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Lack of slaughter houses hampers local food movements
In what could be a major setback for the nation's local-food movement, championed by so-called locavores, independent farmers nationwide said they are forced to make slaughter appointments before animals are born and to drive hundreds of miles to facilities, adding to their costs and causing stress to livestock.
By KATIE ZEZIMA
The New York Times
MATTHEW CAVANAUGH / NYT
Independent farmers around the country say they are having trouble arranging for the slaughter of pigs, sheep and other animals. Adams Farm, a slaughterhouse in Athol, Mass., is one of approximately 800 in the United States.
Kevin McCollister and his wife, Erica Zimmerman, raise sheep and pigs on their Vermont farm. They would like to see the rules relaxed on farm slaughter.
EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. — Erica Zimmerman and her husband spent months pasture-raising pigs on their East Montpelier farm, but when the time came to take them to slaughter, an overbooked facility canceled their appointment.
With the herd in prime condition and the couple lacking food and space to keep the pigs, the couple frantically called slaughterhouses throughout the state. After several days they found an opening, but their experience highlights a growing problem for small farmers throughout the nation: too few slaughterhouses to meet the growing demand for locally raised meat.
In what could be a major setback for the nation's local-food movement, championed by so-called locavores, independent farmers nationwide said they are forced to make slaughter appointments before animals are born and to drive hundreds of miles to facilities, adding to their costs and causing stress to livestock.
As a result, they are scaling back on plans to expand their farms because local processors cannot handle anymore animals.
"It's pretty clear there needs to be attention paid to this," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "Particularly in the Northeast, where there is indeed a backlog and lengthy wait for slaughter facilities."
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of slaughterhouses nationwide declined from 1,211 in 1992 to 809 in 2008, while the number of small farmers has increased by 108,000 in the past five years.
Fewer slaughterhouses to process local meat means less of it in butcher shops, groceries and restaurants. Chefs throughout the Northeast are partnering with farms to add locally raised meat to their menus, satisfying a customer demand. But it is not always easy.
"There are a lot of people out there who raise great animals for us to use, and they don't have the opportunity to get them to us because the slaughterhouses are going away," said Bill Telepan, chef and owner of Telepan, a restaurant in New York.
Telepan's veal supplier, Duane Merrill, of Walton, N.Y., said there was no slaughterhouse in Delaware County, "and it's the size of Rhode Island." Merrill said he also had difficulty finding adequate transport for veal cattle to New York City.
Brian Moyer, director of Rural Vermont, a nonprofit farm-advocacy group, uses the image of an hourglass. "At the top of the hourglass we've got the farmers, the bottom part is consumers and in the middle, what's straining those grains of sand, is the infrastructure that's lacking," he said.
Vermont is seeing increased demand for the facilities from small-scale meat producers and dairy farmers, who are facing some of the lowest milk prices in years and are trying to diversify with beef cattle.
"People are trying to figure out how to get a little more money out of their herds," said Randy Quenneville, chief for the Vermont meat-inspection service. "And with the interest in stuff being local, wanting to know where their food is coming from and how it was raised, there are more people looking to do this."
The state has seven operating slaughterhouses, down from about 25 in the mid-1980s, Quenneville said. One is a state-inspected facility, meaning that meat inspected there cannot be sold over state lines.
Two slaughterhouses recently closed, one destroyed by a fire and the other shuttered because of animal-cruelty charges. The closed facility is expected to reopen soon.
Quenneville said a number of small, family-owned slaughterhouses started closing when strict federal rules regarding health control went into effect in 1999. Large corporations such as Cargill also began to take over much of the nation's meat market.
Quenneville and Vilsack are urging farmers to band together and open local cooperatives or mobile-slaughter facilities. The Agriculture Department is financing some mobile units and helping to build a regional facility near the Quad Cities in Illinois and Iowa. Helping small farmers, Vilsack said, will improve struggling rural economies.
"We recognize that the buy-local food movement is a significant economic driver in rural communities," he said.
Building a regional facility is not always easy. As the locavore movement and self-butchering movements grow, so do cries of "Not in my backyard."
Some residents in Woodstock, Vt., raised more than $1 million to buy a water-buffalo farm whose owner wanted to convert it into a slaughterhouse. Some said the facility would have been too big for the town.
Vince Galluccio, who helped organize opposition, was concerned that waste from the proposed plant's feed lot and manure piles would run down a hill and into town. The owners plan to turn the property into a dairy farm and educational center.
Galluccio said the state needs more slaughterhouses and hopes to help build one that would be a better fit for the community. "We're not against slaughterhouses," Galluccio said. "But you wouldn't open up a discothèque next to a church."
Mobile units have been popular for poultry, and many farmers are trying to replicate the system with larger animals.
Cheryl Ouellette, a farmer in Pierce County, Wash., known as "the pig lady," helped secure a USDA-certified mobile-processing unit with $250,000 in local conservation money. It opened in August.
In Washington, Ouellette said, some farmers were driving animals more than 300 miles to slaughter. "Farmers had problems, butchers couldn't get USDA carcasses to sell in meat cases, and chefs couldn't get local meat," she said. "Here there are no small processing facilities left for that food to get into commerce."
The mobile unit goes from farm to farm with a USDA-approved butcher and inspector aboard. It contains heaters, potable water and dumps wastewater at RV stations.
Zimmerman and her husband, Kevin McCollister, would like to see the rules relaxed on farm slaughter. Their slaughterhouse is an hour and a half away, long enough for the pigs to be stressed and not in optimal shape for processing, Zimmerman said.
"We have a product that people really wanted; we should have a system that would allow us to produce it as efficiently as possible," Zimmerman said. "There's not enough room for all the people like me."
