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On the negative externalities point, can someone please explain how there are no negative externalities when you have 100 farms with 100 cows each vs 10 farms w
by gcheong 8y ago
On the negative externalities point, can someone please explain how there are no negative externalities when you have 100 farms with 100 cows each vs 10 farms with 1000? The amount of waste generated is the same, presumably, and it all has to go somewhere, but perhaps it's just spread out more so that negative externalities aren't as apparent or is there a real difference as the article only brings them up as a consequence of large operations.
- ggm 8y agoHere's a fictitious but plausible example: Small operators impose a larger set of small burdens in time into things like waste stream, and transport. Large operators syphon their waste into the stream in one go, rather than diluting the 1000 cattle across a month, it presents as a wave of high nutrient content for processing. It overwhelms the tertiary waste treatment plant, requiring re-scaling of holding tanks, more oxygenation, more dilution into the river systems. Unless regulated, a single entity functioning as a "more efficient" process is very likely to impose scale breaking consequence on things. This would be true to road transport (for cows, for milk) for energy (cold storage, pumping) and it is very likely at a lower overall labour cost, so significantly higher apparent efficiency and profit to the farm holding corporate entity, but at community cost in terms of infrastructure/utility burden. Even thermal: a single aggregated cow barn for 1000 animals will radiate more heat have have a more aggressive effect on the microclimate than 10 100 cow sheds over a larger area...