Tag Archives: animal agriculture

‘Something isn’t right’: U.S. probes soaring beef prices

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https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/25/meatpackers-prices-coronavirus-antitrust-275093

One hundred years ago, U.S. antitrust prosecutors broke down monopolies in meatpacking. But can they do it again?

Meat for sale in a Miami supermarket

Meat for sale at a Miami supermarket. The USDA has been investigating potential price manipulation in the beef market, particularly due to the coronavirus pandemic. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images

By LEAH NYLEN and LIZ CRAMPTON

Updated: 

Supermarket customers are paying more for beef than they have in decades during the coronavirus pandemic. But at the same time, the companies that process the meat for sale are paying farmers and ranchers staggeringly low prices for cattle.

Now, the Agriculture Department and prosecutors are investigating whether the meatpacking industry is fixing or manipulating prices.

The Department of Justice is looking at the four largest U.S. meatpackers — Tyson Foods, JBS, National Beef and Cargill — which collectively control about 85 percent of the U.S. market for the slaughter and packaging of beef, according to a person with knowledge of the probe. The USDA is also investigating the beef price fluctuations, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has confirmed.

Meatpackers say beef prices have spiked during the pandemic because plants are running at lower capacity as workers fall ill, so less meat is making its way to shelves. The four companies didn’t respond to requests for comment about the probes.

But the coronavirus crisis is highlighting how the American system of getting meat to the table favors a handful of giant companies despite a century of government efforts to decentralize it. And it’s sparking new calls for changes in meatpacking.

“It’s evidence that something isn’t right in the industry,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has spoken out against mergers in the agriculture industry. In April, Grassley requested federal investigations into market manipulation and unfair practices within the cattle industry. So have 19 other senators and 11 state attorneys general.

The average retail price for fresh beef in April was $6.22 per pound — 26 cents higher per pound than it was the month before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time, at the end of April, the average price for a steer was below $100 per hundred pounds; the five-year average for that same week was about $135 per hundred pounds, according to USDA’s weekly summary.

Ed Greiman, general manager of Upper Iowa Beef who formerly headed the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association, attributed the consumer price increase to plants running at lower capacity. At the same time, farmers and ranchers desperate to offload their cattle as they reach optimal weight for slaughter are cutting prices so they won’t have to kill the animals without selling them.

“I’m running at half speed,” Greiman said at an event hosted by the Nebraska Cattlemen’s Association. “Cattle are backing up because we can’t run our plants fast enough. Nothing is functioning properly. We need to be careful not to put blame on any one thing or part of the industry because we can’t get these plants going.”

The industry has long been a focus for government antitrust enforcement.

Exactly 100 years ago, after years of litigation, the five biggest U.S. meatpackers — which were responsible for 82 percent of the beef market — agreed to an antitrust settlement with the Justice Department that helped break their control over the industry.

The Justice Department’s efforts to reduce concentration in meatpacking led to decades of competition. By 1980, the top four firms controlled only 36 percent of cattle slaughters in the U.S., according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

But during the next 10 years, meatpacking experienced a huge wave of deals, enough that the USDA dubbed the time “merger mania.” By 1988, the new four biggest companies again controlled 70 percent of the beef meatpacking market.

“There’s greater concentration in meatpacking now” than in 1921, said Thomas Horton, an antitrust professor at the University of South Dakota, who previously worked at the Justice Department. The first antitrust laws were “passed to take care of the Big Five. Now we have the Big Four. We’re going backwards.”

Unlike poultry and pork, which take weeks or months to raise, cattle can take as long as two years from birth to butcher. That lifecycle makes it much more difficult to adjust supply. Once cattle reaches its optimal weight, they need to be sold within two weeks, said Peter Carstensen, an antitrust professor at the University of Wisconsin. And realistically, a farmer can only transport cattle about 150 miles to a slaughterhouse.

“You’ve got at most four bidders, but the reality is there are often fewer,” said Carstensen, noting that in some states, there are only one or two meatpackers with plants.

While the structure of the industry has remained stable since 2009, changes in how the meatpackers buy cattle have also had an impact. Before 2015, about half of all cattle was purchased via direct negotiation between a rancher and meatpacker, known as the negotiated cash market. Today, about 70 percent are purchased through contracts where farmers agree to deliver cattle once they reach a certain weight with the price to be determined later — usually a formula that takes into account how much cattle sell for in the cash market.

The increase in these contracts has some advantages for ranchers, because they know they have a buyer and don’t have to spend time on negotiations, said Ted Schroeder, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University. But fewer cash trades have made it harder to figure out the right price for cattle, he said.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, more than 14,271 meatpacking workers have been sick as of May 15, according to the nonprofit Food and Environment Reporting Network. Worker illnesses and temporary plant closures have led plants to operate at about 50 percent capacity, said Schroeder.

Schroeder, who has focused on cattle prices for more than three decades, said the rising consumer prices and falling cattle prices are consistent with normal supply and demand.

