OPINION: Moratorium needed on corporate farming, starting with mega-dairies

Spending a week recently traveling across New Mexico, speaking to communities impacted by factory farms affirmed one thing over and over again: New Mexico has a rich history of responsible family agriculture and land stewardship. It’s a history we are proud of, and one that should be protected and preserved.

This is just one of many reasons why it’s so alarming to see the rate at which we are losing our family farms, while massive factory farms responsible for polluting our air and water and fueling climate change are taking over.

While the growing number of mega-dairies in southern New Mexico may seem like an isolated problem, the impact they are having on family-scale farms is great. Smaller, sustainable family farms have been forced to either expand their operations to compete or exit farming altogether.

These economic hardships hit smaller family dairies the hardest. Today the state has around half as many small dairies — those with fewer than 500 head — as 20 years ago. New Mexico now holds some of the largest herd sizes in the country, with the average state mega-dairy confining more than 3,000 cows.

Mega-dairies monopolize and contaminate the state’s vital water supplies – particularly concerning given we’re in the midst of an historic mega-drought. They use an enormous amount of water, requiring an average of 32 million gallons a day to maintain the dairy cows living on these facilities – 11 billion gallons annually.

This amount could supply 289,000 New Mexico households with their indoor water needs for a year.

Additionally, when we cannot fully sustain the water needs of small farmers – some farmers we’ve spoken to reported their taps being shut off as early as August – addressing industrial abuse becomes more urgent than ever.

Furthermore, when it comes to water contamination, New Mexico’s factory farms have a long history of polluting groundwater, the source of drinking water for many New Mexicans. Many of the people we spoke to living near the mega-dairies in southern New Mexico told us not to drink the water. Elevated levels of pollutants, particularly nitrates, in drinking water are linked to health problems including cancer and the life-threatening condition known as blue-baby syndrome.

Furthermore, factory farms fuel climate change by releasing harmful and dangerous greenhouse gas emissions such as methane and nitrous oxide. They significantly diminish quality of life for the residents living nearby, many who suffer poor air quality due to contamination, flies and foul odors. Living near these facilities prevents residents from spending time outdoors or even being able to open their windows without fear of getting sick.

It’s time to shift away from a food system that is inherently extractive and exploitative to one that is truly regenerative: one that builds and prioritizes soil health, invests in the long-term fertility of farmland, protects the health of rural communities, and succeeds on natural rather than synthetic inputs.

That’s why Food & Water Watch is launching a statewide campaign to pass a moratorium on new and expanded factory farms. Stopping the spread of these mammoth industrial facilities is the first step in building the food system that we deserve – one that protects our environment, our climate, our communities and animal welfare.

This starts with halting the increase and expansion of mega-dairies and corporate factory farming in New Mexico.

Alexa Moore, of Taos, and Emily Tucker, of Albuquerque, are New Mexico organizers for Food & Water Watch.