to improve the lives of chickens in factory farms, as well as breed healthier chickens that produce better-quality meat for consumers. Launched in 2014, the organization estimates that with corporate partnerships through the program, the conditions and lives for over 100 million chickens have been improved. Meanwhile, some farms are taking matters into their own hands, such as Kipster, a Dutch egg farm (that has just opened its first US location), prioritizing humane conditions and carbon-neutral farming. 

Whether or not we’re ready to accept it, there’s probably one answer that’s far more humane than any proposed alternatives to bird flu—restructuring not only how factory farms operate but how we treat farmed poultry. Until we have conditions for farmed birds that don’t actively promote the spread of illness, we’ll have to keep fighting. We may not see immediate solutions to the bird flu crisis, but strengthening our animal welfare practices now will help animals and consumers for generations to come.

The post Opinion: Bird Flu is a Problem. The Way We Deal With it is Cruel appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Unlike wildlife scat, which spreads seeds and returns nature’s nutrients in a balanced way, most conventional pet diets yield large amounts of waste.

The average dog produces about three quarters of a pound of poop per day, or 275 pounds per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Philadelphia accounts for tens of millions of pounds of dog waste annually, while New York City contributes 82,125 tons.  

A pile left to rot on the ground can take months to decay, potentially shedding bacteria, viruses and worms. The nutrient-rich waste is likely to get into storm drains and waterways, helping fuel toxic algal blooms. 

So, scooping seems like an easy win. But what about that plastic bag that’s typically part of the bargain? In the small city of Morro Bay, California, about 1,000 bags are used for each dog’s waste per year. These, too, get left on the ground, where rain can wash the entire neatly tied package into waterways.

A study estimates that up to 1.23 million tons of dog poop bags are disposed of annually around the world. It’s a small fraction (0.6 percent) of all plastic waste, but as the authors note in their title, their brief life cycle makes them “a non-negligible source of plastic pollution.” 

Some cities even require pet waste to be double-bagged to shield workers from the contents. 

In landfills, whether it’s incinerated or sits slowly decaying, poop adds to methane gas emissions. Packaged poop can take hundreds of years to break down, even in bags deemed compostable or biodegradable; certifications that are based on commercial composting conditions, not landfills—but US industrial composting facilities don’t accept pet waste.

The Biodegradable Products Institute, which sets standards for such bags, stopped certifying pet bags for the US market for that reason.

“I would just like to find one commercial composter in the US that accepts dog waste, period,” says Gary Bilbro, sales director at EcoSafe Zero Waste bags, on a web post. Faced with a dog waste composting desert, EcoSafe quit selling its certified compostable doggy bags in the US. “Our Canadian markets purchase hundreds of thousands monthly, but most of the Canadian composters accept pet waste.”

In fact, dozens of communities in Canada, in the provinces of Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan, compost dog poop, saying it reduces the amount of plastic going to landfills, while studies have found it can cut the volume of dog waste in half.

In the US, dog parks are catching on.

Lessons From Mushers and Others

Composting is the controlled breakdown of organic matter into humus, a rich soil amendment many prefer over chemical fertilizers. Farmers and gardeners often use livestock manure from poultry, cattle or horses. But when it comes to dog manure, the process is frequently shunned over fears of pathogens—despite the widespread practice of fertilizing crops with “biosolid compost”—sewage sludge—which has been found to contain toxic PFAS chemicals and many other hazards.

Mingchu Zhang, professor of soil science and agronomy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, cautions in an email about infectious organisms in dog poop that might survive composting. “That is perhaps why most cities prohibit it.”

Yet a number of studies and pilot projects have helped pioneer the composting of dog waste— and unlike biosolids, it’s not being spread on food crops. 

The first scientific study took place in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1991. In the land of the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race are scads of dog lots near wetlands. As snow melted, piles of manure reappeared and infiltrated waterways. Armed with an EPA grant, conservation agencies and dog mushers worked together to find a fix. 

In summer, poop is mixed with sawdust in covered bins in a ratio of about 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen. Every one to two weeks, rangers give it a stir, and in one to two months, it shrinks into a smaller pile of crumbly soil. Over winter, there’s no stirring the frozen mix; poop is collected, but the entire process takes one to two years. 

Composting is still in use at some sled dog kennels, including one in Denali National Park, the only national park that composts this waste from its sled dogs as part of its commitment to starve the landfills.

