What isn't being discussed in Congress, during the ongoing debate on
the broken federal food safety system, is the root cause of the most serious
pathogenic outbreaks in our food--the elephant (poop) in the room.
The relatively new phenomena of nationwide pathogenic outbreaks, be
they from salmonella or E. coli variants, are intimately tied to the fecal
contamination of our food supply and the intermingling of millions of unhealthy
animals. It's one of the best kept secrets in the modern livestock
industry.
Mountains of manure are piling up at our nation's mammoth
industrial-scale "factory farms." Thousands of dairy cows and
tens of thousands of beef cattle are concentrated on feedlots; hundreds of
thousands, or even millions, of chickens are confined in henhouses at one
location for the production of eggs and meat.
Livestock producing manure is nothing new. But the epic scale of
animal numbers at single locations and the incredible volumes of animal waste
is a recipe for disaster. It eclipses anything that was happening on old McDonald's farm.
Feces carrying infectious bacteria transfer to the environment and into
our food supply. Feeding heavily subsidized corn and soybeans to cattle,
instead of grazing the ruminants on grass, as they were genetically designed to
do, changes the pH in their digestive tracts, creating a hospitable environment
for pathogenic E. coli to breed. The new phenomenon of feeding
"distillers grains" (a byproduct of the ethanol refining industry) is
making this risk even more grave.
The current near-nationwide contamination in the egg supply can be
directly linked to industrial producers that confine millions of birds, a product
of massive, centralized breeding, in manure-rich henhouses, and feeding the
birds a ration spiked with antibiotics. These are chickens that the
McDonald family would likely have slaughtered on the farm because they were
"sickly."
Thirteen corporations each have more than 5 million laying hens, and
192 companies have flocks of more than 75,000 birds. According to the
industry lobby group, United Egg Producers (UEP), this represents 95% of all
the laying hens in the United
States. UEP also says that "eggs
on commercial egg-laying farms are never touched until they are handled by the
food service operator or consumer." Obviously, their approach been
ineffective and their smokescreen is not the straight poop.
In addition to our national dependence on factory farms, the
meatpacking industry, like egg production, has consolidated as well to more
easily service the vast numbers of animals sent to slaughter from fewer
locations. Just four companies now control over 80% of the
country's beef slaughter. Production line speed-ups have made it
even harder to keep intestinal contents from landing in hamburger and meat on
cutting tables.
All of these problems are further amplified by the scope of the
industrial-scale food system. Now, a single contamination problem at a
single national processing facility, be it meat, eggs, spinach or peanut
butter, can virtually infect the entire country through their national
distribution model.
As an antidote, consumers are voting with their pocketbooks by
purchasing food they can trust. They are encouraging a shift back towards
a more decentralized, local and organic livestock production model.
Witnessing the exponential growth of farmers markets, community supported
farms, direct marketing and supermarket organics, a percentage of our population
is not waiting for government regulation to protect their families.
The irony of the current debate on improving our federal food safety
regulatory infrastructure, now centered in the Senate, is that at the same time
the erosion of FDA/USDA oversight justifies aggressive legislation, the safest
farmers in this country, local and organic, might be snared in the
dragnet--the proposed rules could disproportionally escalate their costs
and drive some out of business.
While many in the good food movement
have voiced strong concerns about the pending legislation--it's sorely
needed--corporate agribusiness, in pursuit of profit, is poisoning our
children!
When Congress returns to Washington,
we have no doubt that food safety legislation, which has languished for months,
will get fast-tracked. In an election-year our politicians don't want to
be left with egg on their face.
We only hope that Senators will seriously consider not just passing
comprehensive reform but incorporating an amendment sponsored by John Tester
(D-MT), a certified organic farmer himself, that will exempt the safest farms
in our country--small, local direct marketers. We need to allocate
our scarce, limited resources based on greatest risk.
Farmers and ranchers milking 60 cows, raising a few hundred head of
beef, or free ranging laying hens (many times these animals have names not
numbers), offer the only true competition to corporate agribusinesses that
dominate our food production system.