Farm is a four-letter word. Right up there with flag, love, and home. Any kid can draw farm with a few crayons-a red barn, a silo beside it. As easy as love, a heart, and home, a house. But these days, in many rural communities, farm is an f-word, too. With livestock factories reshaping agricultural areas, farm has fallen hard-plummeted-from the sacred to the obscene.

The livestock operations that surround my Midwest town, Hudson, Michigan, still call themselves farms. Most are dairies, and they're all huge, all built within the last few years. In the language of law, they're Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) with a thousand plus Animal Units-that is, seven hundred or more confined cows-and open-air waste pits that hold millions of gallons of liquefied feces and urine. Like the hog CAFOs in North Carolina, Missouri, and Washington and chicken operations all over the place, they're the largest constructions on th...

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