ColumnA virus threatens a spike in bacon prices. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the food system that got us here in the first place?

Let’s talk pigs.

There’s currently a virus taking a toll on hog farms in the U.S. and Canada. Since last spring when it was first detected in Iowa, porcine epidemic diarrhea, or PEDv, has killed about 1 million baby pigs. While that’s a small percentage of the approximate 66 million pigs in the U.S., there has been much talk of rising pork prices. Because you know what pigs mean: Bacon. And if there’s anything we should get really concerned and riled up about, it’s a rise in bacon prices.

Meanwhile in Germany, farmers protested a proposed trade agreement between Europe and the U.S. that would lift restrictions on American meat sold in European countries. A gathering of pigs outside of Angela Merkel’s office building to underline the commitment to sustainable as opposed to industrial farming.

The lesson? We are talking about these kind of things in the wrong way.

We support an industrial food system that, in this case, keeps animals in tight quarters, limiting hygiene and health, and when a widespread virus hits, we question whether or not the price of food will increase. It’s not the increase in the price of bacon that we should fear, it’s our industrial food system that gets us into this position in the first place that we should be questioning.

The pig industry is a dirty business. Nowadays, most of the swine we consume are raised on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. In fact, to call these places “pig farms” is a terrible use of the term. These are pig factories. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of hogs raised in factory farms grew by one third. That comes out to about 4,600 additional hogs per day.

Besides affecting the health of the animal, these factory farms have a severe impact on the environment. Manure spills from these factory farms, that often seep into waterways, often release more sewage than the equivalent human sewage of a metropolitan area.

But we turn and look the other way, happy with our “bacon on everything” menus. Even John Stewart is reminding us to think about where our beloved bacon with a capital B comes from. If you think pigs are raised in comfy stalls with lots of hay, think again. Breeding sows often only have enough room to lie down and stand up. Pigs can live up to 15 years, but often they’re slaughtered at six months.

How did we get here?

By eating, and eating without thinking.

Everything we put in our mouths has an impact. The more cheap meat you consume, the more factory farms will grow. In the end, a rise in the price of bacon could be a good thing; we should all be eating less meat and thinking more about where it comes from.

Concerned about your price in bacon? You should be more worried about how that bacon was made.

Related on EcoSalon

It’s Time We Put Up a Food Fight

Hey McDonald’s, Sustainable Meat Doesn’t Make You Responsible

10 Infographics on Farming and Agriculture

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: LaurelF

The post Fear of More Expensive Bacon or Fear of the Food System? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnEven if we’re not vegetarian we have to be thinking about our meat consumption.

There has been a repetitive question in my brain for the last few months.

“Why am I not vegetarian?”

I consider myself a conscious eater. I am the kind of person that nowadays passes up fruit and vegetables because they are out of season. Certainly, I still drink coffee and eat chocolate, and by no means am a 100% locavore, but I constantly think about what I consume and what I eat.

I am however, not a vegetarian. There, I said it.

Sometimes, ethically, that makes me cringe. In fact being a person that writes about conscious eating, publicly acknowledging that I am not a vegetarian puts me in a vulnerable spot; I get nervous about the response. The internet loves to hate, after all.

But I have watched too many under cover factory farm videos and read too many investigative reports about the state of affairs for mass produced meat to be able to avoid asking myself this question.

And so my personal policy to eating has evolved. I eat very little meat (in the past month I have eaten it twice), and I try very hard to think about it when I do.

What’s so bad about factory farmed meat? A lot of things. From environmental to human health to animal rights, there are a variety of things that are wrong about factory-farmed, cheap meat. Nearly 80 percent of the antibiotics consumed in the U.S. go to livestock farming. To make one hamburger, it takes more than 50 gallons of water. Around 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the global meat and dairy industry. The list goes on. And despite our awareness of how bad the situation is, we continue to become more carnivorous.

Eating well isn’t something you wake up one morning and decide to do. It’s a process. Some people succeed at completely changing their diets overnight; for others it’s more gradual, but the point is that we move to something better. It is better to not be vegetarian but commit to eating less meat overall than to completely dodge the topic because it makes us uncomfortable. If we want to find solutions to the problem, then we have to join forces: omnivores, vegetarians and vegans.

One of the arguments for eating meat that I have often heard, and even used myself in the past, is the “we’re humans, we’re omnivores.” But the “we’re meant to eat meat” position doesn’t hold, because we’re not meant to eat meat the way in which we eat it. Mass-produced meat propped full of GMOs and antibiotics is not what our ancestors had in mind.

I walked through a market the other day and saw a row of poultry with the heads still attached. The birds were all plucked, but there were bent necks and a few duck bills here and there. I had the classic “yuck” reaction that is so common when we have grown up in a sanitized world where our chicken comes pre-cut in manageable sized and wrapped in plastic. We have no relationship to that piece of meat as an animal, it’s merely a piece of protein, something that is a building block of our daily nutritional intake.

The more I thought about it though, the better I felt about seeing those ducks and chickens than I did about seeing packaged breasts at the super market on sale for a minimal amount of pocket change per pound. At least whoever was buying these poultry were well aware of what they were eating, and while they probably weren’t about to have a eulogy about the beautiful life that Jean Pierre the chicken had lived before sitting down to dinner, there’s a much better connection to meat when you have to de-head and de-gut it yourself. It’s an animal, not just a grocery store product.

Talking about eating or not eating meat is difficult, because there is a lot of emotion involved. In fact, I often feel I can’t launch into the discussion because I personally haven’t made the commitment to completely take meat out of my diet. But one thing is sure: we all need to be eating less meat, and not just for the sake of animals, for our own health. And we need to be talking about it, no matter who we are, because the system has to change.

