factory farms

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on the unfortunate story of a 22 year-old woman who became paralyzed due to a reaction to E.coli that she contracted from a hamburger.  Even though preventable food-borne illnesses like this one continue to occur, not enough is being done to ensure safe food for consumers.

In 2008, USDA tested ground beef at processing facilities it regulates and found deadly E. coli contamination 54 times.  USDA already found it 31 times this year. But what happened after that? You might assume that the agency tried to find all the product in those batches that were tested so that it could be removed from store shelves before it could harm the public. That’s where you’d be wrong.

We don’t know exactly what happens because USDA refuses to explain it to the public and has blocked our attempts to use the Freedom of Information Act to determine it by looking at their records.  Just last week, USDA officials reneged on their promise for a 2009 meeting to explain exactly what actions the government takes when it finds the deadly E. coli  O157:H7 pathogen in products that have left meat plants. 

What we do know is that most testing is done at the smallest plants, so positive tests often reveal only the tips of the iceberg of how much product might be involved, especially because these small plants often buy scraps of beef from other larger companies to process into ground beef.  After government health departments link illnesses to particular product, all efforts are made to identify the rest of the “iceberg” and recall as much contaminated product as possible.  But, until someone gets sick, even confirmed E. coli 0157:H7 tests in ground beef, lead to a much milder response by USDA. If there are no illnesses and USDA has only a test showing contamination, it will check company paperwork at the slaughterhouses that supplied the beef to the processor and will likely collect one or more samples of current production to see if it is contaminated.  This will indicate nothing about the specific production lot from which the positive test came and will do nothing to alert consumers to the potentially deadly beef that is still in the market, if not already in their freezers.

How many more lives have to be sacrificed before changes are made in the food safety system?  Real action must be taken to prevent more senseless tragedies like this one from occurring. USDA needs to update their E. coli testing and response policies. 

– Felicia Nestor

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.

So what are my options? It can get incredibly confusing for consumers, as seen in a recent Baltimore Sun article that quotes our very own FWW assistant director, Patty Lovera. Patty was kind enough to break it down for me. So here’s a list of “milk hierarchy” you can use when trying to decide what to put in your fridge:

1) Buy from a local organic farmer. The more local the milk and the smaller the farm, the better! This enables transparency so you know the source and that the farmer has organically-produced milk, not to mention happier cows that are grazing in fields rather than vying for room to breathe in large-scale factories. To find local markets and farms near you, go to eatwellguide.org.

2) If you must rely on labels at the supermarket, look for the green and white USDA organic label. That says a lot by itself. Organic milk implies that the dairy cows were not given hormones, antibiotics, or feed that wasn’t organically raised. This label does not, however, reveal the living environment of the cattle. Claims of "access to pasture" remain vaguely defined. For more information on organic milk, check out The Milk Tip.

3) If you can’t afford to go all-organic, the next level down is rBGH-free milk. It doesn’t have the organic label (which automatically means it’s rBGH-free), but there might be a rBGH-free or rBST-free label on the container. Unfortunately, due to some shenanigans by agribusiness, some companies that are actually rBGH-free are hesitant to label their products as such. Read an earlier press statement and blog post that can shed more light on this ongoing battle. Please also check out our Artificial Hormone-free Dairy Guide to see what rBGH-free dairy products are sold in your area.

Beyond these two labels, you’re kind of on your own. Some other milk comes from non-organic factory farms, where cows are lined up side-by-side and pumped with hormones to produce more milk. Other milk might come from family farms that are doing it right but don’t have a way to differentiate themselves in the market because their milk is pooled with other farms. All milk is labeled in some manner but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything significant. Decoding Food Labels can help you sort through the information you see in the meat and dairy cases.

Learning so much about milk after not being much of a fan has changed my perspective completely. I can feel my palate expanding already, and it’s ironic how I’ve now become the milk expert for my friends and family. When you know how your food reaches your lips, your appreciation can grow immensely. I recommend learning where your food comes from and getting involved to improve our milk options!

Swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, has dominated every major news outlet for the past couple of weeks – and justly so. It has sickened over a thousand people, killed almost thirty, and created widespread panic that has crippled the travel industry and damaged the already floundering world economy.

Much of the chatter revolving around swine flu is whether or not it was a result of the conditions at a factory farm in Mexico owned in part by Smithfield. While there has been no definitive link established to the factory farm, this flu strain did have its genetic root in flu strains present on hog farms in the 1990s, according to virologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

If anything positive has come out of this mess, it’s that some long-overdue attention is being paid to the potential public health impacts of industrialized livestock production. Before swine flu became a household word communities all over this country, and increasingly around the world, have been burdened with health problems caused by these polluting facilities. 

Recently, an antibiotic-resistant strain of staphylococcus aureus  - more commonly known as MRSA – was found in U.S. pigs. This strain was originally only seen in the Netherlands – where it already proved itself capable of transferring from pigs to humans. Being resistant to antibiotics makes infections caused by these bacteria much more difficult to treat – and is the result of pumping antibiotics into animal feed, a common factory farm practice.