“It’s economics 101. There’s less meat around, but demand is still pretty strong,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of cattle but can’t get it through the system. We are pretty close to what I would expect to happen to wholesale and farm prices given the bottleneck.”

Not everyone is persuaded. Last year, ranchers filed an antitrust suit against the four meatpackers for colluding to depress cattle prices. The suit, pending in Minneapolis federal court, alleges that Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef began coordinating in 2015 to reduce the number of cattle slaughtered while also limiting how many they bought in the cash market. Ranchers with excess animals on their hands were forced to sell for less or enter into long-term contracts beneficial to meatpackers.

“The Big Four simultaneously withdrew from the cash market with intent to reduce prices across the board,” said Bill Bullard, CEO of Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, one of the lead plaintiffs in the suit, in an interview.

The companies were able to coordinate by communicating through trade associations, said Bullard. The lawsuit is based in part on information provided by a confidential witness who worked for one of the meatpackers for a decade. The conspiracy drove prices down at least 8 percent, said Bullard.

If the meatpackers were communicating about prices, that would clearly violate criminal antitrust laws, said Carstensen. But if a company observes what a rival does and matches that behavior — sometimes called “tacit collusion”— that may not violate the law, he said.

“Coordination is not the same thing as collusion,” said Carstensen.

The Justice Department could, however, try to make a case that the meatpackers have monopolized the beef market. They could argue that the companies have engaged in “an anticompetitive set of industry practices, which taken together, violate antitrust law and require a broader restructuring,” he said.

The anti-monopoly Open Markets Institute has outlined a similar theory and pushed for breaking up the Big Four so no company controls more than 10 percent of the market. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also advocated for breaking up meatpackers as part of her presidential campaign.

Grassley, meanwhile, said he’s not ready to call for the breakup of major meatpackers, but he has “a great deal of questions about whether they’re operating within the law.”

Bullard’s group is also pushing for broader changes to the industry, such as requiring packers to buy at least half of their cattle from the cash market or prohibiting contracts that don’t include prices.

Kansas’ Schroeder, though, warned against moving the industry backwards. Breaking up the meatpackers would likely lead to higher consumer prices, he said, and insisting on cash sales would eliminate some of the advantages, like stable supply, that contracts offer.

“Too often, we try to stop things from progressing. We want things to be the way they used to be. But the way they used to be wasn’t that great,” he said. “We should be cautious how we approach regulation, so we don’t turn the apple cart upside down.”

COVID-19 Exposes Flaws in Animal Protein Production

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 from Sentient Media

COVID-19 Exposes Flaws in Animal Protein Production
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Our food system is breaking due to COVID-19 closures, but this collapse has been looming for decades.

We were warned years ago that another deadly pandemic was inevitable—but we did not listen. Instead, humans have continued prioritizing low food prices and convenience over public safety and pandemic prevention.

Though there are many contributors to the current collapse—including a growing global population and deep-rooted cultural norms—big meat and dairy companies, farmers, producers, and consumers are all to blame for the system’s demise. Demand for animal protein and deep-seated industrialization of animal farming have created the perfect breeding grounds for disease.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many slaughterhouses across North America have been shut down or are working at limited capacity because of large outbreaks among farm and slaughterhouse workers. The closing of restaurants, schools, and hotels—responsible for significant amounts of meat and dairy consumption—has contributed to a drop in demand for animal products.

As a result, there are now major backlogs of animals on farms. Eggs are being crushed, milk is being dumped, and our animal protein production system appears to be crumbling before our eyes—a reality that demonstrates the dire need for reform within our animal-dependent food system.

“The system is breaking up,” says Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University, in Canada. What we see happening today, he says, “is really showing the limits of our system,” and the cost “are the lives of animals that were produced for no reason.”
Meat Production Is Showing No Signs of Slowing Down
Though COVID-19 has threatened food supply chains, meat production in 2021 is forecast to rise nearly 4 percent higher than in 2020 due to recovery in all major types of meat.
From an economic perspective, “the problem remains in processing,” Charlebois explains. Our food system was transformed over a century ago from local abattoirs to massive corporate slaughter plants. A centralized food system, he adds, “makes the entire supply chain vulnerable.”

Adam Clark Estes—Deputy Editor of Recode at Vox—explains that “Meatpacking remains consolidated to a few dozen Midwestern processing plants, many of which are owned by a handful of huge corporations, like JBS and Smithfield.” That’s why, he says, “when a few of these processors get shut down, due to a pandemic or something else, the country’s entire meat supply suffers.”

Read the full story
Covering COVID-19
With the worst global pandemic we’ve seen in over a century, it’s more important than ever to make sure the truth is reported in its entirety, not just what’s convenient.

Scientists understand cattle not climate villains, but media still missing message

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James Nason, May 25, 2020

FOR a long time emissions from cattle have been lumped in with emissions from other sources as the same destructive forces for the planet in the global climate change narrative.

However, through research overseen by scientists including Dr Frank Mitloehner (right) from the University of California Davis and Dr Myles Allen from Oxford University, scientific consensus is starting to build around the point that livestock-related greenhouse gases are distinctively different from greenhouse gases associated with other sectors of society (more on this below).

