the fires in the Amazon have gotten people talking about the harmful impacts of cattle ranching in South American countries like Brazil and Bolivia. in response, this week's post will focus on the cattle industries of California, investigating what ranching has done to the land and culture here.
have you ever seen an ad campaign for Real California Milk? they have that one line:
"great milk comes from happy cows; happy cows come from California."
but, do they though? 🤔 you may know, cows are not native to California; Europeans only started bringing them here in the 1700s. so, how did cattle ranching become the top mode of land use in this state? the short answer is: Spanish colonizers. the long answer is in the rest of this post.
current context
today, nearly 40 million acres of California land is pasture to be grazed by livestock like cattle.
CA ranks 5th in the nation for highest cattle population, with an estimated 5,150,000 cows counted in early 2019.
listen — California is the Wild West, OK?! 🤠 but you may be wondering, why are there so many cows? one could argue that it's for profit: supply and demand! people are buying cattle-based products and, statewide, ranchers stay ready to provide.
economics
the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture showed that California's cow-milk products earned about $6.48 billion, and production of cattle and calves earned around $3.1 billion (note: California cattle are used to produce many materials other than beef and dairy, including ingredients for medicines, antifreeze, and chewing gum). cattle ranching is clearly a significant part of the state's economy; the California Department of Farming and Agriculture, or CDFA, calls the cattle industry "invaluable to California's agriculture."
industrialization
just how industrial has cattle production become?
today, there are approximately 2,200 dairies with an average inventory of about 700 milk cows.
in the southern part of the state, each year about 450,000 head of cattle are fed in Imperial County feedlots.
further north in Fresno County, Harris Cattle Ranch sprawls out in the city of Coalinga, the largest cattle ranch on the West Coast. it allegedly holds 70,000 to 100,000 head of cattle at a time, and in 2010, Harris Ranch claimed to have produced over 150 million pounds of beef.
as you may know, the proper term for one of those industrial-scale livestock lots is a CAFO, or "concentrated animal feeding operation." the USDA defines a CAFO as an "animal feeding operation in which animals are raised in confinement and has greater than 1000 ‘animal units’ confined for over 45 days a year" (with 1000 “animal units” equal to 1000 head of beef cattle or 700 dairy cows). about 535,000 of the 5.1 million cattle counted in California this year are "on feed," meaning they don't spend their days grazing the state's sprawling pasturelands and are most likely living on CAFOs.
CAFOs mainly produce pollution in the form of sewage, but they also emit hazardous gases and chemicals like ammonia and hydrogen sulfides. open-air "feedlots" (like the ones used by Harris Ranch) produce manure waste in large outdoor areas, which can contaminate their surrounding environments. but there are, of course, closed air operations as well, and they employ methods of waste treatment and disposal that are also hazardous to local water, earth, and air quality. in addition, these kind of industrial livestock operations are largely known for their unsafe labor conditions and low wages.
today's use of technology and factory machinery in dairy and beef production has meant that one single ranch can produce massive amounts of material each year — including waste and pollutants.
is there a shifting culture?
it's true that even pasture-raised cattle pose environmental hazards, often due to their numbers combined with some ranchers' neglect of their cows' migrations through grasslands. in recent years, numerous books and documentary films have flooded the market exposing environmental damage and human health issues caused by factory farming of animals, and corporate food production overall. more and more Californians are transitioning to eating a plant-based diet, as evidenced by the demand being met by the state's 168 vegan restaurants.
while Californians could go entirely plant-based to offset the damage done by meat and dairy production, there are still people here who can't fathom moving away from animal products. there's a definite ranchers' culture here, and people are largely attached to it because of family ties and traditions. according to the California Cattlemen's Association (CCA): "most California ranches are family owned and operated, and many have been in the same family for four or more generations." (it's worth noting that in the context of these lands, the tradition of livestock farming at this scale is not very old, at all, going back only a handful of generations... and is, therefore, massively outweighed by the tens-of-thousands of years of Indigenous peoples *not* ranching cattle on these lands.) but at the very least, eliminating all CAFOs from California would be a worthwhile step in shifting the overall culture.
when did cattle ranching come to California?
