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CAFOs, Chemicals & Corn: Hidden Horrors of the Not-so-Magical Magic Valley, Idaho
The stench of rotting cow shit and toxic chemicals hung over the entire place like a cloud you couldn’t escape for miles.
My stomach curdled and eyes burned.
Rage and despair boiled from within me. “How could humans do this to the Earth and to ourselves? How could we be so freaking stupid?” I asked to nobody in particular.
The air was heavy and silent.
I couldn’t take my eyes from the windows as my partner drove our tiny home school bus through southern Idaho’s dismal farm landscape.
Dystopian agricultural nightmare
Industrial corn monocultures extended for thousands of acres- miles- as far as the eye could see.
Bare herbicide-drenched dirt lined every field. Massive erosion gullies scarred the Earth.
Endless dairy CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations, aka “factory farms”) swallowed the landscape.
Incomprehensible numbers of black-and-white-spotted dairy cows stood crowded in dystopian barren corrals and industrial milking barns.
Piles of anaerobic manure were piled a hundred feet tall around the perimeter.
Bright streetlights shone down on them in desolate pens. The lights pierced through the dark night as if setting the stage for the dismal chemical-laden nightmare of what has become of American agriculture.
Poison smog & cancer rates
Can you imagine living in such a place?
A visible poison smog layer of pesticides and nitrates enshrined the entire valley.
We hurriedly shut all the windows to keep the polluted air out, but the headache-inducing smell of manure and chemicals leaked through the cracks.
My heart broke for the people and animals living in that disgusting cloud of CAFOs, chemicals, and corn.