All this said, and I am still not a vegetarian. I do however realize that mentally I have made a transition from just a few years ago, and when I do eat meat it’s a very conscious decision. It’s not an addition to my dinner plate just because I need a slab of protein.

I think back to a meal I had in Afghanistan, a lamb stew that was prepared for us in a small village. It was the religious holiday Eid, and all around sheep were being slaughtered and served as dinner. No one goes unfed on Eid; a sheep is sacrificed not to feed a family, but to feed a community. It is for those moments I guess that I am not a vegetarian, or at least one of the reasons.

But a lamb stew in a small Afghan village and a pound of red meat on a bed of Styrofoam are two very different things.

Just like with your vegetables, if you eat meat, then reconnect with it. Know where it comes from and know what–or who– you’re ingesting. There is no room in our society for mindless eating anymore.

If you have ever talked to an artisan butcher, you realize that there is love and passion in their work. We are part of a natural food chain, and most of our ancestors had meat as part of their diet. But there is something inherently wrong with the way we raise, kill and eat meat today. So wrong that we can’t keep turning our head the other way.

There are no rules for eating, it’s up to each and every person to listen to their bodies to figure out what it needs to function best and also to find their moral compass and let that guide them in their food decisions, but if you consider yourself a conscious eater, you have to be thinking about the meat you consume.

We all can benefit from having a serious thought process about where our meat comes from and how it was raised, and whether or not, ultimately, we feel good about eating it.

Related on EcoSalon:

What Every Conscious Meat Eater Should Know

Your Guide to Eating Out as a Vegetarian or Vegan

10 Infographics on Farming and Agriculture

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Tambako The Jaguar

The post “Why Am I Not a Vegetarian?”: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

The USDA approved four Chinese plants to process chicken that will be sold in the U.S. without any country of origin labeling. Prior to this decision chicken sourced from China was not approved for human consumption in the U.S., only for animal consumption. The fact that 2,200 animals became ill and nearly 360 died as a result of eating tainted jerky treats made with chicken sourced from China didn’t seem to phase the USDA. Are humans next?

Though the USDA claims there is equivalent food quality standard at Chinese plants, no USDA inspector will be present to make sure it’s being enforced.

“Given the well-documented shortcoming of the Chinese food safety system, we shouldn’t allow unmarked meat into our markets that is processed in Chinese facilities that are not subject to food safety inspections,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, reports Food Safety News. “This action could endanger the health and safety of American consumers and potentially undermines confidence in our nation’s food safety standards.”

Did USDA Officials Cut a Deal?

Chicken sourced from China had formerly been blocked by lawmakers because of that country’s troubles with avian flu. Despite questions about quality standards, some feel that U.S. officials are willing to look the other way on chicken imports so that China will lift restrictions on U.S. beef. Of course, U.S. officials deny such a motivation. China currently imports its beef primarily from Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand, and Canada because of concerns about mad cow disease in U.S. beef.

It’s important to note that the chicken imported from China will only have been processed there–it will be raised and slaughtered in the U.S. or elsewhere. This only calls into question the dark underbelly of chicken production in the U.S.

According to Salon.com, “The vast majority of the almost 300 million egg-laying hens raised in the U.S. every year are kept in cages too small for them to spread their wings, and this practice is beginning to take hold in raising our 8 billion broilers (the ones we eat) as well. The broilers are fed a diet laden with arsenic and antibiotics.” Additionally, a 2009 USDA study found that 87 percent of chicken cadavers were laden with e. coli [PDF].

Antibiotics and Environmental Devastation

Chickens forced to live in horrific conditions can only be kept healthy with inordinate amounts of antibiotics. It’s these antibiotics, used to both fend off disease and to fatten up chickens prematurely, that are causing antibiotic resistance. Each year, more than two million people are infected by drug-resistant germs and 23,000 die of their infections. Overtime, the constant use of low doses of antibiotics allow the surviving bacteria to become resistant, which creates the superbugs that are making us sicker and sicker each year.

And we haven’t even started to discuss the environmental pollution caused by chicken production in the U.S. Producers dispose of manure by spreading it on open fields or cropland. It’s over applied and dangerously managed, contaminating soil and creating water-quality problems.

“In just over 50 years, the broiler industry has been transformed from more than one million small farms spread across the country to a  limited number of massive factory-style operations concentrated in 15 states,” said Karen Steuer, who directs Pew’s efforts to reform industrial animal agriculture, in a 2011 statement. “This growth has harmed the environment, particularly water, because management programs for chicken waste have not kept pace with output.”

The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. Though U.S. chicken production is the devil we do know, it shouldn’t be a beacon of hope either. Chicken newly sourced from China as well as an already problematic industrial chicken complex are all the more reasons to buy organic and even better, buy from small, local producers whenever possible.

Related on EcoSalon:
Will Eating Chicken Wings During Pregnancy Affect Your’s Child’s Penis Size
Jesus, Enough With the Chicken
The Green Plate: Down with Factory Chicken Flesh

Image: qmnonic

The post USDA Allows China To Process Chicken For U.S. Consumers appeared first on EcoSalon.

If ever there were a reason to 86 the chicken wings from your football party, this would be the one.

In a letter to the founder of the National Buffalo Wing Festival, PETA claimed that recent scientific research proves eating chicken wings during pregnancy has a negative impact on male baby penis size.

According to the letter, “Findings published by the Study for Future Families showed that eating poultry during pregnancy may lead to smaller penis size in male infants.” While the letter points out the “inherent cruelty of poultry production,” which is accurate, the connection between chicken wings and penis size is tenuous.

