Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or feedlots, are sites in which animal bodies are produced through the systematic application of scientific knowledge, state regulations, and the logic of capitalism. It is where cattle are “finished” on genetically-modified grains laced with hormones and antibiotics, for a four-to-six month period, before being sent to slaughter. By concentrating and systematizing the large-scale feeding of grains to livestock, feedlots have allowed the cattle population to escape the ecological limitations of a grass-based diet and hence allowed their impact on global warming, as well as ground water pollution and exhaustion, to go unchecked. While shortening the average lifespan of the American cow, feedlots have led to greater efficiencies and concentration in beef production. This is not a by-product of the unfettered free market, but instead results from federal price-supports for corn, extensive water rights, and state-funded research at land-grant colleges. It was in the state universities of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, and their ag-stations that antibiotics and synthetic hormones were first tested and developed for application in feedlots. Land-grant colleges were thus central to mid-twentieth century developments in animal agriculture and their research paved the way for present-day factory farming. By studying the ways in which agricultural experiment stations at land-grant colleges shaped the relationship between creatures, capitalists, and the state, this paper will illustrate the public-private nature of American capitalism and American agriculture.
