Note: This is the second installment of a two-column series on global trends in agriculture. The first was on U.S. fruit and vegetable farming.
When corn prices spiked last fall, things looked dire for industrial meat processors.
These enormous companies thrive by confining (or contracting with farmers to confine) livestock into tightly packed quarters and stuffing them with corn. Pricier corn -- in this case, pushed up by the government-backed surge in ethanol production -- seemed to translate to lower profits for the industrial meat giants. On cue, Big Meat executives like Tyson's Richard Bond complained bitterly about the end of cheap corn.
Corn prices? We're swine with it.
Photo: iStockphoto
I, for one, looked forward to a slowdown in one of the globe's most environmentally destructive industries. (As the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization pointed out last fall, feedlot meat production spews more greenhouse gases even than automobile use.)
If nothing else useful came out of the ethanol boom, I thought to myself, at least industrial meat would take a hard hit. But a funny thing has happened on the way to my industrial-meat schadenfreude: the meat titans are shaking off higher corn prices and thriving. And now I'm the one complaining bitterly.
Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork processor and among the largest beef and poultry producers, recently reported that its earnings for the May to July 2007 quarter more than doubled over the same period a year ago.
Its rival Tyson -- the world's largest chicken producer, and a leader in pork and beef -- also reported what analysts hailed as a "stellar" quarter, handily exceeding Wall Street's performance expectations.
What happened?
No Bones About It
For one thing, Smithfield and Tyson have managed to raise meat prices, forcing consumers to carry the costs of pricier corn. As the investment site Motley Fool put it, "It's been relatively easy for Tyson to push price increases through to its customers [i.e., large food retailers like Wal-Mart], who in turn have pushed through food inflation to consumers."
The second factor propping up the meat giants is that they have entered what seems like the early stages of a long-term export boom: They're swamping Eastern Europe and parts of Asia with U.S.-raised meat. In the most recent quarter, Tyson increased its export sales by nearly a third. Smithfield, meanwhile, reported a jump in operating profit for its international unit -- and promptly announced a sizable sale of U.S.-grown pork to China.
Note the contrast to the plight of large-scale U.S. vegetable farmers, which I laid out in the previous Victual Reality. Like meat processors, vegetable farmers have also seen the price of a key input rise: in their case, labor costs are up because of a crackdown on undocumented workers.
But unlike meat processors, vegetable growers can't easily pass higher costs onto the big buyers like Wal-Mart and other food retailing giants. Those buyers can simply reject pricier U.S.-grown goods and buy produce from other countries where labor costs are lower, such as Mexico and China.
Meat is a different story. Whereas thousands of U.S. vegetable farmers compete among themselves and foreign rivals for space in Wal-Mart's produce section, a precious few companies control the meat trade. Just two companies -- Smithfield and Tyson -- process 43 percent of pork consumed in the U.S. Their three largest competitors, Swift, Cargill, and Hormel, have together sewn up another 27 percent of the pork market. When players this big experience higher costs, not even a giant like Wal-Mart can say no to higher prices.
Moreover, while U.S. vegetable farmers rightly fear cheap imports from foreign competitors, the opposite holds true with meat. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that U.S. producers will "dominate" the growing global pork market over the next decade. By 2016, the FAO predicts, nearly one of every three pounds of pork traded globally will originate in the U.S. The FAO also expects the nation's beef and poultry production to thrive in the global market.
The lowly state of the U.S. dollar -- widely projected to remain weak over the next decade -- explains part of the power of the U.S. meat-exporting machine. A weaker dollar makes our exports cheaper, and thus more competitive, overseas.
But an even more important factor, I think, is that our huge and highly consolidated meat giants have managed to establish classic "Third World" labor and environmental conditions right here in the United States.
Have You Seen the Little Piggies?
In Iowa, the nation's leading pork-producing state, confined-hog operations churn out 50 million tons of excrement each year, the great bulk of which festers in massive lagoons, belching putrid fumes into surrounding communities and leaking into groundwater. In Hardin County, where I visited this summer, 18,000 residents live amid more than a million confined hogs and hundreds of manure lagoons. The county's once-teeming creeks and waterways have become dead zones, and an eye-stinging stench hangs in the air. It reminds you who benefits from the arrangement -- not the remaining residents or the hogs, but rather the confinement owners and the companies they work for under contract: Smithfield and its few meat-packing peers.
In North Carolina, the No. 2 hog-producing state, similar conditions hold sway. And there, just as in the "Third World," the poor pay dearest for highly profitable environmental banditry. According to a University of North Carolina study, "There are 18.9 times as many hog operations in the highest quintile of poverty as compared to the lowest." People of color get it worst of all: "The excess of hog operations is greatest in areas with both high poverty and high percentage non-whites."
Labor conditions, too, resemble those that might hold sway under a miserable dictatorship run by blinkered elites in thrall to foreign investors. In 2005, Human Rights Watch issued a blistering report on labor issues in U.S. slaughterhouses. "Meat-packing is the most dangerous factory job in America," the report declared. "Dangerous conditions are cheaper for companies -- and the government does next to nothing." The report also documents meat-packers' heroic efforts to squash unions.