Dr Mitloehner, an internationally recognised air quality expert, explained to the Alltech One virtual conference on Friday night (Australian time) that the concept of accounting for methane according to its Global Warming Potential, as opposed to just its volume of CO2 equivalent, which showed that not all greenhouse gases are created equal, has now made it all the way to the International Panel on Climate Change.

However, despite increasing awareness and understanding at a scientific level, the message has still not been taken up by the mainstream media.

“What I find interesting is that the one missing entity in this whole discussion so far has been the media,” he told Alltech president and CEO Dr Mark Lyons in a live streamed video interview.

“I have not seen any major reporting on this even though it’s such a hot topic.

“I mean, the world talks about what the impact of our food systems are on our environmental footprint.

“Now, this is a major new narrative. And to me, it’s very unusual and it’s very confusing as to why the same outlets that have touted this topic as being so paramount are not talking about these new findings whatsoever.

“So to me that’s problematic. And we have to think about why that is. Have we not explained it right? Is it too early for them to report about it? I don’t know, but this narrative is not going away.

“You will see it will gain momentum, and it will become the new reality.”

Why all greenhouse gases are not created equal

Dr Mitloehner said to date the global climate change debate has tended to focus only on how much greenhouse gases are emitted by different sources.

Most discussion fails to recognise that certain sectors of society, such as forestry and agriculture, also serve as a sink for greenhouse gases.

Climate debate focuses on the 560 tera-grams of methane emitted each year but tends to ignore the 550 tera-grams sequested by sinks like agriculture and forestry (right).

After the Kyoto protocol, the climate change debate centred on the 560 tera-grams of methane emitted into the atmosphere each year from all sources, including fossil fuel production and use, agriculture and waste, biomass burning, wetlands and other natural emissions.

“That is where most people stop the discussion, even though they shouldn’t,” he explained.

“Because in addition to emissions putting methane into the atmosphere, we also have sinks on the right side of this graph (above).

“And these sinks amount to a very respectable total number of 550 teragrams.

“So in other words, we have 560 teragrams of methane emitted, meaning put into the atmosphere, but then we have 550 teragrams of methane taken out of the atmosphere.

So in other words, the net emissions per year that we are dealing with is not 560, but it’s actually 10.

“Yet everybody talks about 560.”

In a biogenic carbon cycle, constant livestock herds or decreasing livestock herds over time did not add additional carbon to the atmosphere, he explained.

The carbon emitted by animals is recycled carbon. It came from atmospheric CO2, captured by plants, eaten by animals and then belched back out into the atmosphere, after a while becoming CO2 again.

Methane is a heat-trapping, potent greenhouse gas, and he stressed he was not suggesting that “it didn’t matter”.

But the key question for livestock is do ruminant herds add to additional methane, meaning additional carbon in the atmosphere which leads to additional warming?

The answer he said was clearly “no”.

Oxford University authors including Professor Myles Allen have shown that biogenic methane is not the same as fossil methane.

It is the same chemically, but the origin and fate “are totally, drastically different”.

“As long as we have constant herds or even decreasing herds, we are not adding additional methane, and hence not additional warming.

“This is a total change in the narrative around livestock. And I think this will be the narrative in the years to come.”

A chart documenting the size of the US cattle herd since 1867 shows it has decreased to around 90 million beef cattle and 9 million dairy cattle, down from peaks of 140 million beef cattle in the 1950s and 25 million dairy cattle in the 1970s.

The Australian cattle herd has similarly decreased from a peak of over 33 million cattle in 1976 to around 24 million today.

“We’re clearly see a decreasing number of livestock over the last few decades meaning with respect to livestock numbers, we have not cost an increasing amount of carbon in the atmosphere, but indeed we have decreased the amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere,” he said.

By contrast emissions from fossil fuel extractions were not part of a cycle, but “a one-way street”, because the amount of CO2 sent into the atmosphere in this process by far overpowered the potential sinks that could take up CO2, such as oceans, soils or plants.

“So here we have a one-way street. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the main culprit of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and the resulting warming.

“I have yet to see a climate scientist who would say that it’s the cows that are a primary culprit of warming. Most of them will agree that the primary culprit is the use of fossil fuels.”

“However, people critical of animal agriculture always point at cows, and cattle, and other livestock species. And they feel that this is a very powerful tool to ostracize animal agriculture as we know it.”

Not only were cattle not the primary culprit of global warming, they were also potentially part of the solution, as an explanation of stock gases versus flow gases demonstrated.

Long-lived climate pollutants such as Co2 were referred to as ‘stock’ gases because they last in the atmosphere for 1000 years. “Every time you put it into the atmosphere, you add to the existing stock of that gas,” he explained.

Methane (CH4) was a ‘flow’. Provided it was coming from a constant source, what was being put into the atmosphere was also being taken out.