The study was actually meant to investigate prenatal phthalate exposure, not just eating chicken wings, to better understand how these chemicals affect fetuses. Researchers found that infants born to women with the highest phthalates exposure had smaller penises due to a decrease in the amount of testosterone available in the mother’s womb. It also linked high phthalate exposure to a higher likelihood of undescended testicles and a smaller anogenital distance (the distance between the anus and the genitals), a trait associated with femininity. And finally, high exposure was linked to lower sperm counts later in life.

But exposure to phthalates can happen in a variety of ways and eating chicken wings is relatively low on the list. If you want to ensure ample endowment in your male infant reduce your exposure to phthalates.

How to Reduce Phthalate Exposure

1. Use phthalate-free personal care products like soaps, body washes, shampoo, conditioner, and cosmetics.

2. Avoid plastics with the recycling code #3.

3. Use PVC-free food storage.

4. Choose phthalate-free toys.

5. Choose PVC-free building materials and piping.

6. Eat fresh, local, and organic foods as much as possible.

7. Drink reverse osmosis filtered water.

Bottom line–chicken wings aren’t great for you, especially when they’re sourced from chickens full of antibiotics and hormones. In fact, a 2004 study from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, reported in The New York Times, found elevated levels of arsenic in chicken feed along with caffeine, banned antibiotics, and even Prozac.

And PETA is right in noting the sick cruelty associated with the factory farming of chickens. But buying organic chickens, free of all the above junk, and making your own chicken wings from time to time won’t relegate your future son to smaller than average manhood.

Related on EcoSalon:

Eating Healthy: 7 Mean and Poultry Food Labels To Look For
5 Reasons Why Privatizing Poultry Inspection Is A really Bad Idea
7 Design-Forward Chicken Coops We Love

Image: stuspivack

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Agribusiness spinmeisters reach new level of sophistication.

I recently received no fewer than three press releases (plus a phone call) regarding a Food Dialogues event to be held in Hollywood. I thought, “Wow, they must really want me to go.” The event was billed as a series of discussions about the “realities” of food production, promising to bring together, “entertainment movers and shakers, chefs, academics, large restaurant operators, journalists, local leaders, and farmers and ranchers,” to discuss how food is grown and raised.

At first glance, I thought it sounded great. After all, I mostly write about food production so I’m always keen to learn more from a broad range of perspectives. Though I have my ideas about the kind of food system I’d like to see (ecologically based, small-medium scale, humane, diverse production) I recognize that I’m not a farmer and probably could use an education on the “realities” of food production from the farmers’ point of view. There was even a tour of a famous Hollywood urban farm listed on the program. I got excited until I looked a little more deeply into the group (and its PR company) organizing the event. That’s when I realized I’d almost been had.

The event is to be presented by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) and their PR Company, Ketchum, part of a program for which the partnership has won a prestigious PR award in the brand building and reputation management categories. From their press release, USFRA is “a newly formed alliance consisting of a wide range of prominent farmer and rancher led organizations and agricultural partners.” I have to give them credit for transparency. Their list of affiliates, partners, and board members is easy to find. It includes a number of state farm bureaus, industry groups such as the National Pork Board, United Egg Producers, the National Corn Growers Association, and the National Milk Producers Federation. There are no individual farmers on the list, but it’s not that surprising, as farmers (like in other industries) organize into groups to help them advance their interests. A look at the industry partners and advisors section, however, is going to raise a few eyebrows in sustainable food circles. The premier partner advisory group consists of DuPont, John Deere, Pfizer Animal Health, and of course, the food movement’s favorite whipping boy, Monsanto. Industry partners include some biggies too: Archer Daniels Midland and Dow AgroSciences to name two.

So what are these stalwarts of the conventional, industrial food system doing masquerading (sort of) as movement types? From their press release, USFRA “recognizes that Americans have important questions about our food and how it is produced,” and the alliance can “help farmers and ranchers answer consumers’ and influencers’ questions, including the tough ones, about food production.”

I still wanted to keep an open mind about these food discussions. Because, after all, agribusiness is a reality, and everyone in the food production business should be talking to one another and sharing best practices. I thought, optimistically, that maybe these groups are beginning to see the impossibility of sustaining the current chemical and petroleum-dependent system and really do want to engage in discussions with consumers and influencers.

I chose to look at one issue covered on their website, antibiotic use in agriculture, and compare the alliance’s presentation of the “facts” with published facts from other sources.  Here’s what I found:

USFRA Fact number 1:

Producers consult with veterinarians about antibiotic use: Veterinarian involvement is mandated for all antibiotics approved since 1988.

Real World Fact: It wasn’t until April 11, 2012 that the FDA announced a rule requiring farmers to get a prescription from a vet before issuing antibiotics. The USFRA claim that prescriptions were “mandated” since 1988 refers to a rule issued that only applied to new drugs. According to the source document USFRA provides from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), “many of the older antimicrobials are available for over-the-counter sale to producers.” The entire source document serves as a strong plea to farmers to use antimicrobials judiciously and under the supervision of a veterinarian. USFRA must not have thought anyone would read the source document they provided, as it doesn’t help make their case. I came away convinced that the veterinary community is concerned about overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture, although, probably due to close ties with powerful farmer/rancher groups and drug companies, they don’t actually say it.

USFRA Fact Number 2:

All Milk Tested for Antibiotics: All milk is strictly tested for antibiotics on the farm and at the processing plant. Any milk that tests positive cannot be sold to the public.

Real World Fact: This is mostly true. Every tanker load of milk is tested before processing and if antibiotic residues are found, it is dumped. Farmers are not required to test their milk, though many do.

