The War on Meat

This appeared in the April 22, 2021 edition of The Fish Wrap.

For decades, Farmers have been tearing out fences and plowing under pastures to make room for Big Ag. Small, independent operations have given way to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Most everyone agrees that CAFOs are evil, but we are told that they’re a necessary evil. How did we get here and what does it mean for the future of Rural Ag Communities?

The trend toward Big Ag over small, family farms began in the 1970s under Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz who famously said “Get big or get out!” And many meat farmers did, leading to the rise of CAFOs. CAFOs prioritize low cost and ability to scale over animal, human and environmental health. Animal health is steadily declining, forcing meat producers to pump the animals full of antibiotics. The animals get larger and sicker and the meat more marbled while the people eating the meat follow suit.

The producer/packer industry is now dominated from feed to freezer case by Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS, Smithfield Foods and Perdue Farms. The damage to health and the environment wrought by these corporations and the CAFO system has led to the global war on meat. Ever conscious of profits, the corporations are now heavily investing in producing lab-grown meat, further destroying small, pasture farms and condemning future generations to diets of pink goo devoid of nutrients. 

So meat producers got big or got out, building the horrific CAFO system. As the outcry against CAFO grows, we are told the only alternative is lab-grown meat. At RLF, we believe a healthy functioning ecosystem requires animals, plants and soil. CAFOs and meat laboratories are not the only way. We need to put animals back on the land, rebuild the rural infrastructure and take back control of our meat, our health and our community.