Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation

A concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an animal feeding operation (AFO) in which over 1000 animal units are confined for over 45 days a year. An animal unit is the equivalent of 1000 pounds of 'live' animal weight. A thousand animal units equates to 1000 cows, 700 cows used for dairy purposes, 2500 pigs weighing more than 55 lbs, 125 thousand chickens, or 82 thousand egg laying hens or pullets. A concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an animal feeding operation (AFO) in which over 1000 animal units are confined for over 45 days a year. An animal unit is the equivalent of 1000 pounds of 'live' animal weight. A thousand animal units equates to 1000 cows, 700 cows used for dairy purposes, 2500 pigs weighing more than 55 lbs, 125 thousand chickens, or 82 thousand egg laying hens or pullets. For regulatory purposes a CAFO is also an animal feeding operation of any size that discharges its waste into a waterway. For the most part, there are regulations that restrict how much waste can be distributed and for what the quality of the materials has to be. As of 2016 there were around 212,000 AFOs in the United States,:1.2 19,496 of which were CAFOS. Livestock production has become increasingly dominated by CAFOs in the United States and other parts of the world. Most poultry was raised in CAFOs starting in the 1950s, and most cattle and pigs by the 1970s and 1980s. By the mid-2000s CAFOs dominated livestock and poultry production in the United States, and the scope of their market share is steadily increasing. In 1966, it took one million farms to house 57 million pigs; by the year 2001, it took only 80,000 farms to house the same number. There are roughly 212,000 AFOs in the United States,:1.2 of which 19,496 met the more narrow criteria for CAFOs in 2016. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has delineated three categories of CAFOs, ordered in terms of capacity: large, medium and small. The relevant animal unit for each category varies depending on species and capacity. For instance, large CAFOs house 1,000 or more cattle, medium CAFOs can have 300–999 cattle, and small CAFOs harbor no more than 300 cattle.