LAGOONS, LITTER AND THE LAW: CAFO REGULATION AS SOCIAL RISK POLITICS *

Abstract

ABSTRACT The restructuring of the animal agriculture indus-try in the United States, a response to globalization dynamics within the world economy, has created a new social risk profile which did not exist in this industry prior to the adoption of factory farm technology. Analysis of the CAFO [concentrated animal feeding operation] regulation debate in Kentucky illustrates the political economy genesis of social risk politics accompanying this new technology. The politics of regulatory efforts to amelio-rate such risk, an increasingly frequent occurrence in the risk so-ciety era, are examined in a recent attempt to promulgate a CAFO regulatory regime in Kentucky. This case study shows how globalization processes within the U.S. agri-food system have en-gendered local re-regulation responses in attempts to alter the lo-cation-specific socioeconomic effects of these processes. Globalization Dynamics and the Restructured U.S. Livestock Industry In the swine and poultry subsectors of animal agriculture, vertically-integrated structures of production have changed the farm economy and rural communities in dramatic ways (Barkema and Novack 2001; Drabenstott, Henry, and Mitchell 2000). Farmers now contract with agribusiness giants like Tyson's Foods to perform one *Research for this paper was conducted under the auspices of United