USFRA Fact Number 3:

Meat and Poultry for Food Are Rigorously Monitored By Law: Meat and poultry for human consumption must pass inspection and monitoring by FSIS (Food Safety Inspection Service).

Real World Fact: In addition to recent moves by the FSIS to privatize poultry inspection, the sheer number of food poisoning cases requiring hospitalization a year (around 50,000) makes this claim of “rigorous monitoring” by FSIS debatable. Current numbers on food contamination cases can be found here. 

USFRA Fact Number 4:

Many Antibiotics Sold for Animal Use Are Not Used to Treat Humans: According to FDA statistics, 35 percent of antibiotics sold for animal use are in classes not used in human medicine. And all antibiotics are carefully examined for any human health implications before approved and incorporated into labeling. This means they have no possibility of contributing to antibiotic resistance bacteria in people.

Real World Fact: According to the AVMA’s antimicrobial fact sheet, “the vast majority of antibiotic classes are used in both humans and animals.” And the same New York Times article referenced above notes that 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in animals. Of these, about 80 percent are given through feed, with an additional 17 percent given in water. Just 3 percent were given by injection. This indicates that the antibiotics are not being used “judiciously” to treat sick animals, but as a matter of course. Furthermore, the same article goes on to say that public health officials began to worry about resistance way back in the 1970s but industry lobbying has prevented much action on banning certain classes of antibiotics until recently, when the Obama administration moved to restrict certain classes of antibiotics for use in food animals.

USFRA Fact Number 5:

When Organic Animals Are Sick, They May be Treated with Antibiotics: When an animal raised for food on an organic farm becomes ill, organic livestock producers utilize natural remedies. If these remedies are ineffective then it must be given medical treatment including antibiotics if appropriate for the illness. Once an animal is treated with antibiotics, it cannot be sold as organic.

Real World Fact: The above statement is true, but it’s pointless. Most people are concerned about the overuse of antibiotics on healthy animals or to induce growth. Few would argue against treating sick animals (organic or conventionally raised) to alleviate their suffering and prevent the spread of disease. The problem is with the routine use of antibiotics commonly practiced in agriculture today, not in using antibiotics to treat illness.

USFRA Fact Number 5:

FDA Approval Process Is Stringent: FDA has a stringent approval process for veterinary medicines and antibiotics – much like that for human medications. In fact, antibiotics for use in animals require the same testing as those used in humans, with the additional requirement that they must be tested to ensure meat and milk from the animal given the medicine will be safe for human consumption.

Real World Fact: This is a sweeping generalization that doesn’t really address the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture. Safe or not, it’s resistance we’re worried about. Not to mention, despite the FDA’s approval process, examples abound of cases where approved drugs were found to have deadly side effects.

USFRA Fact Number 6:

No Cases of Animal Antibiotic Use Leading to Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs: There has been no proven link to antibiotic treatment failure in humans due to antibiotics use in animals for consumption.

Real World Fact: Proven is the key word here. The use of antibiotics in agriculture is so prevalent (remember 80% of all antibiotics are used on animals) that establishing a causative link between specific human cases of resistant infections and specific cases of farmers using antibiotics is impossible. But the links are getting stronger, as recent investigative pieces in the Los Angeles Times, and Self magazine indicate. And a recent study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) found that a resistant strain of MRSA has jumped from animals from humans. It’s time that farmer groups and regulators start paying attention to this because waiting for a proven link could prove to have widespread and deadly consequences.

I get that farmers are tired of being demonized for the failures of the food system, but the professional organizations to which they belong seem intent on preserving the status quo and ignoring the very real threats to the continued viability of the current system. As a long-range business plan, I find this lacking. Instead of spending money on PR to influence the conversation, why not break away from the agribusiness sponsors such as Monsanto and DuPont and start having some real, honest conversations among their diverse membership about how to start to shift away from some of these practices that the public has very good reason to be worried about?

Images:AtomicPope, Lee Cannon, Wongaboo, andyarthur

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ColumnReintegrating food production into our communities will increase transparency in the food system.

Unless you buy eggs from cage-free or pastured hens, your daily over-easy likely came from a bird whose entire life was passed in a 16-inch wide cage with four or five others.

While the hen struggled to push those thin-shelled, pale-yolked eggs from her poor, sick body, excrement rained down on her from the cages above. Perhaps she shared the tiny space with other birds so ill they were dying, or already dead. Such conditions are living hell for the chickens, and they aren’t so good for people, either. Last year’s widespread salmonella-induced egg recall proved it.

Yet if factory farmers and the politicians who pander to them get their way, the only mechanism available for exposing abuse of animals and dangerously filthy conditions could soon be a crime. The creation, possession, or distribution of investigative videos like this one taken by an undercover employee in an egg production facility in California would be punishable by law.

According to the New York Times, a bill now before the Iowa legislature would make it a crime to produce, distribute or possess photos and video taken without permission at an agricultural facility. It would also criminalize lying on an application to work at an agriculture facility “with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner.” Other states are considering similar legislation.

The implications for journalism, animal welfare and human health are serious. The reason we need secret videos and photographs to expose farm animal abuses and food safety violations is because agricultural facilities are no longer a part of our communities. They are hidden away in sparsely populated areas far from city and suburban centers. They are massive in scale, their corporate owners wield considerable political power, and they are accountable to no one. If you are unlucky enough to live near a factory farm, you only need your nose to know.

Take the hog farms in North Carolina as an example. Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has been collecting stories from North Carolina residents who live near the state’s giant hog operations. The stench and pollution permeates their walls and clothing, makes their children sick, and prevents them from going outside. Such a system is profitable for producers, but comes at a high cost for our human society, and the animals that are the unwilling participants in the system.

