Training will help track CAFO numbers
By Sven Berg
Magic Valley Times-News
Sometime in the next two weeks, Cassia County Compliance Officer Mel-issa Price will take a training course to improve her cow-counting skills.
Marv Patten, chief of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Dairying, will present the training, which is designed to help the county keep better track of the number of animals maintained in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
The ability to reliably measure the number of animals maintained in the county’s CAFOs has long been an obstacle to enforcing compliance with the terms of CAFO permits. While counting cows may seem like a simple task, when it comes to counting tens of thousands of them, the job gets a bit trickier. For one thing, cows don’t typically stand still long enough to make sure they’re being counted once, and not two or three times.
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