> The manure problem is a problem at any size of farm, the amount of manure per cow is somewhat constant. So concentrating all the cows in some factory farm doesn't really make anything worse as long as the total number of cows is somewhat constant.
I wonder if this is true. Perhaps the real problem is the concentration of such a large amount of waste in those manure lakes.
I don't have any fixed evidence or numbers, but recalling my youth working on a 200 - 250 cow dairy, the animals were strip grazed in paddocks during the day and night. They would therefore mostly defecate in the paddock, on the grass, spread across a wider area and acting as a natural fertiliser.
There was a small manure pond with wastewater from the dairy itself, but this was not large.
Problems with large manure lakes intuitively seem more likely as the nitrates and other nasties are concentrated, something which doesn't seem as bad with the same amount of manure spread across a grassy paddock.
> I don't have any fixed evidence or numbers, but recalling my youth working on a 200 - 250 cow dairy, the animals were strip grazed in paddocks during the day and night. They would therefore mostly defecate in the paddock, on the grass, spread across a wider area and acting as a natural fertiliser.
This is something the author mentions in passing: Almost everywhere, farms are required by law to have a certain amount of land per piece of cattle to spread the manure on. So as long as that certain amount of land is large enough and the spreading happens sufficiently often, there shouldn't be a problem. If there is a problem, current regulations need to be updated. That land requirement will also naturally limit the total amount of cattle that is being raised.
This is indeed the case. On the other side of the same issue, the loss of large mammals in the wild slows down the natural cycling of nitrogen and this has a knock-on effect that leads to further loss of biomass. This has been an issue since the start of human civilization but intensive herding of animals certainly did not help.
I wonder if this is true. Perhaps the real problem is the concentration of such a large amount of waste in those manure lakes.
I don't have any fixed evidence or numbers, but recalling my youth working on a 200 - 250 cow dairy, the animals were strip grazed in paddocks during the day and night. They would therefore mostly defecate in the paddock, on the grass, spread across a wider area and acting as a natural fertiliser.
There was a small manure pond with wastewater from the dairy itself, but this was not large.
Problems with large manure lakes intuitively seem more likely as the nitrates and other nasties are concentrated, something which doesn't seem as bad with the same amount of manure spread across a grassy paddock.