“The only time that you really add new additional methane to the atmosphere with the livestock herd is throughout the first 10 years of its existence or if you increase your herd sizes.

“Only then do you actually add new additional methane and thus new additional warming.

“So please remember there are big differences between long-lived stock gases such as CO2 or nitrous oxide versus short-lived flow gases such as methane.”

He invited the audience to imagine a scenario where methane emissions from cattle were decreased by 35 percent.

If this could be achieved, it would have the effect of taking carbon out of the atmosphere and create a net cooling effect.

“If we find ways to reduce methane, then we counteract other sectors of societies that do contribute – and significantly so – to global warming, such as flying, driving, running air conditioners, and so on.

“So if we were to reduce methane, we could induce global cooling. And I think that our livestock sector has the potential to do it. And we are already seeing examples where that happens.”

He offered several examples of how the agricultural sector has already had success in reducing methane.

A few years ago the California legislature wrote a law called SB 1383 mandating a 40 percent reduction of methane to be achieved by the year 2030.

California’s farms and ranches have reduced greenhouse gases by 25pc since the laws were enacted.

This was achieved by using “a carrot rather than cane approach”, by rewarding farmers and ranchers who wanted to reduce emissions by giving them financial incentives to invest in anaerobic digesters or alternative manure management practices.

“I know if we can do it here, it can be done in other parts of the country and in other parts of the world.

“And if we indeed achieve such reductions of greenhouse gas, particularly of short-lived greenhouse gases such as methane, then that means that our livestock sector will be on a path for climate neutrality– on a path to climate neutrality. And that, to me, is a lifetime objective.”

Agriculture needs to work harder to tell its story

Dr Mitloehner said it was important the industry work harder to ensure the public understands the science around cattle production and greenhouse gas emissions.

“I feel that it is actually critical to get what we find in our research environment translated and communicated with the public sector.

“Because only if what we find makes its way to the light of the day, only then it matters”

It was also important that the public discussion used accurate and not misleading numbers around livestock emissions.

It is often stated that livestock emissions represent 14 percent to even as high as 50 percent of total emissions, but Dr Mitloehner said this did not reflect actual livestock emissions in developed countries such as the US were the number was closer to just 3 percent of all US emissions.

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Scientists understand cattle not climate villains, but media still missing message

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Science points to causes of COVID-19

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22 MAY 2020 STORY ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY

Photo by Unsplash/ Michael Longmire

Coronaviruses are transmitted between animals and humans. Many are relatively harmless – causing no more than a common cold. Others result in diseases that are new and unfamiliar, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and before that, outbreaks of diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS (2002); Avian Influenza or bird flu (2004); H1N1 or Swine  Flu (2009); Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS (2012); Ebola (2014– 2015); Zika virus (2015–2016); and West Nile virus (2019).

Almost a century’s worth of global trends confirm that coronaviruses are occurring more frequently. A 2016 UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report flagged coronaviruses–or “zoonoses­­”–as an issue of global concern. On average, three new infectious diseases emerge in humans every year; and about three quarters of these are zoonotic.

What is causing the spike in these diseases?  Here’s what decades of scientific research has to say:

Cole_Keister-Unsplash
Photo by Unsplash/ Cole Keister

Coronaviruses are facilitated by human actions

According to the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, “There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic – us.”

Not all coronaviruses result in disease. Without animal-to-human transmission, the current SARS-CoV-2 virus would not have presented itself in the form of COVID-19.  Indeed, other coronaviruses are circulating in animals and have not yet infected humans.

Coronaviruses are leaping to humans more frequently because we are providing them with more opportunities to do so. In the last 50 years alone, the human population has doubled and the global economy has almost quadrupled. Rapid migration from rural to urban areas and creation of new urban centres has affected demographics, lifestyles and consumer behaviour.

Environmental changes

Our evolving lifestyles have dramatically altered the land around us. We have cleared forests and other natural areas to create spaces for urban areas and settlements, agriculture and industries. In doing so, we have reduced overall space for wildlife and degraded natural buffers between humans and animals.

Climate change is also a driver of zoonoses.  Greenhouse gas emissions–primarily the result of burning fossil fuels–cause changes in temperature and humidity, which directly affects the survival of microbes.  Scheduled for release next month, a new rapid assessment by UNEP and ILRI on zoonotics suggests that epidemics will become more frequent as the climate continues to change.

Ales_Krivec_Unsplash
Photo by Unsplash/ Ales Krivec

Behavioural changes

Demand for dairy and meat products has led to the expansion of uniform cropland and intense livestock farming in rural areas and near cities.  Livestock often serve as a bridge between wildlife and human infections, meaning pathogens may be passed from wild animals to livestock to humans. 

Of particular concern are informal markets, where live, wild animals are kept and sold, often in unsanitary and unhygienic conditions. Viruses and other pathogens may be easily spread among animals that are kept close together; or to the humans who handle, transport, sell, purchase or consume them, when sanitary and protective practices are not followed.