Indeed, in its anti-unionism, the meat industry takes a hint from practices used during the 1980s-era heyday of death squads in Central America. Speaking of a Smithfield plant in North Carolina, one Salvadoran worker told Human Rights Watch that, "The company has armed police walking around the plant to intimidate us ... It's especially frightening for those of us from Central America. Where we come from, the police shoot trade unionists."
Thus, it turns out, it will take much more than pricy corn to cut down the U.S. industrial-meat behemoth. Global demand for meat is rising, and U.S. producers are well positioned to dominate the market. But why let the U.S. become manure lagoon to the world?
Without access to exploitable labor and comically lax environmental codes, the industrial-meat complex would surely wither away -- and the world would be a better place. What can ordinary citizens do? Rejecting industrial meat is a necessary but insufficient step. Efforts to organize meat-packing workers deserve broad public support, as does the movement to force the industry to take responsibility for the extraordinary environmental costs now being borne by people who live near its feedlots.
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Comments
View as Flat
jaborganic Posted 2:06 am
13 Sep 2007
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amc89 Posted 2:35 am
13 Sep 2007
Another important step for ordinary citizens after pledging to reject factory farmed foods is to put pressure on their legislators to support legislation restricting factory farming, at the national, state and local level.
For example, there are several state bills aimed at stopping intensive hog confinement. Arizona passed last November a citizen ballot question to stop veal and pig factory farming. At the national level, we can ask our legislators to stop giving subsidies to the meat industry. For example, in the recent Farm Bill, a provision was stopped that would have given a $12 million subsidy for the U.S. veal industry.
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Tom Philpott Posted 2:50 am
13 Sep 2007
The Iowa DNR is quite aware of the sad state of waterways in Hardin. Here they document four cases of fish kills in Hardin in 2005 and 2006 alone.
Here's what the Iowa Environmental Council has to say about Hardin (in this document (PDF)):
In the upper part of the river in Hardin County, the local communities have worked hard to protect the river corridor through a partnership effort to protect and restore the Iowa River greenbelt. Yet despite these efforts, the Iowa River downstream of Eldora is one of the segments listed on the impaired waters list because of high bacteria levels. Several tributaries of the Iowa River in the area have a history of manure spills and repeated fish kills and this pollution is contributing to the problems in the Iowa River downstream. In fact, the area around the Iowa River in Hardin, Hamilton and Wright Counties has the highest concentration of large livestock confinements anywhere in the state.
Can you really "send the police out and have the offenders arrested," just like that? I doubt it, but it sure is pretty to think so.
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jaborganic Posted 4:29 am
13 Sep 2007
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Dairyman Posted 5:20 am
13 Sep 2007
Lately, Iowa experience large rainfall amounts and several cities and towns had to discharge not fully treated sewage. If we crucify the hog producers we need to clamp down on the city municipals.
So, where are the manure spills and which river did it occur? Can't be the Iowa River beacuse I live right next to the river. We need to get the DNR invloved.
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:25 am
13 Sep 2007
From a DNR document dated Aug. 24, 2006:
A heavy rain can wash manure or other fertilizers, if not stored properly, over land into a stream or into a tile inlet. The manure then travels - sometimes miles - underground in a tile line before it enters a stream, like a recent Hardin County fish kill shows.
The DNR found several thousand minnows, shiners, darters, suckers and chubs along a 1.5-mile stretch of stream located between Radcliffe and Hubbard on Aug. 19. Most likely, a pollutant washed into a tile line during a heavy rainfall, and eventually landed in the stream, a tributary of Honey Creek.
However, the most recent rain in Hardin County occurred a week before a citizen reported the fish kill to the DNR. Because so much time had passed between the fish kill and its discovery, the DNR was unable to find a source of the fish kill.
"That's why we need Iowans to quickly report fish kills," Wade said. "It allows us to get
out in the field to find the source of pollution and work to possibly stop it.
Manure-related fish kills are hardly a rare event in Hardin; and it surely doesn't seem like CAFO owners responsible for them are being hauled away in chains. Getting their knuckles rapped by mildly annoyed DNT officials is more like it.
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jaborganic Posted 5:57 am
13 Sep 2007
Show us the proof!
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Dairyman Posted 5:59 am
13 Sep 2007
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Farm Bill Girl Posted 8:41 am
13 Sep 2007
Food and Water Watch has just released a report showing how corn prices do not correlate with food prices, and that in times of low corn prices, food costs did not necessarily decrease (though I'm sure agribusiness's profits increased!)
http://foodandwaterwatch.org/press/releases/corn-rising-g ...
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 12:05 pm
13 Sep 2007
"Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year. That's a number worth considering. A slaughter-weight hog is fifty percent heavier than a person. The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson."
Boss Hog ~ Read the Rolling Stone article here:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/boss_hog_rollin_1 ...
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pianoyoga Posted 2:50 am
14 Sep 2007
Most of that is coming down the Mississippi River and being ejected into the Gulf of Mexico along with all sorts of toxins and fertilizers, causing this huge dead area which extends over hundreds of square miles.
