FOOD

Factory Farms in Michigan

Fact Sheet • February 2011

O ver the last two decades, small- and medium-scale livestock farms have given
way to factory farms that confine thousands of cows, hogs and chickens in tightly
packed facilities. In Michigan, there were 871,000 hogs, 75,000 beef cattle, 149,000
dairy cows and 8.9 million chickens on the largest operations in 2007, according to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture.

The silos and gentle meadows pictured on the labels of

the food most Americans buy have little relation to how
that food is actually produced. The significant growth in
industrial-scale, factory-farmed livestock has contributed
to a host of environmental, public health, economic and
food safety problems. Tens of thousands of animals can
generate millions of tons of manure annually, which pol-
lutes water and air and can have health repercussions on
nearby communities. Consumers in distant markets also
feel the impacts, either through foodborne illness outbreaks
or other public health risks, or through the loss of regional
food systems. As consumers saw during the 2010 egg re-
call, food safety problems on even a few factory farms can
end up in everyone’s refrigerators. Even the producers are
not benefitting from this system of production because they
are not getting paid much for the livestock they raise.

The rise of factory farming was no accident. It resulted from

policy choices driven by big agribusinesses, especially
meatpackers and processors that dominate the links in the
Concentration of factory farms in Michigan, taken from factoryfarmmap.
food chain between livestock producers and consumers. org. Dark red indicates the most severe density.

Total Factory Farm Animals in Michigan

Dairy
In recent years, small- and mid-sized dairy farms disap-
peared and were replaced by factory-farmed dairies that
now dominate milk production. Between 1997 and 2007,
the United States lost 52,000 dairy farms — about 5,000
farms every year.1

Food & Water Watch found that although Michigan added

114,000 dairy cows to the largest operations over the
decade (an increase of more than 300 percent), the growth
of factory farms in Michigan was overwhelmed by the size
and growth of factory-farmed dairies in western states. In
Source: USDA.
2007, there were more than 2.7 million cows on factory- The Average Size of a Factory-Farm Egg-Laying
farmed dairies in California, Idaho, Texas and New Mexico. Operation
The emergence of western factory-farmed dairies has con-
tributed to the decline of local dairy farms in the South-
east, Northeast, Upper Midwest and parts of the Midwest.2 614,000
The average number of cows on Michigan factory farms
grew from 900 cows per operation in 1997 to nearly 1,300
cows in 2007, which is still lower than the national aver- 875,000
age of 1,480.
0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000

Small dairies generate less manure than factory farms and Source: USDA. National Michigan
can either apply it to cropland or incorporate it into pasture
as fertilizer at rates that the land can absorb. Big dairies
generate far more manure than they can use as fertilizer, so
it gets stored in lagoons or over-applied to cropland where
it can run off into nearby waterways. In 2009, as many as
200,000 fish were killed in a 12-mile length of the Black
River in Sanilac County, Michigan, after dairy manure was
improperly spread on fields.

A major player in Michigan is Vreba-Hoff, a company with

Dutch ties that sets up factory dairy farms for European
farmers. In 2007, the Michigan Department of Environmen-
tal Quality sued a 6,600-head Ingham County Vreba-Hoff
dairy for failing to comply with water quality laws and
violating a 2005 consent judgment. In 2009, the agency
sued the Vreba-Hoff Dairy again for hundreds of alleged
permit violations for failing to adequately treat manure,
and ordered the dairy to pay $223,500 in fines for manure
mismanagement incidents and spills dating back to 2007.
The 2007 court agreement required the dairy to pay penal-
ties and install manure treatment systems before it added
any more dairy cows to its facilities, but two years later the Congress, regulatory agencies and state goverments need to
company had not paid the fine. put a stop to the policies that have allowed these facilities
to proliferate. They must create and enforce farm and food
Eggs policies that allow farmers to make a living and do not
harm communities, the environment or public health.
Almost all eggs are produced on large-scale operations
with hundreds of thousands of layer hens in each facility. Take action: Go to www.factoryfarmmap.org to learn more
A handful of egg companies produce a large proportion of about factory farms in Michigan and to take action to stop
the eggs most Americans eat. In 2009, the four largest firms the spread of factory farms.
owned 30.2 percent of the laying hens in production.3 The
number of egg-laying hens on factory farms in Michigan
doubled from nearly 4.4 million in 1997 to over 8.7 million Endnotes
in 2007. The average size of Michigan factory-farmed egg 1 USDA NASS. Agricultural Statistics Database. Accessed August 5,
2008. Available at http://www.nass.usda.gov/QuickStats; MacDon-
facilities nearly tripled, from 335,600 in 1997 to 875,000
ald, James M. and William D. McBride. USDA ERS. “The Transfor-
in 2007. mation of U.S. Livestock Agriculture: Scale, Efficiency, and Risks.”
EIB-43. January 2009; Miller, James J. and Don P. Blayney. USDA,
Large layer facilities generate tremendous volumes of ma- ERS. “Dairy Backgrounder.” (LDP-M-145-01). July 2006 at 7.
nure and manure-tainted litter. The more than 3.5 million 2 USDA NASS. Agricultural Statistics Database.
3 Dr. Shane, Simon. “2008 Egg Industry Survey.” Watt Egg Industry.
egg-laying hens on factory farms in Allegan County, Michi- Vol. 114, No. 3. March 2009.
gan, produce as much untreated manure as the sewage
from the Austin, Texas, metro area.

Factory farms cause extensive environmental damage and

For more information:
leave communities with fewer independent family farms,
web: www.foodandwaterwatch.org
unsafe water, reduced air quality and depressed econo-
email: info@fwwatch.org
mies. Instead of benefitting, consumers face foodborne
phone: (202) 683-2500 (DC) • (415) 293-9900 (CA)
illness outbreaks and public health threats like antibiotic-
resistant bacteria.
Copyright © February 2011 Food & Water Watch