Wisconsin dairy CAFO (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin DNR)

Factory farms in Wisconsin produce 33 billion pounds of waste every year, about four times the amount of waste created by the state’s human population, according to a new report by Food and Water Watch tracking the growth of factory farming across the country. 

Wisconsin ranked 10th on a list of states that produce the highest amount of waste in the country. Iowa — with its massive hog farming industry — ranked first with 109 billion pounds of factory farming waste created every year. 

“America today has truly become a factory farming nation,” Food and Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement. “Industrial animal warehouses pockmark our rural communities, and litter our environment with tidal waves of unchecked pollution. While our politicians and regulators look the other way, these corporate cash cows are only getting bigger — and their impacts are only getting more catastrophic.”

According to the report, factory farming operations across the country create double the amount of waste produced by  the U.S. population. In Wisconsin, large dairy operations have regularly caused concerns over water quality and local health due to issues with manure management. 

“U.S. factory farms are raising more animals than ever before,” the report states. “Together, the 1.7 billion confined animals produce an appalling 941 billion pounds of manure each year — double the weight in human sewage produced by the entire U.S. population. This manure is typically not treated before being dumped into the environment, where it fouls rivers and streams, pollutes drinking water, and fuels climate change.”

The report notes that consolidation among dairy farms has occurred faster than other agricultural sectors, with the number of factory farms increasing 16-fold from 1987 to 2017. In Wisconsin, according to the report, the number of cows living on factory farming operations quadrupled from 2002 to 2022. 

Mapping the density of factory farming operations at the county level, the report shows how consolidation has hit Wisconsin, with a surge in the number of large dairy operations starting in eastern Wisconsin and steadily increasing to cover most of the state. The report names Brown, Manitowoc and Kewaunee counties as “extreme outliers” for the number of factory farms operating there.