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Industrial Chicken

Tex

Well-known member
Many poultry growers in southern states are also beef producers. In both cases the packers hold the cards in the game and no one to call them on the frauds they do:




By amy.tennery - The Big Money

America's favorite meat is in a foul state these days. Just a few years ago, chicken became the most produced meat in the United States, yet the sector today is struggling. Pilgrim's Pride, the nation's largest poultry producer, filed for bankruptcy protection last December, after fluctuating feed prices crippled its business.

Industry analysts claim that chicken won top place in U.S. meat consumption thanks to an increased interest in our diet. Yet the chicks are about as healthy as their industry. Last Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection named poultry the No. 1 source of food-borne outbreaks.

And the sector doesn't exactly have a stellar record when it comes to employee care, either. Seventy-one percent of U.S. contract poultry farmers earn subpoverty-level wages, according to a 2005 report from the United Food and Commercial Workers.

So what happened? And why is the chicken industry floundering on all fronts?

Post-War Processed Products

Chicken knew its place at the American table until after World War II, when consumers started gobbling up the meat at an alarming rate. From 1945 on, consumption skyrocketed, due to an increased affluence and culture of domestic convenience. From the 1990s, poultry consumption outpaced pork. And chicken's hot spot on doctors' golden lists gave the industry an even greater incentive to feed demand with new, jazzy products. Health could deliver wealth, and poultry magnates were willing to do whatever it took to get their share of the profit.

Eventually, chicken paid off—in 2008 U.S. producers made more than $24 billion.

In his 2005 book, Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food, Steve Striffler argued that chicken evolved from a heart-healthy product to a poked, prodded, and manipulated commodity in the quest for greater profits. "It's not that profitable to sell the same old chicken," said Striffler. "The way you make money is to create new products." In the late 1970s, Tyson sold fewer than 20 different chicken products, he said. Today its Web site advertises nearly 80 different products, most of which are precooked, frozen, or laden with additives. Ranch Flavored Chicken Fries, anyone?

As the demand for chicken grew and corporations took hold, "there's been a general increased mechanization," Striffler says. Speed and size drove production—and making fatter birds topped the agenda. A report from the Economic Research Service with the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that chickens slaughtered in the late 1990s were a full 1½ pounds heavier than their 1960s counterparts.

Eighty-five percent of chicken sold in the 1970s and '80s was sold in its "unprocessed" form, and 15 percent was sold in processed varieties, according to Striffler. "By the end of the 1990s the numbers were completely reversed."

And, of course, the adverse health effects that processed foods bring are well-documented.

Federal Regulations

As the New York Times article mentions, the main reason people get sick from chicken is consumer misuse. Basically, buyers undercook or fail to wash their hands after preparation. But federally sanctioned industrial practices in the United States do little to reduce the likelihood of chicken contamination. Regulations do not require you to date chicken products. And the use of antibiotics on chicken is legal, despite numerous claims charging that their use can create a stronger strain of resistant bacteria in the birds.

This issue has drawn such vitriol from consumer advocates that Tyson even tried to herald its supposed "antibiotic-free" status as a selling point in advertising. That ended, though, when competitors called foul and Tyson came clean about its true antibiotic policies. (Hint: It puts ionophores in grown chickens' feed and injects its eggs with antibiotics, too.)

Just as key to our country's grody chicken scenario is the process by which we slaughter the birds. (Warning: If you're eating lunch, stop reading here.) After birds are slaughtered, workers must chill the carcasses so that they don't decompose—and while U.S. and European slaughter techniques are similar in some regards, the cooling processes on the two continents are very different. In Europe, workers chill the postmortem chickens by placing them in a cooling chamber, where the birds are chilled via cold air. This is required by EU regulations. In the United States, things go a little differently. After slaughtering, scalding, and plucking, chicken processors place all the carcasses in giant tanks of cold water.

The problem with this is that if one chicken has bacteria or disease, all the chickens in the tank are exposed. These cooling tanks hold what Striffler—and plenty of other people—call a "fecal soup." (For their part, the National Chicken Council argues that water chilling is safer than other methods.) Some of that water used to chill chickens is actually carried with the product to the supermarket. That little pool of liquid settled in your chicken's packaging? That's from the tanks Unfortunately, buying "organic" chicken doesn't solve this problem. Organic describes only the feed supplied to chickens during their growth—not the means by which they were handled after slaughter.

Corporate Consolidation

And then there's the impact on chicken workers. Since the 1950s and '60s, the business model for chicken slaughterhouses changed. What was once a welcome industry for small farmers became a field controlled by production groups.

And even earlier, poultry corporations were instrumental in the charge to use cheap, uneducated, and nonunionized labor among meat producers, said Striffler. While beef and pork processing has its origins in cities—where unions were common—poultry production occurred more often in impoverished rural areas. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle revitalized meatpacking groups in urban regions, leading to safety legislation as early as 1906. But that kind of revolution had little sway on chicken processors at the same time.