“Since it’s from dog manure, it is not recommended for vegetables, but there are a lot of other uses for it,” says ranger Mitch Flanigan. In 2021, the kennels produced 6,650 pounds of compost. A lot of it winds up in flower pots in the kennel and visitor center. Some is donated to locals through signs he posts in stores, he says. One resident used the material as backfill for a septic system.

Composting is also thriving at many US dog parks and other places that took a chance on the maligned material. New York City’s Battery Park uses it, once fully cured and tested, for plantings in highway medians. 

Mississauga, Ontario, which in 2019 began processing dog poop at waste-to-energy facilities, turns some into fertilizer. City spokesperson Irene McCutcheon says that, in 2023, almost 14 metric tons of dog waste was collected and diverted—”the equivalent of powering close to eight homes for a year.”

Repurposing dog poop is also helping Colorado front range communities inch closer to their zero waste goals. Rose Seemann, who started a composting company called EnviroWagg, has helped forge a path by working with Metro Denver and Boulder dog parks, hiking trail heads and businesses. 

The poop is collected by a pet waste removal service partner, which  delivers it to the composting facility. The finished product is used only on landscaping at the compost site, with no distribution to the public, says Seeman. Past batches intended for sale have tested safe. Each batch needs to be tested separately, but once a batch passes EPA standards for pathogen levels, it can be used for edible plants.

So, why do we recycle sewage sludge in the US but not dog poop? 

Plastic Ick  

Ten years ago, EnviroWagg created and test marketed a product for use on herbs, fruits and vegetables. It tested well for plant nutrients and passed EPA standards for pathogens, making it “an excellent soil amendment for both landscaping and edible crops,” says Seemann.

But that wasn’t enough.

“The ick factor made it a difficult sell.” 

Today, the company doesn’t turn a profit, she says, and that’s not unusual. “No one has figured out a way to monetize the process.” Programs such as  those in NYC are carried out by parks departments, while communities in Canada and Australia accept pet poop with food scraps and yard waste in residential green bins.

The EPA doesn’t recognize it as a waste stream, she says, “although audits and guesses say it adds up to around 12 percent of residential waste.”

But any commercial composting facility that follows processing regulations and testing protocols can do it, says Seemann. And professionally finished compost can be used for any planting, even produce.

“It’s just a perception issue.” 

The main challenges in getting dog parks and cities to take it on are convincing the public decision-makers who authorize budgeting, and finding a regional composter willing to accept pet waste, she says.

And once again, plastic trips things up.

Dog park composting pilot projects live on—or not depending on people knowing what goes where. Two dog parks in Calgary recently ended a six-month trial because people were tossing plastic in the composting bin. Only certified compostable bags were allowed.

Adding dog poop to US organics curbside collection programs would create a mess for sorters who have to remove contaminants such as  plastic, and in turn, the compost facility charged with managing it.

According to the Biodegradable Products Institute, many doggy bags advertised as compostable are actually petroleum-based products treated with chemicals to hasten their breakdown.

To get around the plastic problem, Friends of Hillside Dog Park in New York City placed scoopers and biodegradable brown paper next to the compost bins. 

Do-It-Yourself

Poop near a storm drain is one thing, but the Environmental Protection Agency sees the benefits in repurposing it. “Dog waste composting is a natural process that requires air, water, organic matter, microbes and a little human intervention,” its  website notes.

Seemann says the big difference between commercial and DIY compost is that the latter should not be used on edible gardens unless it’s been tested. Backyard composters can struggle to maintain the high temperatures needed to kill pathogens. Denali rangers recommend home poop composters sustain a temperature range between 130°F and 170°F.

But the process—cooking, turning, curing a dedicated poop pile—isn’t that hard to learn. It can even be done in small spaces. 

“Compost dog waste the same as other materials. The dog poo is green, so you need to balance it with carbon.” Rose Seemann

Add the variables of climate, weather and available materials to get a sense of the trial and error aspect. When any unfinished compost smells, it needs carbon—such as wood chips or shredded straw—and turning. 

Zhang, the soil scientist at the University of Alaska, cautions about selling or giving away backyard compost unless it reaches US EPA standards. “People who use it on their own are responsible for themself for the issues that may arise from compost dog manure.” 

Good composting, on the other hand, can keep problems in check while it shrinks the waste—and that mountain of plastic used to package it.

The post Closing the Loop on Poop appeared first on Modern Farmer.