In what could be a major setback for the nation's local-food movement, championed by so-called locavores, independent farmers nationwide said they are forced to make slaughter appointments before animals are born and to drive hundreds of miles to facilities, adding to their costs and causing stress to livestock.
By KATIE ZEZIMA
The New York Times
MATTHEW CAVANAUGH / NYT
Independent farmers around the country say they are having trouble arranging for the slaughter of pigs, sheep and other animals. Adams Farm, a slaughterhouse in Athol, Mass., is one of approximately 800 in the United States.
Kevin McCollister and his wife, Erica Zimmerman, raise sheep and pigs on their Vermont farm. They would like to see the rules relaxed on farm slaughter.
EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. — Erica Zimmerman and her husband spent months pasture-raising pigs on their East Montpelier farm, but when the time came to take them to slaughter, an overbooked facility canceled their appointment.
With the herd in prime condition and the couple lacking food and space to keep the pigs, the couple frantically called slaughterhouses throughout the state. After several days they found an opening, but their experience highlights a growing problem for small farmers throughout the nation: too few slaughterhouses to meet the growing demand for locally raised meat.
In what could be a major setback for the nation's local-food movement, championed by so-called locavores, independent farmers nationwide said they are forced to make slaughter appointments before animals are born and to drive hundreds of miles to facilities, adding to their costs and causing stress to livestock.
As a result, they are scaling back on plans to expand their farms because local processors cannot handle anymore animals.
"It's pretty clear there needs to be attention paid to this," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "Particularly in the Northeast, where there is indeed a backlog and lengthy wait for slaughter facilities."
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of slaughterhouses nationwide declined from 1,211 in 1992 to 809 in 2008, while the number of small farmers has increased by 108,000 in the past five years.
Fewer slaughterhouses to process local meat means less of it in butcher shops, groceries and restaurants. Chefs throughout the Northeast are partnering with farms to add locally raised meat to their menus, satisfying a customer demand. But it is not always easy.
"There are a lot of people out there who raise great animals for us to use, and they don't have the opportunity to get them to us because the slaughterhouses are going away," said Bill Telepan, chef and owner of Telepan, a restaurant in New York.
Telepan's veal supplier, Duane Merrill, of Walton, N.Y., said there was no slaughterhouse in Delaware County, "and it's the size of Rhode Island." Merrill said he also had difficulty finding adequate transport for veal cattle to New York City.
Brian Moyer, director of Rural Vermont, a nonprofit farm-advocacy group, uses the image of an hourglass. "At the top of the hourglass we've got the farmers, the bottom part is consumers and in the middle, what's straining those grains of sand, is the infrastructure that's lacking," he said.
Vermont is seeing increased demand for the facilities from small-scale meat producers and dairy farmers, who are facing some of the lowest milk prices in years and are trying to diversify with beef cattle.
"People are trying to figure out how to get a little more money out of their herds," said Randy Quenneville, chief for the Vermont meat-inspection service. "And with the interest in stuff being local, wanting to know where their food is coming from and how it was raised, there are more people looking to do this."
The state has seven operating slaughterhouses, down from about 25 in the mid-1980s, Quenneville said. One is a state-inspected facility, meaning that meat inspected there cannot be sold over state lines.
Two slaughterhouses recently closed, one destroyed by a fire and the other shuttered because of animal-cruelty charges. The closed facility is expected to reopen soon.
Quenneville said a number of small, family-owned slaughterhouses started closing when strict federal rules regarding health control went into effect in 1999. Large corporations such as Cargill also began to take over much of the nation's meat market.
Quenneville and Vilsack are urging farmers to band together and open local cooperatives or mobile-slaughter facilities. The Agriculture Department is financing some mobile units and helping to build a regional facility near the Quad Cities in Illinois and Iowa. Helping small farmers, Vilsack said, will improve struggling rural economies.
"We recognize that the buy-local food movement is a significant economic driver in rural communities," he said.
Building a regional facility is not always easy. As the locavore movement and self-butchering movements grow, so do cries of "Not in my backyard."
Some residents in Woodstock, Vt., raised more than $1 million to buy a water-buffalo farm whose owner wanted to convert it into a slaughterhouse. Some said the facility would have been too big for the town.
Vince Galluccio, who helped organize opposition, was concerned that waste from the proposed plant's feed lot and manure piles would run down a hill and into town. The owners plan to turn the property into a dairy farm and educational center.
Galluccio said the state needs more slaughterhouses and hopes to help build one that would be a better fit for the community. "We're not against slaughterhouses," Galluccio said. "But you wouldn't open up a discothèque next to a church."
Mobile units have been popular for poultry, and many farmers are trying to replicate the system with larger animals.
Cheryl Ouellette, a farmer in Pierce County, Wash., known as "the pig lady," helped secure a USDA-certified mobile-processing unit with $250,000 in local conservation money. It opened in August.
In Washington, Ouellette said, some farmers were driving animals more than 300 miles to slaughter. "Farmers had problems, butchers couldn't get USDA carcasses to sell in meat cases, and chefs couldn't get local meat," she said. "Here there are no small processing facilities left for that food to get into commerce."
The mobile unit goes from farm to farm with a USDA-approved butcher and inspector aboard. It contains heaters, potable water and dumps wastewater at RV stations.
Zimmerman and her husband, Kevin McCollister, would like to see the rules relaxed on farm slaughter. Their slaughterhouse is an hour and a half away, long enough for the pigs to be stressed and not in optimal shape for processing, Zimmerman said.
"We have a product that people really wanted; we should have a system that would allow us to produce it as efficiently as possible," Zimmerman said. "There's not enough room for all the people like me."