"Humans and pigs easily swap #influenza #viruses. Worse still, pigs can also pick up influenza strains that circulate among birds, whose viruses aren’t well adapted to infecting and spreading among people. Humans don’t have the receptors in our throats and noses that avian flus can easily attach to. Our isolation from avian flus is what makes them dangerous—since our immune systems rarely encounter them, we have little innate ability to fight them off. Enter pigs. They can catch flu strains from birds (often carrying them without symptoms), mash them up with genetic material from human-adapted flus, and create novel varieties capable of flummoxing human immunity and generating #pandemics. That’s why virologists call hogs “mixing vessels” for novel influenza strains."
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/06/tightly-packed-poultry-and-pig-farms-could-be-incubating-the-next-deadly-flu/
#CAFOs

"#Fertilizers filled with the nutrient boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing #DeadZones in our lakes and seas."

#Phosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End It

#AlgalBlooms #HABs #BigAg #Agrochimie #CAFOs #FactoryFarming #WaterPollution #eutrophication

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/phosphorus-saved-our-way-of-life-and-now-threatens-to-end-it/amp

New post: Bob Watson, Larry Stone, and Dick Janson share the introduction to their handbook for regulating hog confinements.

(with link to the ebook, which can be downloaded for free) #Iowa #ag #environment #CAFOs https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2023/02/12/hog-confinements-and-human-health/

Grist: A tiny Wisconsin town tried to stop pollution from factory farms. Then it got sued.

#CAFOs

John McCracken

https://grist.org/article/what-happens-when-citizens-try-regulate-factory-farms/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily

@conradhackett @sociology
happy #coosday! #Ruminant animal grazing is effective at building soil #carbon and #organic matter. poorer soils are often grazed rather than farmed (remember what we tried to do that created the dust bowl?) Missing here are riparian buffers (cattle fenced out of streams and reforested) and other soil conservation/water quality #bestpractices, especially in the #chesapeakebay watershed. #grassfedbeef and #timber is how we live here.
#CAFOs #soybeans #corn issues.

Oh, #shit! #Hurricane #Florence is going to #NorthCarolina, which has the some of the world’s largest #FactoryFarms and #CAFOs and, therefore, also the source of billions of tons of #AnimalWaste that will get redistributed. So many #animals will drown in the storm because the factories are located in #FloodPlains. #ToxicWaste #Pollution #DeadZones #Bacteria #Sludge #DeadPigs #AlgalBlooms #Feces #ClimateChange #Toxic #Manure

https://returntonow.net/2018/09/13/nc-hurricane-manure-lagoons/