Factory Farms in Iowa Generate 110 Billion Pounds of Manure Per Year. No One Tracks Where Its Going

More than a thousand hogs grow fat in the enclosed shed-like structures on Gene Tinker’s farm in northeast Iowa, while a few hundred cattle pace in open feedlots.

His farm is one of nearly 8,000 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Iowa. But the 64-year-old is not an average Iowa pork producer.

Less than a decade ago, Tinker was the state’s top administrator managing questions and disputes over livestock operation permitting.

Tinker was the animal feeding operations coordinator at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for 14 years. Before losing his job during department budget cuts in 2017, he advised staff who granted permits to livestock facilities and reviewed plans for handling the manure produced by those facilities.

For years, Tinker says, he had unsuccessfully advocated for the department to update its rules on applying livestock manure as fertilizer. Now, the former coordinator of the state’s livestock regulating body says the DNR’s approach to enforcing regulations and collecting data about livestock waste is inadequate, emphasizing the need for better management to address environmental risks and protect water quality.

While the DNR requires farmers to submit documents outlining their plans for spreading livestock manure, the agency doesn’t collect records of where and how much manure is actually spread.

Those records exist, produced by the certified hauling companies that contract with CAFOs to apply manure. But Iowa law classifies them as “confidential,” limiting public oversight and accountability.