North Dakota Residents Ponder Quality of Life Impacts

(Adobe Stock via Prairie News Service)

(By Mike Moen. Prairie News Service) – Some North Dakota communities are becoming more familiar with the rush to consider farms linked to industrial agriculture. Residents assisting with push back describe the  of towns no longer looking the same if projects go through. North Dakota currently has nearly one-hundred licensed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, where large herds of livestock are raised in confinement.

That number is well below area states, and North Dakota leaders want more livestock production. CAFOs have a history with documented air and water pollution.

Madeline Luke, agriculture committee volunteer, Dakota Resource Council, worries the industry will eventually come knocking on her community’s doorstep, impacting her surroundings.

“You go outside, the geese are flying, the air is crisp, it’s clean,” she said. “This is the North Dakota that I have come to really value, and I would be sad to see that go, I think.”