Pathogen changes

Pathogens are always changing to survive in different animals, humans and environments. With the increase of intensive farming and overuse of antimicrobial drugs in both animals and people, pathogens are becoming more resistant to the very medications that might have been effective in treating zoonotic disease.

What COVID-19 is teaching us

COVID-19 is a reminder that human health and the planet’s health are closely linked. There are about 8 million species of life on the Earth, of which humans are just one. These include an estimated 1.7 million unidentified viruses, recognized as the type that may infect people, existing in mammals and water birds.  Any one of these could be transferred to humans, if we don’t take preventative measures now.

The most fundamental way to protect ourselves from coronaviruses is to prevent destruction of nature, which drives the spread of diseases

Where ecosystems are healthy and biodiverse, they are resilient, adaptable and help to regulate diseases. Pathogens that are passed around among reservoirs in animals are more likely to reach dead–and effectively die off–where there is greater diversity.

Genetic diversity builds disease resistance among animal populations and decreases the chances of outbreaks of high-impact animal diseases, according to a 2017 IPBES report.  Conversely, intensive livestock farming can produce genetic similarities within herds and flocks, reducing resilience and making them more susceptible to pathogens. This, by extension, exposes humans to a higher risk.

What UNEP is doing

As the world deals with the ongoing COVID-19 emergency and starts to recover from the impact of this global pandemic, UNEP is helping nations to build back better and increase resilience to future crises. UNEP supports countries in delivering stronger science-based policies that back a healthier planet and guide greener investments.

Recognizing that they are still our best chance for a better future, UNEP supports countries as they advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, its Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and other crucial agreements on issues such as biodiversity, oceans, chemicals and waste management.

With its partners, UNEP is also launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, a 10-year effort to halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide; and working to develop a new and ambitious Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

On 5 June, World Environment Day will engage governments, businesses, celebrities and citizens to rethink their relationship to nature and call for leaders to make decisions that put nature in the centre. We must act in solidarity and be informed by science.

US coronavirus hotspots linked to meat processing plants

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/us-coronavirus-meat-packing-plants-food

A billboard advertises job hiring at Agri Beef’s plant in Toppenish, Washington. Donald Trump last month declared such plants to be critical to the US economy.
A billboard advertises job hiring at Agri Beef’s plant in Toppenish, Washington. Donald Trump last month declared such plants to be critical to the US economy. Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP
Published onFri 15 May 2020 07.45 EDT

Almost half the current Covid-19 hotspots in the US are linked to meat processing plants where poultry, pigs and cattle are slaughtered and packaged, which has led to the virus spiking in many small towns and prompted calls for urgent reforms to an industry beset by health and safety problems.

At least 12 of the 25 hotspots in the US – counties with the highest per-capita infection rates – originated in meat factories where employees work side by side in cramped conditions, according to an analysis by the Guardian.

In Nebraska, five counties have outbreaks linked to meat plants including Dakota county, where about one of every 14 residents has tested positive – the second-highest per capita infection rate in the US. As of Thursday, the Nebraska counties of Dakota, Hall, Dawson, Saline, and Colfax accounted for almost half the state’s 9,075 positive cases, according to data tracking by the New York Times.

Meat processing plants seem to have emerged as incubators for the coronavirus, which has spread rapidly among workers unable to perform physical distancing.

The virus spreads among people in close contact for a prolonged period. It is mostly transmitted through tiny droplets from an infected person’s nose or mouth when they cough, sneeze or talk.

On Wednesday, a fourth US agriculture department (USDA) food safety inspector died, this time in Dodge City, Kansas. The city is located in Ford county, where one in 28 residents is infected – the 11th-highest rate in the US. In Kansas, outbreaks in four of the hardest-hit counties are linked to large meatpacking plants.

Almost 300 inspectors, who have struggled to get access to adequate protective gear, are off sick with Covid-19 or under self-quarantine due to exposure, said the USDA, which regulates about 6,500 plants, including 300 or so factories with more than 500 employees.

The deregulation of slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants over the past two decades has increased output and profits at the cost of health and safety, according to advocates .

Even before the pandemic, the industry was riddled with “serious safety and health hazards … including dangerous equipment, musculoskeletal disorders, and hazardous chemicals,” according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The pandemic has shone a light on the meat industry where for years workers have been exploited in these plants including being penalized for not showing up even when they are sick or injured. Even now, it’s taken plants to be shut down for companies to provide protective gear for workers,” said Tony Corbo, a senior lobbyist at the not-for-profit Food & Water Watch.

At least 30 plants have suspended operations over the past two months, and scores more have reduced operations amid a growing public outcry about working conditions for mostly migrant workers.

But many are now starting to reopen – a move encouraged by Donald Trump, who, in an attempt to fend off unrest about meat shortages in supermarkets, last month declared meat processing plants to be critical infrastructure.

In Nobles county, Minnesota, almost 500 workers at a large Brazilian-owned JBS pork plant have tested positive. The outbreak rapidly spread through the county, with 1,291 confirmed cases as of Wednesday compared with just a handful in mid-April. About one in 17 people in the county have now tested positive, though the infection is now slowing.