I have a dream that in my lifetime we find a way to reintegrate food production of all types back into our communities. If farms, animal operations, slaughterhouses, and other facilities that process food were smaller in size and located in the regions they serve, the resulting transparency would go a long way toward decreasing animal cruelty and increasing food safety. When workers, owners, farmers, animals, and consumers are all part of the same community, there will be accountability to the community that doesn’t exist in the global marketplace, and we won’t need secret videos.

Until we can elect politicians and policy makers who will work toward a food system that’s fair to both animals and people, it’s up to us as consumers. The next time you’re shopping for food, think about what kind of system you want to support with your dollars.

Image: Emrank via Flickr

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, exploring the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Alice Popkorn

The post The Green Plate: Animals in Glass Houses Don’t Need Video Exposés appeared first on EcoSalon.

A few years ago, on a tour of a small village in Vietnam, we were taken to a small farm compound, where the residents manufactured rice paper wrappers for spring rolls and raised a few farm animals for food. There were chickens clucking around and a few friendly, waddling ducks. There was also an enormous pig housed in a small, concrete enclosure.

As our group approached, the pig rose up on her hind legs, placed her front legs on the ledge of her pen, and looked us all straight in the eyes with a completely charming mixture of intelligence and humor. Without a doubt, that pig was posing. The pen was small, but clean. The pig appeared to have plenty of freedom of movement. The pig was whole, no cropped tail, no sores, nothing amiss. I can’t pretend to know if that pig was a happy pig. But from my limited human perspective, she looked contented.

Every time I think about how we raise animals for food, I think about that expressive pig. That pig represents both my deep ambivalence about eating animals and also what I think of as the ideal way to raise animals for food.

For those of us who do eat meat, who don’t raise our own animals, one at a time, or who cannot afford to pay top dollar to buy direct from a very small farm, that ideal is pretty near unattainable.

For conscious omnivores, who eat meat sparingly and thoughtfully, who avoid meat raised under conditions that we call “factory farming”, what is a reasonable level of animal welfare in farming? And how accurate are our perceptions of what constitutes “good farming”?  Farming is a struggle for farmers. There is a delicate balance between the scale and methods that will allow the farmer to stay in business and earn a living, and letting the animals experience life as naturally as possible.

So what does humane treatment of animals actually look like? Who defines it? And most important, if you’re a meat eater, what is your personal line?

The Humane Society of the United States has been actively documenting the worst abuses of factory farming in a series of undercover investigations. In December, a video showing atrocities at a Smithfield pig breeding facility in Virginia was released. The pigs were kept in gestation crates barely large enough for their bodies for their entire lives, live pigs were thrown in dumpsters, and baby piglets were left to die in manure pits after falling through the slats of the crates that their mothers spent their entire lives in.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, a video documenting the routine mutilation of turkey poults at the nation’s largest turkey hatching facility was released. Fifty percent of the turkeys available in typical grocery stores came from that particular hatchery.

How can you be sure that you are not contributing to such practices? Find out what humane treatment is, study the certifications, and then buy meat that you can feel good about.

At a glance, here are the various certifications, their affiliations, and their logos:

Animal Welfare Approved: Animal Welfare Institute (non-profit)

Humane Farm Animal Care: Humane Society of the United States (non-profit)

Global Animal Partnership: Non-profit, but partially funded by and affiliated with Whole Foods

USDA Organic: Govt agency (the National Organic Program includes animal welfare standards into its rules)

American Humane Certified: The American Humane Association (not-for-profit corporation)

All these standards are summarized here. Download the pdf chart to see a chart of side-by-side comparisons.

It’s a complex issue so here’s my take on it:

Best of the Best:

If you have plenty of money and access to small farms, go for the strictest certification, which in most cases is Animal Welfare Approved. This certification seems to cover mostly very small family farms. Some of the small family farms from which you buy might more than meet the requirements, but they also might know their customers well enough that they don’t become certified. The lesson here is to know your farmer and visit the farm, if you can. In which case, the certification doesn’t even matter.

Next Best:

Humane Farm Animal Care does a great job of writing standards for operations of different sizes and scales. Some of the commonly available mid-sized regional producers are able to meet these standards, so if you buy your food in a grocery store, not direct from farmers, this is the best certification to look for.

The Rest:

Global Animal Partnership has some good standards on important issues, but doesn’t address a lot of issues that need addressing. If Whole Foods is your store, you can see where they are headed with their certification system that rates producers according to a series of steps.

USDA Organic is better than nothing but doesn’t impose many restrictions on how the animals are treated other than those relating to feed, antibiotics, and hormones.

American Humane Certified is the weakest because it isn’t transparent and doesn’t address many issues. Plus, it allows a lot of common practices none of the others do.

In the end, you have to decide what your personal limits are – both budgetary and ethically.

Summary of Major Requirements Per Species by Certification

Chickens:

Growth Hormones – prohibited by all except not addressed by American Humane Certified

Antibiotics – prohibited by all except allowed by American Humane Certified

Outdoor access – minimum access required by USDA Organic, pasture required by Animal Welfare Approved, not required by other certifications. When provided, there are specific requirements laid out by Humane Farm Animal Care

Space – 6 lb. per square foot required by Humane Farm Animal Care, .67 square foot per bird for roosting, plus range space required by Animal Welfare Approved, 6.2 lb. per square foot required by American Humane Certified, no space requirements from other certifications.

Required dark periods for sleep – 6 to 8 hours required by all except no requirements by USDA Organic or Global Animal Partnership

Beak and toe clipping – Prohibited by Humane Farm Animal Care, Animal Welfare Approved, and Global Animal Partnership, unclear whether allowed by others.