"There was never a golden era for poultry workers," said Striffler. Today, complaints of cruel supervisors and massive cover-ups of employee injuries abound. The Southern Poverty Law Center maintains a laundry list of violations to educate workers.



Tex
 

Tex

Well-known member
Mike said:
"Southern Poverty Law Center"?

WOW, what a reputable source. :roll:

So what part of the article do you disagree with, Mike, or do you always judge everything by the packaging?

Tex
 

PORKER

Well-known member
WASHINGTON — A lawsuit has been filed in the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans by the National Chicken Council and U.S. Poultry & Egg Association challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulation on water-pollution discharges from so-called confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

The new regulation was issued in response to the industry’s victory in the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in 2005, in which the court said E.P.A. could not require growers to apply for permits merely because they have a "potential to discharge" pollutants to the waters of the United States. E.P.A. has replaced that portion of the rule with a new provision that would require permits where there is a "proposal to discharge."

The lawsuit will challenge the new requirement as not conforming to the Second Circuit’s ruling.

The lawsuit also challenges recent guidance documents issued by E.P.A. in the form of letters that interpret the CAFO regulation. Essentially, the letters say a grower has a "proposal to discharge," and therefore must apply for a permit, if poultry housing has a ventilation fan that may potentially exhaust dust or other substances on the ground where rain water might wash them into a ditch leading to surface waters.

N.C.C and USPOULTRY said they would argue that Congress did not intend to regulate these normal agricultural practices when it enacted the Clean Water Act.
 

Tex

Well-known member
PORKER said:
WASHINGTON — A lawsuit has been filed in the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans by the National Chicken Council and U.S. Poultry & Egg Association challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulation on water-pollution discharges from so-called confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

The new regulation was issued in response to the industry’s victory in the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in 2005, in which the court said E.P.A. could not require growers to apply for permits merely because they have a "potential to discharge" pollutants to the waters of the United States. E.P.A. has replaced that portion of the rule with a new provision that would require permits where there is a "proposal to discharge."

The lawsuit will challenge the new requirement as not conforming to the Second Circuit’s ruling.

The lawsuit also challenges recent guidance documents issued by E.P.A. in the form of letters that interpret the CAFO regulation. Essentially, the letters say a grower has a "proposal to discharge," and therefore must apply for a permit, if poultry housing has a ventilation fan that may potentially exhaust dust or other substances on the ground where rain water might wash them into a ditch leading to surface waters.

N.C.C and USPOULTRY said they would argue that Congress did not intend to regulate these normal agricultural practices when it enacted the Clean Water Act.

The NCC should fight this one. It is close to having the EPA regulate cow flatulence. The spreading of litter is another matter. It does have real impacts on the environment and it is regulated with nutrient management plans.

Poultry operations should be regulated through land zoning or new permitting however.

Tex
 

Mike

Well-known member
Tex said:
Mike said:
"Southern Poverty Law Center"?

WOW, what a reputable source. :roll:

So what part of the article do you disagree with, Mike, or do you always judge everything by the packaging?

Tex

I just happen to know the SPLC very well. If they told me the sun came up this morning I would still go outside to check for myself.

And yes, I usually do check the source on much of what I read and believe.
 

Tex

Well-known member
Mike said:
Tex said:
Mike said:
"Southern Poverty Law Center"?

WOW, what a reputable source. :roll:

So what part of the article do you disagree with, Mike, or do you always judge everything by the packaging?

Tex

I just happen to know the SPLC very well. If they told me the sun came up this morning I would still go outside to check for myself.

And yes, I usually do check the source on much of what I read and believe.

So what part of the article do you disagree with or do you just not like the messenger?

Tex
 

Mike

Well-known member
Tex said:
Mike said:
Tex said:
So what part of the article do you disagree with, Mike, or do you always judge everything by the packaging?

Tex

I just happen to know the SPLC very well. If they told me the sun came up this morning I would still go outside to check for myself.

And yes, I usually do check the source on much of what I read and believe.

So what part of the article do you disagree with or do you just not like the messenger?

Tex

I neither agree nor disagree with any of it. Didn't read it and won't.

When I scanned and saw the SPLC as being a possible contributor, that was all it took for me to recognize a potentially fraudulent expose'.
 

Tex

Well-known member
Mike said:
Tex said:
Mike said:
I just happen to know the SPLC very well. If they told me the sun came up this morning I would still go outside to check for myself.

And yes, I usually do check the source on much of what I read and believe.

So what part of the article do you disagree with or do you just not like the messenger?

Tex

I neither agree nor disagree with any of it. Didn't read it and won't.

When I scanned and saw the SPLC as being a possible contributor, that was all it took for me to recognize a potentially fraudulent expose'.

That is exactly the reaction I bet the lady with the boy had with you, Mike.

How does it feel?

Would you want to go mow their lawn?

Tex
 
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