AP HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Question

Which of the following best explains how the expansion of feedlots for raising cattle has affected environmental sustainability in rural areas?

A. Concentrating large numbers of farm animals in small spaces has decreased the release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

B. Runoff from animal waste has increased the pollution in local water supplies.

C. Feed grains have eliminated potentially harmful invasive plant species from farmland.

D. Land development has increased the available water supply for other farming practices.

E. Composted manure has introduced valuable nutrients into previously depleted soils.

Answer 1

The answer is:

B. Runoff from animal waste has increased the pollution in local water supplies.

In feedlots, hundred and often thousands of cattle are bunched together in a small area--up to 100,000 in one square mile in one particular California feedlot (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/feedlots-vs-pastures-two-very-different-ways-to-fatten-beef-cattle/250543/).

Feedlots are not pasture land. As the Atlantic article above notes, cattle in these confined spaces inevitably live right on top of their own feces. This is not grassland, nor is it mud or dust--it is excrement. Further, these animals, the source of the bulk of America's beef, are fed corn-based diets. Because this feed is terrible for their digestive system--bovine digestion did not evolve to deal with corn--they are fed antibiotics. This, too, leaches into the soil, and hence, into our water supplies.