Factory farms have gone unchecked for far too long, with potentially disastrous consequences. Hopefully swine flu is the wake up call that lawmakers need to rein in this dangerous practice. To learn more about factory farms, please check out our website.

- Sofía Baliño

With a title like Righteous Porkchop, Nicolette Hahn Niman’s 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. She focuses much of her work on the U.S. hog market, which – as you can see in our report The Trouble With Smithfield – is a disaster of enormous proportions. Rather than just griping about the problem, however, she also provides recommendations for what to look for when grocery shopping, so consumers know the right questions to ask and what labels to look for.

The evils of factory farms are almost too many to count – though Hahn Niman does an excellent job of breaking them down properly. In an era where climate change is an increasing threat, the fact that over twenty percent of the fossil fuel used in the United States goes towards food production is definitely cause for concern. Meanwhile, the amount of carbon dioxide released, as noted by a 2005 Environmental Protection Agency report, is equal to the amount that 141 million cars release per year.

The problem goes far beyond pollution, however. The animals are kept in unsanitary and cramped conditions, the farms emit toxic chemicals that cause substantial air pollution affecting surrounding communities, and the farm workers themselves experience a range of negative physical effects from working in such atrocious conditions. Consumers themselves are also affected, thanks to the widespread use of antibiotics and artificial hormones in factory farms. Along these lines Hahn Niman’s book provides some startling figures regarding salmonella found in sample packages of ground meat, which further reinforces the point that human health is being unnecessarily put at risk for the sake of big agribusiness.

The book’s closing paragraph cites a quote from our very own Brother Dave Andrews, Food & Water Watch’s senior representative, in which he reminds us that “Eating is a moral act.” With positive reviews from The San Francisco Chronicle, The Globe and Mail, and many others, it is clear that Righteous Porkchop has succeeded in making that important point. 

- Sofia Baliño

Want a new way to teach your kids and students about farmed fish? Food & Water Watch  has just come out with a new animation, “Fishy Business,” available online
as a fun and easy-to-use resource for parents and educators to teach their children about the potential dangers of fish farming.

 The animation describes in detail the process of fish farming. Specifically, it shows the effects of pollution, overfishing, and the cramped and unhealthy conditions in fish farms, as well as how fish feed is altered with antibiotics and growth hormones. Parasites and disease that are present as a result of the farming can also be spread to wild fish. The animation describes a variety of other problems also caused by this practice, in a way that is comprehensive, without being overwhelming – making it an ideal educational tool.

Recently the National Organic Standards Board – a panel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture – passed a rule allowing farmed fish to be labeled as “organic” – despite the fish farming process being incompatible with organic standards. This goes to show that it is all the more pressing for parents and children alike to understand that some fish being sold in grocery stores, which may bear the seemingly safe label of “organic,” may actually be unsafe and unsustainable. 

Check out our website to learn more about the dangers of fish farming, or to sign a petition asking Congress to protect our health, oceans, and coastal economies.  You can also check out our seafood buying guide that recommends safe and healthy seafood choices.

– Sofía Baliño

“Smithfield: Good food. Responsibly.” This is the heading at the top of the Smithfield website, trying to convince consumers that all of its environmental awards actually reflect environmental quality.  And they now have another award to add to their list of accolades – the McDonald’s first ever Sustainability Award, a prize that they actually nominated themselves for. They presumably won it for having described how they try to conserve natural resources, treat animals humanely, and ensure the health and welfare of their employees. Now if only all this were true, then this award would be a great achievement.

This is hardly the first time that Smithfield has been given a pat on the back for supposedly being environmentally friendly. On their website, they talk about being the first to receive ISO 14001 certification for its U.S. hog production and pork and beef processing facilities – presumably the “international gold standard for environmental management.” Not to mention being ranked as a “socially responsible company,” or other awards from places like the American Meat Institute or the Virginia government.  Sounds quite impressive, right?

So what’s our problem? We want to know how an organization can be considered to be environmentally friendly when it raises hogs on factory farms, creating enough waste to rival an entire city – such as the 500,000 hogs at one site that produce more waste than all of Salt Lake City. That waste is untreated, and often, it is not contained- in one case in North Carolina, millions of gallons of waste have contaminated rivers and creeks. Is that really worthy of an award? Or in this case, several?

As you can see in our report – “The Trouble with Smithfield: A Corporate Profile”  - the company has a variety of environmental and labor practices that are just unacceptable. And their impact extends even further than workers and the environment– people living near their facilities have been known to experience extensive health problems as a result, including depressed immune function, asthma, and mood disorders. That’s hardly worthy of an award.

You want safe shrimp to eat; restaurant owners want a good product to sell; chefs want delicious ingredients from which to create a winning menu; and domestic shrimpers need our business to survive as an industry. It’s one big circle – and our choices in one area impact others. This circle was made obvious by voices raised in New Orleans at the 2008 Women Chefs and Restaurateurs National Conference.

The attending women were eager to hear from Food & Water Watch, who sent me to get out the word about the health and environmental price of cheap imported shrimp. Chefs and restaurants got tips and important information about how they can improve their shrimp purchasing practices in the panel, "There’s Something About Shrimp."

