This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished right here beneath a Artistic Commons license.
Sonoma County is the center of California wine nation. With a inhabitants of virtually half 1,000,000, the area is understood for its arable land and beautiful vistas – the “Tuscany of America,” in accordance with native rancher Bronte Edwards.
However Sonoma has a much less genteel facet: The realm can be dwelling to roughly 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farms not solely pressure animals to stay in overcrowded, soiled circumstances, additionally they produce copious quantities of manure, which may trigger water air pollution and different well being hazards.
In November, county residents can have the distinctive alternative to ban CAFOs with a poll initiative that will fully prohibit industrial livestock operations. If “Measure J” passes, Sonoma would be the first county in america to ban CAFOs. It might name for a moratorium on the creation of future amenities, together with a three-year phase-out interval for present operations. The petition to get Measure J on the poll garnered 17,000 signatures greater than the minimal of 20,000 wanted to get on the poll.
“It’s a superb stability of a average ask that’s extensively supported by the general public, and daring in that it’s the primary of its sort,” mentioned Cassie King, an organizer with the Coalition to Finish Manufacturing unit Farming, a set of teams backing Measure J.
In line with the Sierra Club, “massive, excessive density CAFOS have lowered the variety of livestock farmers within the U.S. by 80%.” In a tight-knit agricultural county like Sonoma, although, even the large gamers are pleasant faces on the grocery retailer. And if Measure J passes, it will pressure these bigger enterprises in Sonoma to vary their practices or shut down.
“It’s a superb stability of a average ask that’s extensively supported by the general public, and daring in that it’s the primary of its sort.”
The measure faces robust opposition, even from some small-scale farmers and ranchers, who concern that banning CAFOs will disrupt an economic system grounded in agritourism and gastronomy. The measure has cut up Sonoma County, with native farmers and anxious residents lining up on either side of the proposed ban. Each the “Sure on J” website and the one belonging to “No on J” characteristic quite a few native farms and advocacy teams.
In an electronic mail to Excessive Nation Information, Roy Smith, a Sonoma County farmer who runs a seven-acre hay operation, wrote that the talk lacks nuance: “Either side argue a fact, and either side allow a falsehood,” he mentioned. Nonetheless, he applauded Measure J for “rais(ing) consciousness of the presence of business confinement amenities in our yard.”
In a rustic dominated by large-scale farming operations comprising 1000’s of acres of monocrops, Sonoma County is an outlier. Forty-three p.c of its farms are very small — round one to 9 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 merchandise introduced in roughly $140 million.
A sequence of current authorized fights over water air pollution set the stage for Measure J. Final 12 months, Californians for Options to Toxics (CATs), a nonprofit that focuses on chemical air 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 finally made its method to Tomales Bay and in the end the Pacific Ocean. Reichardt Duck Farm settled the swimsuit.
“We heartily help curbing CAFOs. They’re disgusting. They’ve a horrific affect on the setting,” mentioned Patty Clary, govt director of CATs, which is a member of the coalition backing Measure J.
This 12 months, on July 5, CATs gave a dairy CAFO in Sonoma a 60-day discover of the group’s intent to file swimsuit for violations of the Clear Water Act. Nearly all waterways in Sonoma County are thought of “impaired” by the Environmental Safety Company, which means they’re too polluted for swimming and boating.
Clary, who grew up in Sonoma County, just isn’t solely involved in regards to the animals in CAFOs, but additionally the lives of the individuals who work in them. Measure J declares that the county should present “a retraining and employment help program for present and former CAFO staff.” She hopes {that a} ban on CAFOs would create a “lower-key” agricultural setting.
“With no big CAFO, this type of animal manufacturing could be extra unfold out locally, the place individuals might develop little co-ops and have quite a lot of small farms offering the product that one large CAFO is producing,” she mentioned.
Measure J is extra difficult for a lot of native farmers, together with Smith, who raises sheep, poultry and swine, along with hay. However he agrees with one main facet of it: a ban on poultry confinement amenities in Sonoma.
“They’re an abomination in each attainable means,” he mentioned.
Smith grew up in Sonoma and laments the adjustments he has witnessed; a shift from small-scale operations dotting the panorama to large-scale enterprises that gobble all the pieces up. “CAFOs, native and nationwide, proceed to drive retail costs down beneath ranges that may maintain small, humane, agroecological producers,” he mentioned.
However he fears that Measure J will affect some medium-sized dairies that, in his opinion, don’t meet the usual definition of a CAFO.
Bronte Edwards and her spouse, Liz Bell, who run Rainbow Household Ranching, share these issues. Edwards and Bell are self-described “queer first-gen livestock ranchers.” They describe their farm as “carbon detrimental” and attempt to buy regionally grown hay. The prospect of Measure J worries them, particularly its proposed definition of a CAFO, which denotes amenities the place “animals … have been, are, or will likely be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a complete of 45 days or extra in any 12-month interval.” This “45-day” rule is a part of the same definition that the EPA makes use of for CAFOs.
Different provisions within the measure — comparable to language specifying the variety of animals confined and the way waste is discharged — seem to guard farms just like the Rainbow Household Ranching from the ban. Advocates for Measure J have recognized 21 “massive CAFOs” in Sonoma County that home anyplace from 900 to 600,000 animals. A spokesperson for “Sure on Measure J” mentioned that an operation that meets the 45-day rule, however not one of the different CAFO definitions, wouldn’t be affected.
“This measure will pressure multigenerational household farmers to promote their farms. They are going to be fragmented, and they are going to be developed.”
Regardless of this, Edwards and Bell stay involved about what the measure will imply for his or her neighbors, a few of whom function amenities with over 200 head of livestock — which could render them a CAFO beneath Measure J.
“This measure will pressure multigenerational household farmers to promote their farms. They are going to be fragmented, and they are going to be developed,” Edwards mentioned.
She added that retaining farms collectively is vital for conservation, because it permits wildlife to maneuver between open areas and grazing lands. In her day job, Edwards works with a land belief to buy growth rights and easements to maintain farms complete, preserving land for future generations.
Whatever the end result on the poll field in November, either side of the Measure J debate agree on one factor: The proposal will depart a mark on Sonoma County. In line with Clary, if Measure J passes, it might set an instance to different counties throughout the nation.
“If it loses, it’s going to have made a crack within the within the eggshell, and it’ll nonetheless have an effect,” she mentioned.
This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished right here beneath a Artistic Commons license.
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