The ethics of confined animal feeding operations is an ongoing controversy.  Each year, debate stirs up over more regulations for confined animal feeding operations- or CAFOs. Some people argue housing animals in confined environments insn't good for the welfare of animals. 

Chris Chinn operates Chinn Farms and says this is not the case. "You know, in the summer when it's 100 degrees, our animals are inside our buildings in the air conditioning, and it's the coolest place on our farm in the summer. It's a climate controlled facility ran by computers," says Chinn.

She also says these type of operations benefit the community. The animals have to eat, and in this case, all their food is local.  Chinn says, "we purchase all of our grain from local farmers. We'll use 47,000 bushels of corn a week on the average. We'll use 260 ton of bean meal a week that comes from Mexico, Mo.

Chinn Farms has it's own feed mill that uses the local feed.  Chinn says, "you know there's very few elevators out here anymore. So it's good for our farmers to have a choice on where they want to sell their grain".

Meanwhile, a commercial ag specialist from the University of Missouri, Rex Rickette, says it's not only farmers and the community who benefit from these operations, but consumers too. Rickette says, "probably 85-90 percent of the meat that's produced in the United States that are sold in grocery stores, are from confined animal operations."

He says driving these operations out, could mean driving this locally-produced food away. "We're so used to walking into a grocery store and all of the shelves are lined with food and we assume that's just magic. The more of that that's produced in Missouri and ends up on our shelves, the benefit is to Missourians," said Rickette.

Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri make up EPA's region 7 for CAFOs. In the first quarter of 2007, the EPS said Missouri had the third largest number of CAFOs in the region - largely consisting of swine and poultry operations, but it was the only state to have 100 percent of its operations with permits. Because Missouri requires permits, the state is sometimes viewed as having more stringent requirements for these operations.

Darrick Steen from the Department of Natural Resources says, "through that permitting process we ensure compliance, and applicators are required to submit applications for those permits and those applications are reviewed by the department, which contain quite a bit of detail."

The smell of these operations is also an issue sometimes brought up, but to prove the smell isn't that big of an issue, Chris Chinn and her husband built their home only 150 yards from their operation.