Letter: Do not support factory farming

A recent Des Moines Register editorial asked why candidates don't talk about food. I would like to know why no one seems willing to talk about the failures of the industrial livestock system?

The federal government spent a billion dollars dealing with the bird flu in 2015. Iowa's Secretary of Ag asked our legislature for half a million dollars for 2016 to deal with bird flu and similar problems. They have said that the bird flu will return, that it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. This is taxpayer money being spent on private enterprises. Have they decided these businesses are too big to fail, so the taxpayers will be continuously asked to bail them out? A similar problem occurred in 2013 and 2014 when disease outbreaks affected pigs in 31 states. Seven million pigs died.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, should not exist. Taxpayers should not be keeping them afloat. They are degrading the environment and they are torturing animals. They overuse antibiotics and are incubators of disease including superbugs. They put public health at risk.

The New York Times Feb. 1 editorial 'No More Exposes in North Carolina” sheds light on factory farms and the ag gag laws that are passed to keep the public in the dark (http://tinyurl.com/hpug6xn). Do not support factory farming. We need to phase it out.

Lynn Gallagher

Solon