by Andrew Nikiforuk

About the author: Andrew Nikiforuk is a journalist based in Calgary, Canada, who has written extensively about factory farms.

Long after the dead have been buried in Walkerton, Ontario, rural Canadians who rely on groundwater will continue to feel and smell the impact of a largely unreported revolution: the growth of factory farms. This new industry, or what governments call “intensive livestock operations,” has unsettled farm communities from New Brunswick to Alberta. Unlike the family enterprises of old, which proudly cared for 20 pigs or 60 cattle, these new facilities operate on an entirely different and largely unregulated scale.

The Rise of “Feedlot Alley”

Let’s begin with the industrialization of Alberta’s fabled beef herds. Thirty years ago, thousands of farmers throughout the province regarded the care...