Pigs:

Growth Hormones – Prohibited by all except allowed by American Humane Certified

Antibiotics – Prohibited by all except allowed by American Humane Certified for disease treatment only

Outdoor Access – Pasture required by Animal Welfare Approved, access required by USDA Organic, not required by Global Animal Partnership or American Humane Certified, standards for both indoor and outdoor care by Humane Farm Animal Care

Tail Docking – not allowed by Humane Farm Animal Care, Animal Welfare Approved, Global Animal Partnership, allowed by USDA Organic and American Humane Certified

Cows

Growth Hormones – Prohibited by all except allowed by American Humane Certified

Antibiotics – Prohibited by all except allowed by American Humane Certified

Pasture Range Requirements – Pasture raising and finishing required by Animal Welfare Approved, Feedlot and grass allowed by Global Animal Partnership and USDA Organic (minimum pasture requirement), standards for both pasture and grass written by Humane Farm Animal Care, (feedlots allowed) no requirements by American Humane Certified

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Friends of Family Farmers

The post The Green Plate: What Every Meat Eater Should Know About Humane Certifications appeared first on EcoSalon.

Urban sprawl, pollution, over-consumption, deforestation…like it or not, U.S. taxpayers are still paying for all of these things to occur in America and beyond. Despite recent investments in green jobs and technology, an array of government subsidies pay big dirty industries like oil, coal and factory farms to destroy the environment in every way possible while greener, healthier industries like solar power and vegetable farms get a pittance.

10. Highways

When gas prices rose dramatically in 2008, Americans began flocking to mass transit in droves, resulting in declining revenues for the Federal Highway Trust Fund. Naturally, the Bush Administration’s response was to take money from already underfunded mass transit and use it to pay for highways that are already, as Slate put it, “paved with gold”. Billions of dollars are pumped into the highway system every year, which encourages the polluting car culture and leads to further sprawl, while mass transit continues to fall by the wayside.

9. SUVs

In case you aren’t already taking optimal advantage of the polluting power of our nation’s sprawling web of highways, the government would like to make your impact even greater by setting you up in a nice gas-guzzling subsidized SUV. A portion of the tax code revised in 2003 gives business owners a huge deduction for up to 30% of a large vehicle’s cost, which can add up to $25,000 in the case of a Hummer – far more than the credit given to individual purchasers of energy-efficient vehicles. Attempts to axe this provision in 2007 failed.

You only get the credit if it seats more than 9 passengers or weighs more than 14,000 pounds, but they don’t really care whether your business actually requires such a vehicle. So, by all means, get the Escalade.

8. Paper Mills

Paper mills cut down trees while sucking up massive amounts of fossil fuels and get big money from the government to do it – all through a loophole in a law that was supposed to benefit renewable energy. A law enacted in 2005 contains a section that gives businesses an incentive to mix alternative energy sources with fossil fuels. To qualify for the tax credit, paper companies started adding diesel fuel to “black liquor”, a pulp-making byproduct that they were already using to generate electricity on its own.

But time might be running out for this egregious misuse of taxpayer money: the unemployment extension bill approved by the Senate and on its way to the House would eliminate this loophole and use the funds for health care. (Editor’s note: We’ve contacted both the editor and writer of this story at BusinessWeek to confirm that this loophole will still be closed in the bill just passed by the Senate, and will update if more information becomes available. In the meantime, there’s this resource which seems to confirm the loophole is in fact being closed.)

7. Commercial Fishing

About half of the $713 million in subsidies given to the U.S. fishing industry directly contributes to overfishing, according to a new study by the Environmental Working Group. The subsidies – which equal about a fifth of the value of the catch itself – lower overhead costs and promote increased fishing capacity, meaning more fish are caught than can be naturally replaced.

Overfishing is a huge environmental problem – up to 25% of the world’s fishery stocks are overexploited or depleted, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.  But that’s not the only result of the subsidies; because roughly half of the money goes toward fuel costs, other consequences include wasteful fuel consumption as well as air and water pollution.

6. Nuclear Power

The nuclear industry’s decade-long, $600 million lobbying effort finally paid off as President Obama agreed to grant loan guarantees for nuclear power plants.  Obama has been promising since the early days of his campaign that he would find a way to “safely harness nuclear power”, but the $55 billion taxpayer-backed loan guarantees are going forward despite continued reservations about uranium mining and the storage of radioactive waste.

5. Factory Farming

American factory farms are literally filthy cesspools of their own making, and who else is cleaning up all that shit but American taxpayers? Giant factory farms make up just 2% of the livestock farms in the U.S. yet raise 40% of all animals in the U.S., and they do it using practices that are not only harmful to workers and the animals themselves, but to the environment.

The government heavily subsidizes factory farms so they can provide über-cheap meat and dairy, raising as many animals as possible in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of care. And why should they care about finding better ways to manage manure when the government hands them $125 million annually to “deal” with the consequences, and then doesn’t bother to check up on them?

Despite the backwards funding given to clean them up, gaping lagoons of livestock waste packed with pollutants continue to be one of the biggest environmental problems in America, fouling our water and causing those depressing dead zones in our oceans.

4.  Corn Ethanol

In the quest to beat back fossil fuels, cleaner fuels that we can grow seemed like a good idea – until we realized that some, like corn, make a huge dent in the world’s food supply. But that isn’t stopping the U.S. government from giving billions in subsidies to the corn industry in general, and corn ethanol in particular.

Corn-based ethanol gobbled up 76% of federal government renewable energy subsidies in 2007, leaving little for more environmentally sound renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Worse yet, it’s a huge drain on water resources, gulping down up to 2,138 liters of water per liter of ethanol.