 "The only way to make sure that we are getting safe seafood and that we continue to have a domestic industry to supply us with it is to shift demand. "

A lot is at stake for shrimp, and audience members got a well-rounded perspective on the issue from our esteemed panel. Panelists included moderator Leigh Belanger from the Chef’s Collaborative, local New Orleans shrimper Ray Brandhurst, chef of Commander's Palace in New Orleans, Tory McPhail, and Brennan Group operations head Haley Bitterman.

Giant shrimp buffets and growing portion sizes are just two reasons why demand for cheap, imported shrimp has grown immensely (learn more in our report Suspicious Shrimp). The safer, sustainable domestic shrimpers have lost and gone out of business. In addition, natural disasters such as hurricanes have wreaked havoc on shrimpers' boats and the industry’s infrastructure.

Ray, an innovative entrepreneur, talked about how the direct-purchasing relationships that he established with local restaurants have kept him afloat. He’s even begun shipping his shrimp directly to restaurants throughout the country via FedEx.

The overarching message from the panel was clear – eat domestic shrimp. The only way to make sure that we are getting safe seafood and that we continue to have a domestic industry to supply us with it is to shift demand. And we all have a part to play in that – whether we’re consumers, shrimpers, or chefs. To find out more about industrially produced shrimp and why you may want to avoid it, check out our Suspicious Shrimp report.

Chinese government and agribusinesses want to send processed chicken to the United States for your consumptive pleasure.  The problem?  This chicken may not be safe.  The main concerns stem from the findings of U.S. inspectors upon visiting Chinese facilities.  Their reports cite defective equipment, lack of employee hygiene, unsanitary conditions, and an absence of regulations requiring pre-shipment testing for Salmonella, E. coli and other contaminants.  Reports of avian flu outbreaks in China also raise questions about the safety of Chinese poultry.
That Chinese imports may compromise the health of consumers is not a new problem (Washington Post, NPR).  In recent years, the FDA has refused to import hundreds of products from China, ranging from seafood to cosmetics, in which it detected dangerous substances or other regulatory violations. 

However, the USDA continues to attempt to approve the importation of Chinese poultry.  The Administration even went so far as to propose an absurd back-and-forth trade system whereby birds would be raised in North America, shipped to China to be processed, and then sent back to be sold.  Having been blocked by Congress last year, the USDA is again trying to open up the American meat market to Chinese chicken.

 Why is the USDA so determined to allow this trade?  Are we facing a national chicken deficit?  On the contrary, the United States has been producing too much chicken.  The real reason seems to lie in the interests of the meat industry.  It is thought that accepting Chinese poultry is an important prerequisite to China opening its markets to U.S. beef and pork.    

 
While it is important that we stay on good terms with China, this should not happen at the expense of your safety.  Sign our petition to tell Congress not to import Chinese Chicken!

email

"Firms like Hormel and Cargill that believe it is acceptable to endanger consumers if it helps the companies' bottom lines will soon learn that this Congress will not tolerate their  deceptive practices,"

said Congressman Bart Stupak in a press release yesterday. The Democrat from Michigan was congratulating Tysons Food, Inc. for quietly informing the Committee on Energy and Commerce that it will phase out the deceptive practice of treating meat with carbon monoxide to preserve the blood red color associated with freshness – potentially long past meat spoilage.

Tysons, the nation's largest producer of red meat who has gotten a bit of criticism from Food & Water Watch on things like factory poultry farming, can't say we never say anything nice about them again because: Good job Tysons for listening to the 93% of Americans who think the practice is lousy! And unlike Starbucks with it's nebulous phase-out of rBGH, Tysons even set a date! Consumers can expect products produced after September 7th to be produced without carbon monoxide treatment, according to the company's letter to the committee.

If you read the report we released along with FactoryFarmMap.org, you know that the payments that the government makes to farmers allowing them to sell their soy and corn for less than the costs of production (read our farm bill report if you want to understand how we got into that mess) acts as an indirect subsidy for gigantic animal livestock operations, also known as factory farms.  These facilities are so big that they can't possibly grow their own livestock feed, and we report that, if factory farms paid as much for corn and soy as it costs to grow, their overall cost of production would increase by 7 to 10 percent.

Now what industry wouldn't mind a 10 percent subsidy from the government?  But apparently, that's not enough.  Big Ag would wants in on a little program called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.  EQIP is a conservation program run by the USDA that gives grants to farms to improve their environmental practices. There is a proposed amendment to the 2007 Farm Bill that would remove the cap on what size farms (as determined by their annual income) are eligible for the program’s funding, and would allow large factory farms to receive grants to build systems for managing the vast amounts of manure their operations generate.

This proposal would be an unfair subsidy for operations that use unsustainable practices and rob small farms of desperately needed funds that could help them make their practices better. Think that stinks worse than a manure lagoon (and those are pretty bad)?  Then there's no time like right now for expressing your dismay to your member of Congress.

And, if you haven't checked out FactoryFarmMap.org, what are you waiting for?