SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE AGRICULTURE

Water rangers: industrial livestock operations are among the worst water polluters in the u.s. Because these facilities confine so many animals in one place, they generate vast amounts of waste, which is typically stored onsite before being applied untreated to surrounding land. Unfortunately, as a result of weak regulatory policies mismanagement and overapplication of waste is the norm, causing groud and surface waters to be contaminated with pollutants such as nitrogen, phosphorous, organic matter, heavy metals, and harmful pathogens like e. Coli, salmonella, and cryptosporidium. This contaminates drinking water wells, causes fish kills, spawns toxic algal blooms, and renders local waterways unsafe for swimming, fishing, boating, and other recreational uses.in short, rural residents living near industrial livestock operations are on the front lines of a water pollution crisis that threatens their health, environment, and quality of life. Srap's water rangers program is designed to empower these communities to protect their right to clean water and to hold industrial livestock operations accountable for pollution. We train program participants in epa-approved water testing techniques, and provide them with tools to collect and analyze water samples. Participants also learn how to effectively document and report pollution violations to regulators in order to prompt enforcement action. The water rangers program empowers community members to reverse a decades-long trend of handing industrial agriculture a free pass to pollute.

Contract grower transition program: the contract grower transition program allows srap to further transform rural communities by engaging contract growers and producers struggling within the industrial agriculture system. Through the transition program, srap enables contract growers to leave this system behind by training them to work with the communities most harmed by industrial agriculture. Srap aims to simultaneously reduce the number of contract growers trapped by the corporate agriculture model, while empowering them to advocate for a socially responsible animal agriculture system that prioritizes public health, the environment, and animal welfare. There is no better advocate to engage rural communities facing threats of incoming or expanding industrial livestock facilities than the people who, too, were harmed by the industrial system. The srap staff members who lead this program are former contract growers who have experienced injustices firsthand. This unique perspective makes them especially effective champions of agricultural reform and enables them to offer invaluable guidance to rural residents suffering due to nearby livestock operations and to current growers struggling to leave the industry.