The Nobles plant reopened last week after two weeks closed. It has reportedly introduced a host of safety measures, including face shields for those working in close proximity.

Congress will vote on Friday on another Covid-19 rescue package, which includes mandatory health and safety regulations for all essential workers, including meat processing and care-home staff.

Farmers eye culling piglets as U.S. meat packing plants close

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Tyson Foods warns that ‘millions of pounds of meat’ will disappear from the supply chain

Canadian farmers sell about six million piglets or “feeder pigs” to farmers in the United States every year — about 20 per cent of the country’s total.
Canadian farmers sell about six million piglets or “feeder pigs” to farmers in the United States every year — about 20 per cent of the country’s total.Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images files

Broad shutdowns of major U.S. meat packing plants due to COVID-19 are deepening woes for Canadian pork farmers, choking food supply chains and snuffing out demand for thousands of baby piglets sold across the border each week.

Pork slaughtering capacity in the United States has fallen by about 25 per cent after at least 13 abattoirs were forced to temporarily halt operations due to outbreaks of the virus, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Those closures include three of the largest pork processing plants in the country — Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, JBS pork processing in Worthington, Minnesota and Tyson Fresh Foods in Waterloo, Iowa — which together represent about 15 per cent of U.S. capacity.

With no room at meat packing plants, thousands of pigs remain on American farms, limiting space and demand for young piglets from Canada.

Indeed, Canadian farmers sell about six million piglets or “feeder pigs” to farmers in the United States every year — about 20 per cent of the country’s total. Delivered to finishing barns at an age of 24 days old or 40 lbs, the piglets are subsequently grown to a weight of about 250 lbs and then slaughtered.

Now, problems at the meat packing level have created backups throughout the highly integrated North American supply chain, cratering demand and prices for both live hogs at processing plants and for Canadian piglets at U.S. finishing barns.

“Every day those piglets go on a train to the U.S.,” said Rick Bergmann, a Manitoba pork farmer and chair of the Canadian Pork Council. “But now the finishing barns in the U.S. are jammed up. Farmers down there are telling us ‘if I can’t sell my big pigs how am I going to take your piglets?’”

Bergmann, who typically ships 800 piglets south of the border each week, recently gave a delivery of the animals away for free rather than incur the added cost of keeping them on his farm. With each of the 800 piglets costing $40 to raise, the hit to Bergmann’s bottom line was more than $32,000.

The picture is even darker in the U.S., where discussions have turned to culling herds of animals before they grow too large for slaughter, Bergmann said.

“We’re not there yet, but these are ugly numbers we’re seeing,” he said.

As the spread of coronavirus infections in Canada delays both the delivery of animals into processing plants and the flow of finished pork products to grocery store coolers, the parallel crisis in the U.S. is likely to exacerbate any domestic shortages and price increases here, said Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University.

That’s because, just as Canadian farmers send feeder pigs to the U.S., American farmers send pork products back to Canada, a “rhythm has been messed up by COVID-19 and the closure of plants,” Hart said.

The parallel crisis in the U.S. is likely to exacerbate any domestic pork shortages and price increases in Canada. Stringer/Reuters files

Much of the reduced supply pumped out by U.S. meat packers is expected to be absorbed by the local market, reducing the potential for American meat to backfill any shortages of Canadian pork.

“We are in a weird situation where pork prices will be rising at the grocery store at a time when hog prices are the lowest in a decade and all because of a pinch point at the processing plants,” he said. “If you’re a hog producer, this is easily the most challenging time you have seen in your career.”

In a full-page advertisement in the New York Times on Sunday, Tyson Foods Inc.’s board chairman John Tyson warned that “millions of pounds of meat” will disappear from the supply chain as the pandemic forces processing plants to close, leading to product shortages in grocery stores.

“The food supply chain is breaking,” Tyson wrote. “Millions of animals — chickens, pigs and cattle — will be depopulated because of the closure of our processing facilities.”

If you’re a hog producer, this is easily the most challenging time you have seen in your career

A cruel twist for farmers is that the bottleneck in processing arrived at a time when global demand for pork exports soared following an outbreak of African swine fever that eliminated half of China’s domestic herd — sending the country on a global hunt for protein.

Canada was expected to benefit from that rise in demand after Beijing lifted a temporary ban on Canadian meat in January. Pork exports to China rose 46.4 per cent in February (before the COVID-19 virus swept through North America) compared to the same month a year ago, according to the Canadian Pork Council. March figures are not yet available.

“This is not a demand problem, it’s a supply chain problem,” Hart said.

But with social distancing and other procedures to protect against COVID-19 likely to be required for some time, jumping on that demand will likely remain a challenge.

“One reason the North American industry is so efficient is we can produce a lot of meat in a short amount of time,” said Hart. “To do that you need a lot of employees working very closely together. So the same characteristics that make our industry efficient are also what this virus preys upon.”

Will what’s on our plates cause the next pandemic?