as you know, California became the 31st state of the USA in 1850, but before that, it was a part of Mexico — and before that, Spain. and before that, European colonization was not a factor in the daily lives of the people here. you know, it's common that Californians regard their state's history as being somehow morally superior to, say, states in the southern part of this nation. however, before California's first Spanish mission opened in Alta in 1769, around 300,000 Indigenous individuals were living in the state of California, but by 1833, less than half remained due to generations of Spanish violence. (a single blog post is not enough space to delve into all of these intersecting parts of this state's history, so apologies for the brief manner that Indigenous peoples' history in the state of California is being addressed in this week's post... )
the various Indigenous peoples of California did not raise cattle until colonizers came and stole land, forcing displaced peoples to do ranch labor on it. anthropologists believe many of California's Indigenous communities, before European occupation, spent about "10 or 15 hours a week hunting, fishing, gathering, producing what they needed to eat and wear." pre-colonization, Indigenous communities lived here with resource-rich lands and evidence shows that, for them, sustainably living off the land was not some far-off, fantasy but instead an everyday reality.
in contrast, the Spanish and Mexican ranchers' use of California's grassy hills and even deserts as ranges for livestock changed the ecosystems on these lands. in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s, ranchers and property owners statewide attempted to exterminate both Indigenous peoples and plant and animal species, and ended up creating an environment where California's soil and vegetation require constant human attention.
for example, grazing pastures for Spanish cattle took priority over expansive deer habitat where hunting was previously done. and by constructing missions and ranches, the Spanish violently removed and relocated Indigenous communities up and down the state. in addition, the Spanish and other European colonizers brought non-native plants to these lands, including Eucalyptus trees and grasses that grow out of control with each rainy season.
today, cattle industry supporters argue that livestock like cattle are great for grazing grasses and help California deal with overgrowth that would otherwise pose extreme fire danger. this argument ignores the reality that land developers do not HAVE to build communities in fire hazardous lands, but choose to do so in order to make money. this argument about grazing also acts as if the European colonizers' changes to this land are permanent, irreversible, or impossible to mitigate. and at this point, that seems like a pretty limiting perspective to operate from.
conclusion
the rainforests that we see in Northern California today are vital to the health of our planet, just like the rest of the landscapes of California and any location are of importance to the health of the globe. in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, professor and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer of Citizen Potawatomi Nation describes the West Coast of the United States prior to European colonization:
“In those days the ancient rainforests spread from Northern California to southeastern Alaska in a band between the mountains and the sea. Here is where the fog drips. Here is where the moisture laden air from the Pacific rises against the mountains to produce upward of one hundred inches of rain a year, watering an ecosystem rivaled nowhere else on earth. The biggest trees in the world. Trees that were born before Columbus sailed.”
in recent years, research has acknowledged that "California’s ranching community, which is reliant on rain-fed (i.e., climate- sensitive), pasture-based forage systems, is likely one of the most vulnerable to climate variability and drought (Roche, 2016)." in truth, it appears that cattle industry is both vulnerable to and also contributing to climate change.
California's agricultural industries have been focused on making profits for so many generations that their top earners have grown exponentially wealthier, while small family farms have not seen that same business growth. agri-biz monsters in this state have used unsustainable and unethical practices like mono-cropping, spraying of pesticides, controlling local and state police, abuse of farm animals, and intimidation of small farmers. these mega-corporations and the hazardous practices they engage in threaten our state's regional biodiversity.
and with all this agricultural industry, California is still not a state without hungry people; according to CA Food Banks, 4.6 Californians face food insecurity each day, including some 1.7 million children! if there is one priority California's agriculture giants should hold, it is eliminating hunger from their own communities. wouldn't that be something?
California's forests — like those of the Amazon — are not harming themselves. California's biodiversity isn't out here just kicking its own ass. but California's cattle are not to blame alone; let's face it, they didn't factory-farm themselves for the past couple hundred years! California's current context exists by human design! but it's not all of our design, because we're not all part of the top 1% wealthiest agri-business corporations. so while we must all do our own individual part, it is also up to these gigantic companies to stop doing things that are literally killing us all!!
additional resources:
Malcolm Margolin, The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisc-Monterey Bay Area
Fred B. Glass, From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement
CA Water Boards, NPDES, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
Tina L. Saitone, Livestock and Rangeland in California
Junglekeepers, Amazon Watch, and Rainforest Alliance helping to protect Amazonian rainforest
IPOC helping to protect Bay Area