What's that smell?

With so much attention on the all-important caucuses, then, the political stink over CAFOs and vertically integrated factory farms has risen to the level of presidential politics here in Iowa.

As an issue that crystallizes anti-corporate sentiment, rural values, public health and animal cruelty concerns, it has proven to be a strident rallying cry for Democratic presidential candidates who are counting on support in small rural precincts on caucus night.

Barack Obama, for example, says that his administration would reinstate caps – eliminated in the 2002 farm bill – on the size of livestock operations eligible to receive environmental cleanup funding, thus aiding small farmers in their competition against big CAFOs.

Obama and Hillary Clinton have also both proposed that local officials be given more say in where new CAFOs can be built. Additionally, both support stricter regulation of their environmental impact. (Currently, many livestock operations are exempt from federal air quality regulations due to a stipulation that grants Clean Air Act immunity to CAFOs in return for merely reporting emissions data.)

Steve Pope / AP Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Dec. 2, 2007, in Des Moines, Iowa.

But no candidate has taken as stringent a position against CAFOs as John Edwards, who made waves earlier this year by calling for a national moratorium on the expansion of existing CAFOs and the construction of new facilities altogether.   During a campaign tour through the low-population counties in the western part of the state in October, Edwards unveiled the proposal, which also dovetails with his plan to ban packer ownership of hog lots and break up vertically integrated Big Pork.   Local communities could individually opt out of the CAFO moratorium, but Edwards' rural initiatives team hopes that the proposal would dramatically reduce the number of corporate mega-lots in livestock-heavy states like Iowa and North Carolina.

Analysts say that one of John Edwards' greatest strengths in the Iowa contest is his heavy presence in rural areas. Small precincts in low-population counties in Iowa only select a fraction of the total number of delegates elected on caucus night, but Edwards could rack up a substantial tally of those one-and two-delegate precincts if his rural message resonates forcefully enough there.

With an issue as passionately contested as the CAFOs controversy, Edwards could risk alienating farmers like Cornell who have taken to the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach.  

But others, like Petersen, see the proposal as a bold step that could galvanize rural support and make a real impact on voter turnout in January.

Either way, on Jan. 4, it's likely that Iowans will have a clearer picture about the future of swine in their home state.

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