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  • Jason Baker-https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2020/04/09/will-whats-on-our-plates-cause-the-next-pandemic.html
Jakarta   /   Thu, April 9, 2020   /   01:44 pm

Will what's on our plates cause the next pandemic?This illustration image obtained on Feb. 3 courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. (AFP/Lizabeth Menzies / Centers for Disease Control and Prevention )

The current situation in Indonesia brought about by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) makes me want to pull my hair out. Not just because it’s disruptive, but because the signs that an outbreak like COVID-19 would happen were so clear.

Seventeen years ago, when SARS first made headlines, I locked myself in a cage in Hong Kong to illustrate the way our taste for animal flesh contributes to animal-borne diseases. That same year, I wore a hazmat suit to the ASEAN+3 Summit in Bali, where officials were discussing ways to prevent killer diseases. I also dressed as a chicken and demonstrated at a KFC in Bangkok during a deadly bird flu outbreak. All in all, I’ve spent more than two decades warning people that it’s unhealthy – and downright dangerous – to raise animals for food.

Seeing people get sick and die from COVID-19 has only strengthened my resolve to persuade everyone to stop eating animals. We have to learn from past pandemics and go vegan before wearing face masks becomes as commonplace as wearing clothes.

Meat markets, factory farms and slaughterhouses provide the perfect breeding ground for coronaviruses and other potentially devastating pathogens. The high demand for animal-based food means that animals must be mass-produced in crowded, feces-ridden farms and slaughtered on killing floors that are contaminated with blood, vomit and other bodily fluids. Pathogens flourish in such conditions. And when an outbreak does occur, the animals, who have already suffered so much, are slaughtered en masse in horrific ways. I know. I was in Manilla when countless pigs were killed because of a swine flu outbreak.

Some scientists say SARS-CoV-2 started in a Chinese “wet market” that sold seafood, live poultry and exotic animals for human consumption. Others suspect the virus may have been spread by pangolins, scaly anteaters that are often poached and used in traditional Chinese medicine or eaten in China and Vietnam. Whatever its exact origin, SARS-CoV-2 most likely started in animals.

According to the United Nations, 70 percent of new human diseases originate in animals, and most of those are directly linked to animals used for food. Most scientists believe that every flu virus originated in birds, as birds are known to carry every single one of the 144 varieties of influenza.

It’s not unusual for animal-borne pathogens to mutate and sicken humans. While precautions such as suspending travel, quarantining at-risk individuals and practicing good hygiene may help stop the spread of COVID-19 and other deadly diseases, we need to take one more significant step to prevent future epidemics of animal-borne diseases in the first place: Stop raising animals for food.

It’s bad enough that the consumption of meat and other animal-based food contributes to heart disease, diabetes and cancer and that harmful bacteria, including salmonella and E. coli, found in the intestines and feces of warm-blooded animals, often lead to food-poisoning outbreaks. Do we really want to add potentially deadly animal-borne viruses to the mix?

—

PETA’s senior vice president for international campaigns

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.

Media Won’t Talk About Meat Market Origins of Virus

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A Meat and Dairy Industries Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM KindlyThrive.com as posted on JaneUnchained.com
March 2020

kindly thrive

The real story is: the abuse of animals in the food system is at the heart of this global debacle that is fast destroying our economy, killing a growing number of people and making hundreds of millions of people live in miserable isolation… To talk about a global pandemic without discussing its origins – in depth – is like holding a murder trial without ever mentioning the defendant. It’s irresponsible. It’s morally reprehensible. It’s stupid.

Lying by omission is one way to define “fake news.” By that definition, virtually all the mainstream news you are watching is fake. The networks essentially refuse to discuss the origins of the catastrophic coronavirus! Sure, you may hear news hosts make oblique and passing references to “live markets” as they urge you to hunker down in your homes and get out the Purell. But, that – obviously – does not tell the full story. The real story is: the abuse of animals in the food system is at the heart of this global debacle that is fast destroying our economy, killing a growing number of people and making hundreds of millions of people live in miserable isolation! This is, indeed, mother nature’s revenge. Not my phrase. That’s how an expert in zoonotic diseases described it.

I’m not always a fan of the New York Post. But, I must give them props for telling it like it is in their investigative story about live meat markets just like the one in Wuhan, China, where this pandemic began. Here is their description of the average “live market,” aka meat market.

“In stall after stall, a mix of live and dead animals, which run the gamut from the known (pig, ox, duck, chicken) to the rare or unknown due to the condition of the carcass — stare back at you. In the wet areas of the market — usually reserved for fish and sea creatures and where the ground is slick with water and often blood — the stink is worse. The animals that have not yet been dispatched by the butcher’s knife make desperate bids to escape by climbing on top of each other and flopping or jumping out of their containers (to no avail). At least in the wet areas, the animals don’t make a sound. The screams from mammals and fowl are unbearable and heartbreaking.”

Thank you New York Post. My question is: why are we not hearing similar, accurate descriptions from news anchors at the major networks? To talk about a global pandemic without discussing its origins – in depth – is like holding a murder trial without ever mentioning the defendant. It’s irresponsible. It’s morally reprehensible. It’s stupid.

