To the Editor:
In response to the Oct. 2, letter from William Wilson, I would like to correct an abundance of misinformation which was put forward as fact.
For those unfamiliar with a CAFO, they are large scale production facilities where livestock are raised indoors.
Made possible by advances in animal science and technology, they allow for substantial increases in overall meat production.
University of Missouri research has shown that moving animals such as pigs indoors has led to healthier animals and higher quality consumer products.
They also noted that there were significant declines in parasites and disease in the animals while they were protected from predators and weather extremes.
Mr. Wilson is horribly misinformed about the soybean data he presented. The livestock sector does not consume 98 percent of all soybean production.
Livestock accounts for utilizing 98 percent of soybean hulls as feed. Hulls are the by-product of making the hundreds of industrial and consumer products from soybeans that we enjoy every day.
Without the livestock sector, the by-product of soybean hulls and their nutritional value would actually go to waste.
So, the rest of his analogies of starving the world by feeding soybeans to livestock and underfunded bank accounts are without any merit.
Of the 2.1 million farms in America, about 200,000 of them "mostly family owned," product 85 percent of what we consume.
Let's be clear: Modern agriculture, including modern livestock and poultry production systems, produces healthful, nutritious and safe food at a price value for consumers.
It is done in an environmentally sustainable and humane way.
Not only do we rely on American agriculture for food, feed, fiber and fuel, our agricultural producers also preserve our environment and help drive our national economy.
They also feed the world.