Outsourcing Meat Production

With a large population of United States omniverous meat-eaters, the last thing we need is one more thing to be shipped overseas, so they can produce there and ship it all the way back over here; destroying relatively local self-reliance, and wasting vast amounts of energy, crude oil, and other resources; factory farmed or not... and believe me, i'm no fan of factory farms and would never vote for it with my economic support.

I'd like to say i'm vegetarian, but I don't feel totally against supporting local free-range farms that persue common sense organic standards; as many of today's large farms that actually do organic feed, are beginning to look more and more like factory farms because their feed has to be certified organic which means they feed more from a trough rather than being more open-range grass-fed... Further, even if I never eat meat again, I still wouldn't follow a free-wheeling vegetarian diet. To live a sustainable life as possible, one must vote as much as they can for local economic systems, preferably made organically & renewable; as James Howard Kunstler once said:

"The age of the 3,000-mile caesar salad is over!"

Joel Makower reviews this new WorldWatch report:

"As environmental and labor regulations in the European Union and the United States become stronger and more prohibitive, large agribusinesses are moving their animal production operations overseas, primarily to countries with less stringent enforcement." Danielle Nierenberg - Happier Meals pdf/buy

Industrial systems today generate 74% of the world's poultry products, 50% of all pork, 43% of beef, and 68% of eggs. While industrial countries dominate production, it is in developing nations where livestock producers are rapidly expanding and intensifying their production systems. Among the leading concerns cited in the report:

• Crowded, inhumane, and unhygienic conditions on factory farms can sicken farm animals and create the perfect environment for the spread of diseases, including avian flu, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease), and foot-and-mouth disease.
• Factory-farmed meat and fish contain an arsenal of unnatural ingredients, among them persistent organic pollutants (POPs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), arsenic, hormones, and other chemicals. Overuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobials in livestock and poultry operations, meanwhile, is undermining the toolbox of effective medicines for human use.
• Factory farming is resource intensive: producing just one calorie of beef takes 33% more fossil-fuel energy than producing a calorie of potatoes. Eight ounces of beef can require up to 25,000 liters of water, while enough flour for a loaf of bread in developing countries requires only 550 liters.
• Despite the fact that fisheries worldwide are being fished out, about a third of the total marine fish catch is utilized for fish meal, two-thirds of which is used to fatten chickens, pigs, and other animals.
• Only about half of all livestock waste is effectively fed into the crop cycle; much of the remainder ends up polluting the air, water, and soil.

Global trade and advertising, lower meat prices, and urbanization have helped make diets high in animal protein a near-universal aspiration, writes Nierenberg, noting that the world price of beef per 100 kilograms has fallen to roughly 25% of its value 30 years ago. Meat consumption is rising fastest not in the U.S. or Europe, but in the developing world. From the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, meat consumption in developing countries grew by 70 million tons, nearly triple the rise in industrial countries.

In response to intensifying consumer demands and other factors, several food companies and international policymaking and funding institutions are exploring new approaches to the business of food. In the U.S., McDonald's and Whole Foods Market have introduced more comprehensive animal welfare standards in the past decade. And in 2001, the World Bank reversed its previous commitment to fund large-scale livestock projects in developing nations, acknowledging that there was a significant danger of crowding out smaller farmers, eroding the environment, and threatening food safety and security. Also, in June 2005, the 167 member countries of the World Organization for Animal Health unanimously adopted voluntary standards for the humane transportation and slaughter of animals.

While many in the agribusiness industry have embraced food irradiation and genetic engineering of livestock as solutions to the myriad problems caused by factory farming, technology-based responses are often merely stop-gap measures, says Nierenberg. "These end-of-the-pipe remedies are certainly innovative, but they don't address the real problem. Factory farming is an inefficient, ecologically disruptive, dangerous, and inhumane way of making meat."