Factory Farm Gas

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), also known as factory farms, are heavily polluting facilities that threaten rural economies and public health, disproportionately affecting communities of color and low-income communities. This is primarily due to the massive amounts of manure they generate — as much as one billion tons across the U.S. — that causes considerable water and air pollution. Factory farms are also major drivers of climate change, accounting for nearly 60% of emissions from the global food system and 36% of total U.S. methane emissions. Because methane is a powerful but short-lived climate pollutant, rapidly reducing methane emissions is critical to meeting global climate targets.

However, rather than regulate the industrial animal agriculture industry’s methane emissions, state and federal policies reward these industrial-scale polluters through incentives and taxpayer-funded subsidies that encourage the expansion of manure biogas, or factory farm gas, under the guise of climate change mitigation.

Manure biogas generates additional environmental and public health concerns for communities living near CAFOs. These include increased ammonia emissions during anaerobic digestion, increased water pollution from higher concentrations of nutrients in digestate, and air pollution from the new pipelines and trucks to transport manure or biogas. Burning factory farm gas creates even more toxic air pollution than burning fossil gas.

Friends of the Earth is working to address these harms by conducting original research and developing case studies that show how factory farm gas is an ineffective climate solution that runs counter to environmental justice goals. We also work with allies and uplift the voices of local communities to advocate with policy makers at USDA, EPA and Congress to stop subsidizing and incentivizing these harmful technologies.

Despite extensive public investments in digesters, the U.S. government is not monitoring or reporting on methane emissions from CAFOs with digesters or collecting basic information such as animal populations in ways necessary to understand whether these investments yield actual greenhouse gas reductions. Friends of the Earth is working with allies to demand basic reporting of methane emissions as well as better accounting for the purported methane reductions from this flawed technology. Even the overstated reductions from digesters will fail to reduce agricultural methane emissions in alignment with United States’ commitment to the Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

Alternatives to factory farm gas are less expensive, more effective, and less harmful. Friends of the Earth is advocating to redirect resources currently supporting manure biogas (i.e., grants and loans for digesters, technical assistance, tax credits, and incentives for biogas production) to more cost-effective methane reduction solutions that do not exacerbate environmental injustice and industry consolidation. We believe that taxpayer dollars should instead support real climate solutions, like supporting farmers and ranchers employing meaningful conservation practices or transitioning away from factory farming. We are also advocating to shift public food purchasing toward climate-friendly options and holding Big Ag companies responsible for their pollution.