This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Sonoma County is the heart of California wine country. With a population of almost half a million, the region is known for its arable land and stunning vistas – the “Tuscany of America,” according to local rancher Bronte Edwards.
But Sonoma has a less genteel side: The area is also home to approximately 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farms not only force animals to live in overcrowded, dirty conditions, they also produce copious amounts of manure, which can cause water pollution and other health hazards.
In November, county residents will have the unique opportunity to ban CAFOs with a ballot initiative that would completely prohibit industrial livestock operations. If “Measure J” passes, Sonoma will be the first county in the United States to ban CAFOs. It would call for a moratorium on the creation of future facilities, along with a three-year phase-out period for current operations. The petition to get Measure J on the ballot garnered 17,000 signatures more than the minimum of 20,000 needed to get on the ballot.
Calves stick their heads out of pens at a farm near Healdsburg, California. Sonoma County is home to approximately 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.
“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind,” said Cassie King, an organizer with the Coalition to End Factory Farming, a collection of groups backing Measure J.
According to the Sierra Club, “large, high density CAFOS have reduced the number of livestock farmers in the U.S. by 80%.” In a tight-knit agricultural county like Sonoma, though, even the big players are friendly faces at the grocery store. And if Measure J passes, it would force these larger enterprises in Sonoma to change their practices or shut down.
“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind.”
The measure faces strong opposition, even from some small-scale farmers and ranchers, who fear that banning CAFOs will disrupt an economy grounded in agritourism and gastronomy. The measure has split Sonoma County, with local farmers and concerned citizens lining up on both sides of the proposed ban. Both the “Yes on J” website and the one belonging to “No on J” feature numerous local farms and advocacy groups.
In an email to High Country News, Roy Smith, a Sonoma County farmer who runs a seven-acre hay operation, wrote that the debate lacks nuance: “Both sides argue a truth, and both sides permit a falsehood,” he said. Still, he applauded Measure J for “rais(ing) awareness of the presence of industrial confinement facilities in our backyard.”
In a country dominated by large-scale farming operations comprising thousands of acres of monocrops, Sonoma County is an outlier. Forty-three percent of its farms are very small — around one to nine acres — and 32% are 10 to 49 acres. (The average U.S. farm is 464 acres.) In 2022, Sonoma County farmers produced half a billion dollars’ worth of wine grapes. Livestock, poultry and animal products brought in approximately $140 million.
A series of recent legal fights over water pollution set the stage for Measure J. Last year, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs), a nonprofit that focuses on chemical pollution, sued Reichardt Duck Farm, a 373-acre duck-processing facility in Sonoma County. CATs alleged that Reichardt was discharging storm water into an unnamed creek, which eventually made its way to Tomales Bay and ultimately the Pacific Ocean. Reichardt Duck Farm settled the suit.
“We heartily support curbing CAFOs. They’re disgusting. They have a horrific impact on the environment,” said Patty Clary, executive director of CATs, which is a member of the coalition backing Measure J.
Chickens in an organic hen house at Sunrise Farms in Petaluma, California. If “Measure J” passes, it would call for a moratorium on the creation of future CAFO facilities, along with a three-year phase-out period for current operations.
This year, on July 5, CATs gave a dairy CAFO in Sonoma a 60-day notice of the group’s intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act. Almost all waterways in Sonoma County are considered “impaired” by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning they’re too polluted for swimming and boating.
Clary, who grew up in Sonoma County, is not only concerned about the animals in CAFOs, but also the lives of the people who work in them. Measure J declares that the county must provide “a retraining and employment assistance program for current and former CAFO workers.” She hopes that a ban on CAFOs would create a “lower-key” agricultural environment.
“Without a giant CAFO, this sort of animal production would be more spread out in the community, where people could develop little co-ops and have a number of small farms providing the product that one big CAFO is producing,” she said.
Measure J is more complicated for many local farmers, including Smith, who raises sheep, poultry and swine, in addition to hay. But he agrees with one major aspect of it: a ban on poultry confinement facilities in Sonoma.
“They are an abomination in every possible way,” he said.
Smith grew up in Sonoma and laments the changes he has witnessed; a shift from small-scale operations dotting the landscape to large-scale enterprises that gobble everything up. “CAFOs, local and national, continue to drive retail prices down below levels that can sustain small, humane, agroecological producers,” he said.
But he fears that Measure J will impact some medium-sized dairies that, in his opinion, do not meet the standard definition of a CAFO.
Bronte Edwards and her wife, Liz Bell, who run Rainbow Family Ranching, share these concerns. Edwards and Bell are self-described “queer first-gen livestock ranchers.” They describe their farm as “carbon negative” and try to purchase locally grown hay. The prospect of Measure J worries them, especially its proposed definition of a CAFO, which denotes facilities where “animals … have been, are, or will be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period.” This “45-day” rule is part of the same definition that the EPA uses for CAFOs.
Other provisions in the measure — such as language specifying the number of animals confined and how waste is discharged — appear to protect farms like the Rainbow Family Ranching from the ban. Advocates for Measure J have identified 21 “large CAFOs” in Sonoma County that house anywhere from 900 to 600,000 animals. A spokesperson for “Yes on Measure J” said that an operation that meets the 45-day rule, but none of the other CAFO definitions, would not be affected.
“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed.”
Despite this, Edwards and Bell remain concerned about what the measure will mean for their neighbors, some of whom operate facilities with over 200 head of livestock — which might render them a CAFO under Measure J.
“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed,” Edwards said.
She added that keeping farms together is important for conservation, as it allows wildlife to move between open spaces and grazing lands. In her day job, Edwards works with a land trust to purchase development rights and easements to keep farms whole, preserving land for future generations.
Regardless of the result at the ballot box in November, both sides of the Measure J debate agree on one thing: The proposal will leave a mark on Sonoma County. According to Clary, if Measure J passes, it could set an example to other counties across the nation.
“If it loses, it will have made a crack in the in the eggshell, and it will still have an impact,” she said.
This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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