Well I think that the nation as a whole has created the livestock exhaust problem and now does not know what to do about it so they will just regulate the farmer and make him figure it out. The nation has insisted on consolidation for years and it is now catching up with us.Today’s cow exhaust is the same as it was 50 years ago it is just you have to have 1000 exhaust pipes now instead of 100 exhaust pipes to make a profit. My grandfather's generation had 30 cow dairy barn. Had enough land to grow all his own crops. Milked the cows; pasteurized the milk in-house; and delivered it daily with a horse drawn cart. My dad's generation had 150 cow dairy barn. Raised most crops but bought some. Sent the milk out via a bulk tanker. My generation has a 3 to 500 cow dairy barn. We buy most crops but grow our hay. We ship our milk out by the truck load. My kids generation has 1500 PLUS dairy barn. All crops and hay are grown by others and hauled in. They milk cows and load trucks 24/7. The sad part is that all 4 generations have their dairy on the same amount of land. Heck they milk more cows today per farm on less acres per farm than my grandfather had. We have grown in size and specialized in one thing (milking cows) to stay competitive in today’s market. The problem is how do you keep land clean that will support 30 cows when you have 1500+ cows. No easy answers. We could go back to the 30 cow farm if we could find enough land and people were willing to pay the price for the cost of a family farm. Not likely! No one wants to live next to a farm with 100’s of cows per acre or have this farm pollute there rivers. But then again they do not want to pay the price to do it right. Ask a city kid where his milk and meat comes from and he will tell you the store on the corner. Chocolate milk does come from chocolate cows doesn’t it. :>)
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