Last week, organizers from environmental organization Food & Water Watch traveled across New Mexico, meeting with impacted community members to discuss the effects of factory farms on the state’s air, water, climate and family-scale farms. They also held a series of screenings of the film Right to Harm, a documentary that chronicles the failures of state agencies to regulate industrial animal agriculture at the expense of people living nearby. 

This roadshow wrapped up just days before the organization launched its campaign to pass a moratorium on new and expanding factory farms across the state in order to protect New Mexicans from the dangers of corporate agriculture and history of responsible family agriculture and land stewardship. 

Alexa Moore, New Mexico Organizer for Food & Water Watch, said, “As we traveled across the state, speaking with residents of impacted communities and driving through frontline communities, one thing became abundantly clear: Big Ag is fueling a climate and public health crisis in New Mexico. Stopping the spread of these industrial facilities is the first step in building the food system that we deserve – one that protects our environment, communities, and the welfare of animals. Governor Lujan Grisham and the New Mexico legislature must pass a moratorium on new and expanding factory farms. It is an essential step in shifting our food system to one that is truly sustainable.”

Background: 

While the growing number of mega-dairies in southern New Mexico may seem like an isolated problem, the impact they are having on our family-scale farms is undeniable. Factory farms have taken over the New Mexican landscape over the past few decades and farmers have been forced to either expand their operations, or exit farming altogether. These economic hardships hit smaller, sustainable family-scale farms the hardest. Today, the state has around half as many small dairies (under 500 head) compared to 20 years ago. New Mexico also now touts some of the largest herd sizes in the country, with the average mega-dairy confining more than 3,000 cows. 

Corporate agriculture giants such as mega-dairies pollute New Mexico’s air through greenhouse gas emissions and use up and contaminate the state’s vital water supplies. Mega-dairies in particular use an enormous amount of water, requiring 32 million gallons a day to maintain the dairy cows living on those facilities or 11 billion gallons annually. This amount could supply 289,000 households with their indoor water needs for a year. New Mexico’s factory farms have long histories of polluting groundwater, the source of drinking water for many New Mexicans. Elevated levels of pollutants, particularly nitrates, in drinking water are linked to health problems, including cancer and the life threatening condition called blue-baby syndrome.