Experts believe that the virus originated in bats in China, then spread to other animals, animals whom people ate. Here’s how NPR describes the insidious process: “Patients who came down with disease at the end of December all had connections to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan China. The complex of stalls selling live fish, meat and wild animals is known in the region as a ‘wet market.’ Researchers believe the new virus probably mutated from a coronavirus common in animals and jumped over to humans in the Wuhan bazaar.”

OK, so props to NPR too. But, what about the more popular cable news networks? Why aren’t they dividing in deep and consistently connecting the dots between this hideous virus and the killing of animals for food? One answer may lie in what you see and hear in between the news segments. I’m talking about the commercials. Watch them! They are overwhelming advertisements for meat, dairy and pharmaceuticals. These happen to be the very industries that would collapse if consumers starting thinking realistically about the cruelty and bloodshed that goes into producing the ribs, burgers, wings, eggs, milkshakes and bacon that they have been conditioned to consume. Are American slaughterhouses much better than Asia’s live markets? There is still lots of blood, feces and body parts. No way around that. Meat doesn’t fall from the sky. The fact is: there is no nice way to kill someone who doesn’t want to die. Slaughter, by its very definition, is a nasty, grotesque business.

So, the news media continues to dance around the primal issue at the heart of this mind-boggling catastrophe, the likes of which we have never seen. Now, it is time we ask ourselves: what is the cost of ignoring this essential aspect of the coronavirus story? If we do not learn from this monumental calamity, could we be bound to repeat it? Through our society’s willful ignorance, could we be setting the stage for something even deadlier? It’s not the first time a virus or disease linked to food animals has wreaked havoc. Remember mad cow disease? Remember swine flu, which is still ongoing in China, decimating millions of pigs before their body parts can be gobbled down someone’s throat? Remember the avian flu? The philosopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

That wise philosopher also said, “All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore…” Right now, we – as a culture – are still ignoring the truth staring us in the face: the killing of animals for food is having a devastating impact on our world. It’s a leading cause of human illness, meaning heart disease and cancer. It’s a leading cause of climate change, habitat destruction, wildlife extinction, water pollution and water scarcity. It’s a leading cause of human world hunger because animals eat so much more than they produce as meat or dairy. Now, add to the list, it is causing the most disruptive virus of our lifetimes.

When will the mainstream media have this conversation? Hopefully, before it’s too late.

Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet

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The meat industry

WWF report finds 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to meat-based diets which put huge strain on Earth’s resources

 Consumer affairs correspondent

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Workers on tractors harvest soybeans in the deforested land of Campo Novo do Parecis, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.
 Workers on tractors harvest soybeans in the deforested land of Campo Novo do Parecis, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Photograph: Maurilio Cheli/AP

The ongoing global appetite for meat is having a devastating impact on the environment driven by the production of crop-based feed for animals, a new report has warned.

The vast scale of growing crops such as soy to rear chickens, pigs and other animals puts an enormous strain on natural resources leading to the wide-scale loss of land and species, according to the study from the conservation charity WWF.

Intensive and industrial animal farming also results in less nutritious food, it reveals, highlighting that six intensively reared chickens today have the same amount of omega-3 as found in just one chicken in the 1970s.

The study entitled Appetite for Destruction launches on Thursday at the 2017 Extinction and Livestock Conference in London, in conjunction with Compassion in World Farming (CIFW), and warns of the vast amount of land needed to grow the crops used for animal feed and cites some of the world’s most vulnerable areas such as the Amazon, Congo Basin and the Himalayas.

The report and conference come against a backdrop of alarming revelations of industrial farming. Last week a Guardian/ITV investigation showed chicken factory staff in the UK changing crucial food safety information.

Protein-rich soy is now produced in such huge quantities that the average European consumes approximately 61kg each year, largely indirectly by eating animal products such as chicken, pork, salmon, cheese, milk and eggs.

In 2010, the British livestock industry needed an area the size of Yorkshire to produce the soy used in feed. But if global demand for meat grows as expected, the report says, soy production would need to increase by nearly 80% by 2050.

“The world is consuming more animal protein than it needs and this is having a devastating effect on wildlife,” said Duncan Williamson, WWF food policy manager. “A staggering 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to the food we eat. We know a lot of people are aware that a meat-based diet has an impact on water and land, as well as causing greenhouse gas emissions, but few know the biggest issue of all comes from the crop-based feed the animals eat.”

With 23bn chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and guinea fowl on the planet – more than three per person – the biggest user of crop-based feed globally is poultry. The second largest, with 30% of the world’s feed in 2009, is the pig industry.

In the UK, pork is the second favourite meat after chicken, with each person eating on average 25kg a year in 2015 – nearly the whole recommended yearly intake for all meats. UK nutritional guidelines recommend 45-55g of protein per day, but the average UK consumption is 64-88g, of which 37% is meat and meat products.