This isn’t just an unwise investment – it’s also destroying the rainforest. As American farmers have abandoned soy for subsidized corn, soy prices have risen worldwide – and led to an increase in Amazon deforestation. Brazil is the world’s second-largest producer of soy next to the U.S., and growing demand has meant more clear-cutting for soy plantations.

3. Processed Foods

Ethanol isn’t the only product that comes to us courtesy of U.S. corn subsidies. There’s also plenty of craptastic processed “food” products packed with multiple subsidized ingredients: wheat, sugar, soy and of course, corn. Gee, could the obesity epidemic have anything to do with the fact that our government makes junk food cheap, and encourages its consumption through the food stamp program?

It’s a sad state of affairs when a Twinkie costs less, calorically speaking, than a carrot. Meanwhile, farmers who produce fruits and vegetables (aside from corn), don’t get a dime in government subsidies. While the government is considering junk food taxes, a change to the Farm Bill might be more efficient.

2. Coal

You would think that the coal industry’s long-held dominance of the American energy market would have eliminated the need for subsidies. After all, the industry spent $47 million last year on PR alone. But the fact is, coal companies are milking the government for all it’s worth while continuing to pump greenhouse gases and carcinogens into the air and turn the Appalachian Mountains into post-apocalyptic hellholes.

Coal subsidies have survived this long because of the industry’s staggering influence on lawmakers, and because constituents in coal states often fear the economic repercussions of a scaled-back coal industry more than they fear the harm to their health and homes. And on top of the federal coal subsidies lumped in under “˜fossil fuels’, the industry gets untold breaks on a state and local level in places like Kentucky, where the coal industry netted $115 million in subsidies in 2006.

1. Oil

Climate change: brought to you by the U.S. government! According to a study by the Environmental Law Institute, fossil fuels received over $70 billion in subsidies between 2002 and 2008, while traditional sources of renewable energy were given just $12.2 billion.

But the oil industry won’t even admit that the direct spending and tax breaks they get are subsidies – they prefer to call them “incentives”, and claim that attempts to roll back some of those subsidies are actually “new taxes”.

As Grist notes, the ELI report is actually pretty conservative – it didn’t include things like military spending to defend oil in the Middle East or infrastructure spending. But the fossil fuel industry’s free ride is almost over: President Obama’s new federal budget proposal wipes out these breaks and increases funding for clean energy research (and, unfortunately, nuclear power).

Photo credits: The following photos are from Flickr and licensed for commercial use under Creative Commons: “Freeway” by Payton Chung; “SUV” by The Car Spy; “Paper mill in Washington State” by Jan Tik; “Fish face” by Andy Welsh; “Nuclear reactor” by Intamin10; “Factory farm protest sign” by johnnyalive; “Corn” by normanack;  “Coal” by Duncan Harris; “Oil rig” by kenhodge13.

The post The 10 Least Green Government Subsidies appeared first on EcoSalon.

Chef Rocky Barnette is on the road with Food & Water Watch to educate eaters about corporate control of the food system, tell us what we can do about it, and clue us in as to why the Farm Bill matters.

First some facts about concentration in the food industry:

• In 2007, the top three beef packers processed 67 percent of all cattle. This pushes down prices to small and mid-sized farmers, putting them out of business. The meat industry is now more concentrated than it was when Congress broke up the big monopolies a century ago.

• The hog industry is genetically engineering enviro-pigs so that they’ll produce less phosphorus in their manure and factory farms will be able to dump more crap on the land without exceeding regulated phosphorus limits.

• 5,000 dairy farms disappeared between 1997 and 2007, leaving us with mega dairies housing up to 10,000 cows on gigantic feedlots, and putting family farmers out to pasture.

What are the net effects of such concentration in the food industry?

• Food full of additives
• Polluted water and air from factory farms
• Embattled family farmers
• An overall unfair, unhealthy food system

None of this happened by accident. It’s all the result of government policies enshrined in the Farm Bill. Our current Farm Bill is set to expire September 30, 2012. The writing of the new bill will begin in early 2011. We have less than a year to tell Congress that we, the eaters, get to decide what we are going to eat. And that’s why Food & Water Watch is taking it on the road.

The group is meeting with farmers, local activist groups, and elected officials across the Midwest, while connecting with consumers through cooking demos at farmers’ markets and other venues.

In Pittsburg, Rocky and team stopped off at a member owned co-op, East End Food Co-op then toured the Braddock Farm Youth Project and cooked a meal from the garden for 50 local children. Rocky blogged about it here.

Next up was Ohio where the team visited the Ohio State Fair to talk to fair-goers about concentration in agriculture. And then the team was off to Johnstown, Ohio to meet up with Farmer Dick Jensen of Flying J Farm. Dick raises cattle and vegetables, and produces maple syrup, as well as his own biodiesel to run his farm vehicles. Rocky’s update is here.

In Huron, Ohio the team met up with Slow Food Huron Valley and then hit up The Chef’s Garden to talk about its partnership with Veggie U, which helps teachers bring science and healthy eating into the classroom. They then visited the Culinary Vegetable Institute and Growing Hope, a training site for urban farming, where they met Ypsilanti Mayor Paul Schreiber. Blog post here.

In Chicago, the team did a cooking demo at the Evanston Farmers’ Market and at the Chicago French Market and met with activists at various venues in town. Read all about it here.

