New Report: California’s Manure Biogas Subsidies Are Devastating Local Communities

WASHINGTON — Today, Friends of the Earth U.S., Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, and Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability published A Brown Cloud Over the Golden State: How Dairy Digesters Are Driving CAFO Expansion and Environmental Injustice in California, a report documenting the devastating public health and environmental impacts of factory farm gas produced by mega-dairies. The study criticizes California’s misguided policy approach to manure biogas just before the California Air Resources Board’s November 8 vote on amendments that could further entrench this greenwashing technology in its Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

The report focuses on Tulare County, home of one third of California’s dairy cows and 11% of U.S. manure digesters, detailing how manure biogas production, which occurs primarily on industrial livestock operations—also known as factory farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—harms local communities by exacerbating air and water pollution. The case study also addresses environmental injustice, noting that in Tulare County, a predominantly Hispanic/Latine (67%) community with 18% of residents living in poverty, manure biogas exacerbates the damages from factory farms in a vulnerable community. Across California, people of color, Latine, and Native American residents are significantly more likely to reside closer to CAFOs—and the pollution they cause.

This report builds on previous research by Friends of the Earth and Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, which suggests that manure digesters incentivize the most hazardous manure management practices as well as herd size expansion and yield much lower methane emissions reductions than estimated by both the federal government and California.