Most of that grain production goes to feed cows and chickens. Most of that meat production occurs in huge mechanized feedlot situations - it is inevitable that there will be pollution problems.
All the processing and shipping and refrigeration and retail operations for meat have their own huge energy cost.
So, basically we have half the continental US land area converted from natural systems into a fossil energy consumptive eroded, polluting mess. It wasn't so great in the Dust Bowl age of small heroic struggling farmers and it ain't so great today in the age of Smithfield and Tyson and McDonalds and Ethanol.
Meat is a good way for a carnivore or omnivore to get a nice iron-rich meal within its local ecosystem. Like mountaintop removal, the US agribusiness system is tolerated because people don't look very carefully.
If 7 billion humans must eat like lions and have it delivered in shrink film, we won't be doing it long. Maybe we should bring back that Soylant Green. Real tasty stuff I hear.
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HLisa744 Posted 8:22 am
15 Sep 2007
I grew up on a farm that raised hogs. In confinement buildings. That operation is long gone; the markets described by Dairyman effectively closed it down. Today, if I wanted to get back into a hog operation, my options would be severely limited.
You see, without a contract with a processor, it is very difficult to effectively raise and market pigs. And the processors really don't want to spend much time working with a small farm. It's a business decision - we call it "cherry-picking".
I've been inside several of the large modern facilities. They aren't uber-large around here, but they are massive. Still, the atmosphere is much healthier for the animals than the operations of 20-30 years ago. Nonetheless, we must deal with the waste - either in methane-producing manure digesters or as a potent source of nitrogen.
Nitrogen is Part A of a run-off problem. As Dairyman noted, nitrogen leaching can easily be sourced from either chemical or waste nutrient applications. Part B of the problem is Phosphorus build-up through manure applications... It's a feed issue that some are addressing through an additive called phytase. One farmer I was talking to this fall really didn't want to talk about phosphorus or phytase he felt it was just a d** if you don't d** if you do situation.
Phytase/phosphorus aside, between the disappearance of open lagoons, the technological improvements of the buildings, and GPS-assisted nutrient application systems, we have the ability to raise pork better... even at a small scale. But the reality is that we just don't have the market support to make it happen; and that the price of technology makes those improvements cost-prohibitive for many smaller producers. We don't see the same price jumps for live hogs that you see for shrink-wrapped meat.
So in the end, we have two looming issues: 1) The Market - for which I have no suggestions. 2) Effective waste management. From algae-based ethanol production to nutrient applications to methane-generating digesters there are better ways to utilize the manure. Let's look for solutions - not choose the finger to stir it with.
As a final note: For those who feel hogs should be free-range - please don't go there. They are one of the most environmentally destructive animals I know of - mankind excluded.
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caniscandida Posted 2:22 pm
16 Sep 2007
<<
2. Fairness: Producing food should not impose costs on others.
The price of food should reflect the full costs of its production. ... if the method of producing food imposes significant costs on others without their consent -- for example, by emitting odors that make it impossible for neighbors to enjoy living in their homes -- then the market has not been operating efficiently and the outcome is unfair to those who are disadvantaged. The food will only be cheap because others are paying part of the cost - unwillingly. Any form of food production that isnot environmentally sustainable will be unfair in this respect, since it will make future generations worse off.
...
4. Social Responsibility: Workers should have decent wages and working conditions.
...
>>
But the first also strikes me as extremely important:
<<
1. Transparency: We have a right to know how our food is produced.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, it's often said, we'd all be vegetarian. That's probably not quite true -- some people can get used to almost anything. But transparency is increasingly recognized as an important ethical principle and a safeguard against bad practice. Consumers should be able to get accurate and unbiased information about what they are buying and how it was produced.
>>
Surely one underlying explanation of how the meat industry thrives, in addition to everything Tom has written here, is that those who raise and slaughter livestock are permitted to do what they do essentially in secret.
And one activity that those of us who would like people to reduce their consumption of meat might be usefully engaged in is working to have glass walls installed everywhere in the meat industry.
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BonnieWilliamson Posted 1:49 am
18 Sep 2007
Speak your mind with the almighty dollar.....buy organic, grass fed, free range and fair trade! Stay away from conglomerates like Tyson & Smithfield. Most local grocers offer natural and organic options, choose those instead! Vote with your dollar, it speaks louder than the politicians do anyways!
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CyberBrook Posted 5:01 am
26 Sep 2007
Meat Eating and Global Warming
http://www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html
[Animals] were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.
Alice Walker
The time will come when people such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of people.
Leonardo da Vinci
Animals raised for food endure great suffering in their housing, transport, feeding and slaughter.
J Motavalli, So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.
Cesar Chavez, United Farm Workers
I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering.
Dalai Lama
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mohandas Gandhi
The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease.
World Watch
Nothing will benefit health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein
There is a direct relationship between eating meat and the environment.
Andrea Gordon, If You Recycle, Why Are You Eating Meat?
If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do.
Paul McCartney
Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters
http://www.brook.com/veg
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