Here’s the full tour schedule in case Rocky and team are coming to your town this month:

Tuesday, 8/3 Pittsburg, PA

Wednesday, 8/4 Columbus, OH

Thursday, 8/5 Huron, OH

Friday, 8/6 Ann Arbor, MI

Saturday, 8/7 Chicago, IL

Sunday, 8/8 Chicago, IL

Monday, 8/9 Milwaukee, WI

Tuesday, 8/10 Madison, WI

Wednesday, 8/11 Des Moines, IA

Thursday, 8/12 Iowa City, IA

Friday, 8/13 Mendota, IL

So what can you do to help change the food system?

First of all, educate yourself about what activist groups like Food & Water watch are doing, write to your elected representatives, show up at food events, speaking tours, and panel discussions, and bring your friends and family. Get involved in spreading the word and letting elected officials know that we deserve a better food system.

“Seeking out sustainably produced food at the grocery store, shopping at farmers’ markets and even growing your own garden in your backyards will only get us so far,” said Food & Water Watch’s Assistant Director and lead food policy expert Patty Lovera. “We all have the right to voice our concerns about the injustices and lack of safety and real choice that permeates our broken food system. The easiest thing the average citizen can do to help change food policy is to add their voice to the growing chorus of activists holding policymakers accountable by signing up with an organization like Food & Water Watch.”

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Food & Water Watch via Flickr

The post It’s Not Enough to Vote with Your Fork appeared first on EcoSalon.

A funny thing happened on the way to the local food movement. Just as small segments of the population have taken up the local foods cheer, family farms and the infrastructure that supports them continue to dwindle daily. Even as we’ve begun to realize what our addiction to convenience in the form of processed, packaged foods and cheap meat is costing us, we are in danger of losing even more sources of real food.

Hopefully we have not gone too far toward mass consolidation to dig ourselves out, because many people think that local foods are a path out of many of both our economic and environmental woes. They certainly provide a way to eat better (as in healthier and tastier), reduce one’s impact on the environment, and support local, resilient economies.

Consider this: In 2005, the year that the term “Locavore” was first uttered by Jessica Prentice we were continuing the loss of farmland that began in the 30s and accelerated in the 70s and 80s. Between 2005 and 2006, the U.S. lost 8,900 farms (a little more than one farm per hour) The American Farmland Trust estimates that we lose one acre of agricultural land per minute to development.

With the farmland goes infrastructure like feed stores, slaughterhouses, tractor dealers and the jobs go with them. Between 2001 and 2005, 200 federally inspected meat processing plants disappeared. Most were very small plants. Today, four corporations slaughter 80 percent of the cattle in the United States.

But even as we continue to lose farmland and infrastructure, like slaughterhouses, there’s a nascent movement toward re-localizing. It’s driven by the small but real demand for local foods and also, in response to that demand, by the new USDA.

As the Ethicurean reported recently, the USDA has published a study on the impact of local food dollars called “Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues.” Though direct-to-consumer sales from farmers markets, farm stands, and U-pick were only 0.4 percent of the total food economy, the numbers are growing. Local foods are growing at a rage of 10 percent per year outpacing the rest of the food economy’s growth rate of five percent.

As with other local foods, there’s a growing demand for small-scale, local meat production. The people driving the demand want to know where their food comes from and they don’t want to contribute to the devastating ecological impacts of CAFOS (confined animal feeding operations).

The USDA is supporting this movement in a variety of ways. One of the more creative is its funding and support of mobile slaughterhouses. These facilities are just coming online in several areas around the U.S. and allow smaller farmers access to USDA inspected facilities. If we are to re-localize meat production away from the four giant corporations, the small farmers will need processing facilities appropriate to their scale of production and feasibly near enough to local markets.

This move is necessary because, as the Washington Post article above points out, the barriers for small, ecological farmers in getting their product to market are incredibly high. Big slaughterhouses require appointments far in advance, are spread out and consolidated across the country, and may not want to deal with small herds. The USDA is helping small meat producers stay on their land farming by supporting the development of more mobile slaughterhouses. They provide funding, USDA inspectors, and a help line for small producers.

Though this is a tiny segment that only affects a few farmers and consumers, it is a creative strategy for reducing animal agriculture’s impact on the environment and perhaps even saving rural economies from extinction.

Environmentally, smaller scale animal operations produce fewer impacts. According to a report by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the animal waste from factory farms is produced in such large quantities, it is impossible to deal with in a responsible way and use as fertilizer, which is a role that animal agriculture has always played in row crop farming. Not to mention, the manure excreted by animals in factory farms often has a range of toxins including antibiotic-resistant residue and endocrine disrupting chemicals. These and other pollutants can get into water and airways, negatively affecting nearby communities. However, the waste created on smaller, more environmentally sustainable farms raising both crops and animals, can be dealt with effectively and used to fertilize crops.

Recent studies are starting to point to local foods as a way to jump start sagging economies. According to The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a typical farmer gets paid 10 cents of each retail food dollar, but farmers who sell direct to consumer get more money to invest in their farm and support their family. Strengthening rural communities is the key to a healthy and diversified economy. While dollars spent with large corporations almost immediately leave the community, dollars spent on local food products circulate within the community eight to 15 times, drastically improving the value of your purchase.

A local food economy study conducted by Sustainable Seattle found that locally directed spending by consumers more than doubles the number of dollars circulating among businesses in the community. Put quantitatively, the study found that a shift of 20 percent of food dollars into locally directed spending would result in a nearly half billion dollar annual income increase in King County alone and twice that in the Central Puget Sound region.

If re-localizing food production really is a way to work toward a more economically and environmentally sustainable future, than mobile slaughterhouses can be part of a larger rebuilding of the infrastructure of community-based agriculture.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Hans S

The post Mobile Slaughterhouses Promoting Local, Sustainable Meat Production and Stronger Local Economies appeared first on EcoSalon.