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Animal Feeding Operations - Nonpoint Source Pollution
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National Information
By confining animals to areas or lots, farmers can efficiently feed and maintain livestock. These facilities, which congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area, contain major volumes of animal manures. Pollutants from these facilities include:
- nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus)
- organic matter
- sediments
- pathogens
- heavy metals
- hormones
- antibiotics, and
- ammonia
To target and prevent animal manures from entering water bodies, watershed and water quality managers must know where AFOs are located within their area and if animal waste is impairing the water quality of the nearby water bodies. Maps and data tables can be used to:
- determine where high concentrations of specific animal operations are located
- determine the "most common" AFO size category
- determine if a high concentration of AFOs are located in an impaired watershed
- help with implementation of voluntary programs
- help with outreach and education
All Animal Feeding Operations - Small operations are considered to have less than 250 animals. Large operations have over 1,000. The most common AFO size for all the mid-Atlantic states is medium. Pennsylvania has the most counties that have greater than 5 AFOs in the medium and large size categories, while West Virginia has the least. All of the nutrient impaired watersheds in the mid-Atlantic region have greater than 1 medium sized operation and at least 1 large sized operation. Pennsylvania is the only state with large sized operations in the 100-400 range. Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia all have a few counties with greater than 50 medium sized operations.
- Maps (PDF) (1 pg, 101K, About PDF)
- Data (PDF) (11 pp, 849K, About PDF)
Beef - Medium sized beef operations exist in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. No beef operations are located in West Virginia. Pennsylvania is the only state in the region that has large sized beef operations. The majority of the impaired watersheds have a medium sized beef operation, the most common range is 0-5.
- Maps (PDF) (1 pg, 77K, About PDF)
- Data (PDF) (2 pp, 173K, About PDF)
Dairy - The largest concentration of dairy AFOs exist in the medium sized category. Nearly all of the impaired watersheds have a medium sized dairy operation, and the most common ranges include 1-5 and 5-10. Medium sized dairy AFOs exists throughout all the mid-Atlantic states with the exception of West Virginia. The largest concentration of medium and large sized dairy AFOs exist in Pennsylvania, including the two counties with the largest number of operations per county, 20-33. Only six counties in the region have a large sized dairy AFO, three in Pennsylvania, and one each in Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware.
- Maps (PDF) (1 pg, 90K, About PDF)
- Data (PDF) (5 pp, 370K, About PDF)
Swine - In 1997, there were almost 6,000 hog/pig farms in the mid-Atlantic region with over 3 million sold hogs/pigs sold that year.
