The fragile, consolidated manufacturing facility farm system has created the situations for hen flu to flourish. To shield our meals, well being, and resiliency, we’d like change, quick.
In April, the United States noticed its second-ever human case of bird flu. An avian epidemic is spreading by means of animals (and some individuals) nationwide. It has jumped to dairy herds in a number of states, together with in Texas, the place the virus contaminated a dairy employee. Unfortunately, that is no accident — the impacts of this hen flu are magnified by our extremely consolidated meals system, dominated by manufacturing facility farms.
In the wake of COVID-19, epidemiologists are on excessive alert for zoonotic ailments (people who leap from animals to people). While the danger of avian flu to the general public is low, this present outbreak is a flashing warning signal that we’d like change, quick.
Industrial animal agriculture is nice for successful company earnings and company energy — on the expense of everybody else. This system is a menace to public well being, and it’s extremely fragile. Without motion, we may face far worse down the road.
Factory Farms Provide the Perfect Environment for Pathogens to Spread
You could be hard-pressed to think about an atmosphere extra pleasant to ailments than a manufacturing facility farm. Hundreds of hundreds of animals are crammed collectively in unsanitary situations, typically wading of their waste.
Moreover, firms selectively breed animals to share traits so that they’re dependably worthwhile. This means factory-farmed animals share genetic materials, which in flip means one sick animal can simply infect all the remaining.
To make issues worse, when a lot of our meals provide is concentrated in just some huge manufacturing facility farms, shocks ripple quickly all through the provision chain. Three-quarters of U.S. egg-laying hens are raised on simply 347 manufacturing facility farms. For occasion, an outbreak at a facility owned by Cal-Maine — the nation’s largest egg producer — resulted within the firm culling nearly 2 million chickens to stem the unfold of hen flu.
This isn’t simply dangerous for the animals. When illness floods manufacturing facility farms, farmworkers and rural communities are on the frontlines. And this menace of illness comes on high of the perennial public well being menace posed by manufacturing facility farms — their air and water air pollution sickens communities throughout the nation with poisonous contaminants.
Our Food System Is a House of Cards
Factory farms are horrible for individuals and animals, however they’re profitable for company earnings. And proper now, our meals system is designed to place company earnings first.
For many years, the federal authorities has allowed agribusinesses and grocery goliaths to develop in energy and dimension. They’ve consolidated into greater and fewer firms, majorly chopping competitors in lots of markets.
As a end result, a handful of mega-corporations dominate total provide chains, from seed to grocery retailer shelf. And this development has made our meals system more and more fragile.
Rather than a broad, diversified net of small- and medium-sized producers, company consolidation places our meals system on stilts — a single blow, like a pandemic, can ship the entire thing stumbling.
At the identical time, we lack insurance policies that may assist make meals accessible and inexpensive for everybody, even in instances of disaster. Not solely do firms have manner an excessive amount of energy to sway the system how they need — we’ve no grain reserves to attract on in instances of want; we lack value flooring to forestall company profiteering off farming inputs, like feed.
This All Allows Corporations to Take Advantage of Us, Too
In 2022-2023, we noticed one other hen flu outbreak that additionally prompted egg prices to spike. But these costs by no means fell again to pre-2022 ranges. The cause? Corporate greed.
It’s a technique we’ve grow to be very acquainted with within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. A disaster could drive up costs, however firms benefit from the anticipated will increase to boost costs even extra and increase their earnings.
An enormous cause why they’ll do that is identical consolidation that helped make provide chains so fragile to begin with. The extra energy firms have out there and the much less competitors they face, the extra they’ll elevate costs with impunity.
We’re seeing this actual dynamic with eggs. Cal-Maine has spent the previous 25 years buying up almost two dozen smaller egg producers and is now the biggest U.S. provider of eggs. It owns large swaths of the provision chain, too, from making feed to breeding chicks to managing flocks. This has allowed it to benefit from market situations, together with hen flu, to boost egg costs.
Last yr, record-high egg costs drove a six-fold increase in earnings for Cal-Maine. Yet, the corporate didn’t even see an outbreak of hen flu in its personal farms until December 2023.
We want insurance policies to fight this company profiteering — and at the moment, Congress is contemplating one such coverage. The Price Gouging Prevention Act would make such exercise unlawful, serving to to rein in company energy and greed and decrease costs throughout the economic system.
Our Food System Is in Dire Need of an Overhaul
The present hen flu outbreak calcifies what we’ve all the time recognized — extremely consolidated markets are much less resilient than a regional, diversified meals system. When crises hit, there’s a large menace to public well being and plenty of meals.
These issues didn’t come about by chance, nor are they inevitable. Our present meals coverage is the direct results of Big Ag’s lobbying and the insurance policies that Congress passes for them.
But fortunately, we all know the best way to change course — and it begins with transferring off the manufacturing facility farm mannequin. We must cross the Farm System Reform Act, which might cease new manufacturing facility farms from being constructed and dedicate $10 billion to assist growers pivot to extra sustainable and resilient strategies.
We additionally want to interrupt up the agribusiness giants that management each step of our meals chain. Biden has already taken important steps to make markets extra aggressive and break up company energy, however he should go additional and rein in manufacturing facility farms.
In the face of threats like local weather change and attainable future pandemics, we will’t afford to take care of the established order. We want insurance policies that put our well being and secure, inexpensive meals above company earnings.
Our meals system wants an overhaul — beginning with a manufacturing facility farm moratorium. Tell your representatives to assist the Farm System Reform Act!
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