Blog Posts: Meat

Rural America calls on Obama to make markets fair for independent producers.

On Valentines Day, while most people fretted about dinner reservations or flowers, a coalition of livestock producers, agriculture groups, and consumers took time out to show a little love for fair food by participating in a national call-in day. Over 2,000 confirmed calls were placed throughout the country to the White House to ask the Obama administration to finalize and implement fair livestock marketing rules.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, an activist named Cathy took the day off from her job, set up an information table in her local co-op and asked 75 people to call the White House on behalf of fair food. She has seen family and friends who were farmers suffer because of bad federal agricultural policy.

In Chicago, Floriole Café & Bakery and The Dill Pickle Food Co-op hosted call-in events with members of the local food community. They placed approximately 80 phone calls to the White House.

In Vermont, students at Vermont Law School in South Royalston — many of whom are members of the Food & Agriculture Law Society — organized a four-hour call-in at the student union. They want to change the Farm Bill to better support local farmers and local food networks.

Fair food advocates placed calls from Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, California, Oregon and New York.

But it wasn’t just consumers and activists calling for action. The National Farmers Union sent out alerts to their chapters, and other allies, including Food & Water Watch, Western Organization of Resources Councils, R-CALF, The Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, RAFI-USA, National Family Farm Coalition, the Center for Rural Affairs, Food Democracy Now and others are all working together to urge President Obama to implement Fair Farm Rules.

But what exactly are these rules and why are they so important? Read the full article…

In various beef trade publications, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) has recently decided to launch an attack on the mission of Food & Water Watch. We find this to be a curious development and we decided to figure out why. Read the full article…

500 independent ranchers, farmers, meatpacking workers, consumers, urban farmers and food justice activists gather at a public forum in Colorado on the eve of the DOJ and USDA joint hearing on fair competition in the meat industry.

The American Meat Institute (AMI) thinks that everything is just fine in the meat industry. They represent the biggest meat packers and processors—the ones who have consolidated the meatpacking industry into a market dominated by four firms that exercise tremendous leverage over independent cattle producers. The few companies in control of the market insist that there is nothing wrong.

But, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder were in Fort Collins, Colorado last week, listening to the testimonies of independent ranchers who have been struggling to get fair prices for their cattle from the meat packer monopolies. If nothing is wrong in the meat industry, why would these top U.S. officials travel to the Mountain State to listen to the concerns of ranchers and small farmers at a joint hearing about restoring competition? And why would the groups like the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), who represent independent cattle producers, rally thousands of people to attend the hearings? Read the full article…

Community supported agriculture programs (CSA’s) have become increasingly popular in the United States as more people begin to realize their many benefits.  These programs let city dwellers escape the factory farm-to-mega-market-production line and experience farm fresh food.  New evidence of the growing popularity of CSA’s can be found on a small farm north of Ithaca, New York, where The Piggery, a farm that boasts of “handcrafted charcuterie from heirloom, pastured pork,” has become New York City’s first meat-only CSA.

Pssst… where'd ya get your pig? Photo courtesty the National Media Museum.

While New York isn’t the first place one would expect a pig farm, the married team of Brad Marshall and Heather Stanford have successfully established their meat-only CSA to provide fresh pork products to the city. The couple raises 130 pigs in an open-air barn where animals have access to green pastures.  Once large enough, these pigs are sent to slaughter and then made into various pork products including bacon, salami, pork chops, and chorizo.

These products are then sold back to the public through a seasonal membership fee.  Members invest money up front to buy a portion of a pig.  Each month, they receive cuts from their purchased pig.  The knowledge that these products are being ethically produced is a primary motivator for participation in the CSA. Read the full article…

The USDA finally admitted to a small group of consumer group representatives last week that its official policy is to take very little action when it finds ground beef contaminated with E. coli in commerce. That is, unless several human illnesses have already been identified with the product. I presented a ‚consumer perspective” on this revelation at the joint FDA/FSIS meeting on Joint FDA/FSIS Public Meeting on Tracing Unsafe Meat Products yesterday, along with a small group of representatives from consumer groups, including Food & Water Watch. Read the full article…

When I was approached about participating in Food & Water Watch‚ own Water Challenge, I accepted without hesitating. Id like to reduce my impact on the planet and become more aware of how my lifestyle choices affect the environment, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to become more educated. Now that Ive started looking into ways I can reduce my water usage, I must admit Im not as enthusiastic. I think this is one of the biggest challenges facing the environmental movement- most people are reluctant to make real sacrifices or endure any kind of actual suffering, especially when there‚ no obvious, immediate reward for doing so. It‚ easy to recycle; it‚ not so easy to give up your long, leisurely shower. Read the full article…

The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749) passed last week in the U.S. House of Representatives  by a vote of 283-142.  The bill gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration new mandates and authority to regulate food safety of the 80% of the food supply that falls under its jurisdiction.  It addresses some of the gaping loopholes in the food safety program at FDA that were tragically exposed by a series of food borne illness outbreaks in recent years that sickened and even killed U.S. consumers.  On balance, the bill is a positive first step to correcting the deficiencies at
FDA, but there are still some issues that need to be addressed as the Read the full article…

I’ve never been much of a milk drinker. Born with extremely picky taste buds, I would only pour it into my cereal or use it in some pancake mix. Taste wasn’t too much of an issue for me, so frankly, the amount of fat was all I considered when purchasing milk. Of course everything is way more complicated than that, and growing up I learned about organic milk, but I’ve found even that discussion has its problems. As a new Food & Water Watch (FWW) intern, I’ve learned that there are a large number of factors to bear in mind when buying milk. It’s not only about personal health but also treatment of cattle and environmental impact. Read the full article…

With a title like Righteous Porkchop, Nicolette Hahn Niman‚ recently released book is hard to miss. Which is a good
thing too, considering how it takes a somewhat difficult topic like factory farms and makes it accessible to a wide audience. The relevance of this book is painfully clear, in an era where factory farms have become the norm. Hahn Niman does more than just profile the megafarms that are causing pollution, as can be seen on our Factory Farms map, but she also tours traditional farms and notes how they run their practices and what makes them both an efficient and safer alternative to factory farms. Read the full article…

As the Bush administration draws to a close, the old adage, “out with the old, in with the new” is one way to describe the flurry of activity that comes with a presidential transition.  Food & Water Watch has been asking the incoming Obama administration to translate their campaign promises of change into action. One way to do that is for the new administration to bring a new determination for the food safety agencies that we look to for protection to actually do what is required of them.

One key change that we are encouraging the new administration to make is the creation of a separate food safety administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. FDA is both underfunded and understaffed , and the results have been glaringly evident, with their belated and inadequate import alert on Chinese dairy products being just one of many examples. Read the full article…