Iowa could support 45,700 livestock confinements, but should it?

Trent Thiele loves feeding and caring for the 3,400 pigs that live less than a half mile from his home. "I truly enjoy coming to work every morning. They're always in a good mood," said Thiele, reaching down to scratch the backs of a few pigs inside the confined feeding operation.Without the northeast Iowa business, Thiele said he would be forced to move to a city or town to support his wife and their five children, a common tale in a state that's seen rural jobs and opportunity drain away over several decades.That's why Thiele, 35, doesn't understand calls for a moratorium on concentrated animal feeding operations."I don't know why we'd want to limit future generations," Thiele said, adding that farmers need the fertilizer.The clamor over confinements has grown louder after one expert estimated Iowa could support 45,700 CAFOs, four times more facilities for pigs, cattle and chickens than currently exist in the state.Skirmishes between CAFOs and their neighbors have played out across Iowa for at least three decades. In that time, the number of pigs has grown about 60 percent in the nation's largest pork-producing state as farmers have shifted f