Thank you for the 'rest of the story'. I had several people share this story with me but I was on vacation last week and too busy out doing fun stuff to dig into it, but suspected there was more to the story. For the sake of small producers, I do wish there was a way to cut some of the red tape without sacrificing food safety. Rep Thomas Massey has been trying for years to pass his PRIME Act, to no avail, despite it being bi partisan. https://massie.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?documentid=395355 I guess Big Meat and Big Ag are too powerful.
I'd like to know more about "big meat" and "big ag." I know farmers aren't getting the dollars on beef that the processors do. But then little farmers get people acting like they're polluting the world with cow farts. It's quite the conundrum.
I sent you an email, did some digging on this when I had lot of time on my hands in 2020 when all my paid research projects dried up. I have files and files on all kinds of topics from that year, lol.
The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 mandates meat must be slaughtered and processed at a federally inspected slaughterhouse, or in a facility inspected in a state with meat inspection laws at least as strict as federal requirements. Small slaughterhouses cannot meet the requirements. As a result, the meat processing industry went through massive consolidation. Since the passage of the act, the number of slaughterhouses dropped from more than 10,000 to 2,766 in 2019. Today, instead of hundreds of companies processing meat, three corporations control virtually the entire industry.
The lack of adequate processing capacity was already causing supply issues back in 2015. A report by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund sounded the warning at that time.
“The bottleneck caused by the lack of slaughterhouses has frustrated small livestock operations in getting their products to market and has led to an inability to meet the overall demand for locally produced meat. The 1967 Act has been one of the worst laws ever passed for local food; what’s more, it was known from the beginning that the Act would have the effect it did.”
Of course, the Wholesome Meat Act was sold on the basis of “food safety.” It doesn’t even deliver on its own terms. By concentrating meat processing in relatively few facilities, the likelihood of widespread contamination increases. A single sick cow can infect thousands of pounds of beef in one of these corporate slaughterhouses. In a more diversified, decentralized system, outbreaks generally remain limited to small regions. Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense report said, “The Wholesome Meat Act has not led to the production of safer meat today; there are more recalls than ever for positive pathogen tests in meat products.” You seldom saw nationwide recalls in the era of diversified meat processing.
And as we’re now discovering, this centralized system is prone to crack with even a modest amount of stress.
Thank you for the 'rest of the story'. I had several people share this story with me but I was on vacation last week and too busy out doing fun stuff to dig into it, but suspected there was more to the story. For the sake of small producers, I do wish there was a way to cut some of the red tape without sacrificing food safety. Rep Thomas Massey has been trying for years to pass his PRIME Act, to no avail, despite it being bi partisan. https://massie.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?documentid=395355 I guess Big Meat and Big Ag are too powerful.
I'd like to know more about "big meat" and "big ag." I know farmers aren't getting the dollars on beef that the processors do. But then little farmers get people acting like they're polluting the world with cow farts. It's quite the conundrum.
I sent you an email, did some digging on this when I had lot of time on my hands in 2020 when all my paid research projects dried up. I have files and files on all kinds of topics from that year, lol.
The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 mandates meat must be slaughtered and processed at a federally inspected slaughterhouse, or in a facility inspected in a state with meat inspection laws at least as strict as federal requirements. Small slaughterhouses cannot meet the requirements. As a result, the meat processing industry went through massive consolidation. Since the passage of the act, the number of slaughterhouses dropped from more than 10,000 to 2,766 in 2019. Today, instead of hundreds of companies processing meat, three corporations control virtually the entire industry.
The lack of adequate processing capacity was already causing supply issues back in 2015. A report by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund sounded the warning at that time.
“The bottleneck caused by the lack of slaughterhouses has frustrated small livestock operations in getting their products to market and has led to an inability to meet the overall demand for locally produced meat. The 1967 Act has been one of the worst laws ever passed for local food; what’s more, it was known from the beginning that the Act would have the effect it did.”
Of course, the Wholesome Meat Act was sold on the basis of “food safety.” It doesn’t even deliver on its own terms. By concentrating meat processing in relatively few facilities, the likelihood of widespread contamination increases. A single sick cow can infect thousands of pounds of beef in one of these corporate slaughterhouses. In a more diversified, decentralized system, outbreaks generally remain limited to small regions. Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense report said, “The Wholesome Meat Act has not led to the production of safer meat today; there are more recalls than ever for positive pathogen tests in meat products.” You seldom saw nationwide recalls in the era of diversified meat processing.
And as we’re now discovering, this centralized system is prone to crack with even a modest amount of stress.