I seem to have fallen through the cracks.  That is, while this post was briefly still up, I wrote and sent a comment titled "CAFOization and its discontents."  It has got lost, however; I cannot recover it.  It is listed in my "Your Comments" index, under a blank post title "Re:   "; and when I try to open it, I get a message saying something like, "Sorry, I cannot find that post."

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

How exactly is "meat processor" defined?  Couldn't this measure actually hurt small, local farm networks that are trying to band together to establish their own meat processing facility (often with more rigorous and humane standards)?

Call me cynical, but I don't see that this ban would really touch the Big Boys all that much.  Would they not simply "sell" their livestock interests to another "company" over which they actually have complete control with respect to animal conditions, pricing, slaughter schedule, etc., etc.?  And who would enforce this ban - the USDA? I guess it seems to me like yet another piece of legislature that could, in the end, wind up hurting the small family farmer even more.

I'm sure you have a more enlightened view of this, Tom, actually being a farmer (instead of someone who simply eats food).  Please, tell me what I'm missing?

Kaela

In an important, related develpment to Tom's post, the United Food and Commerical Workers International Union announced today that they are endorsing the ban on packer ownership of livestock.  In their press release and full page ad run in Roll Call (a publication circulated on Captiol Hill), the Union stated that when packers own livestock the companies can move livestock and production to wherever they can find the cheapest land and labor.  

UFCW's support for the packer ban is a huge development - important in terms of securing enough votes during the Senate's consideration of the farm bill and in highlighting the impact of market concentration on meatpacking workers.  

I still think that it will turn out to be a mistake to attempt to ban packer ownership of all varieties of livestock all at once as a package deal.  They should initially focus on packer/grain company ownership of feeder cattle.  Although feeder cattle are presently 80% coporate owned, these corporations have very little financial investment in feeding facilities.  As corporate feeder ownership is phased out, the prior individual players and ranchers that would maintain ownership of their own cattle would replace them.  The change would cost some corporate profits, but probably only chump change to them.

Banning corporate ownership of hogs and poultry  is a whole other story.  With these animals, the corporate vertically integrated system goes from birth to dinner plate and involves extensive corporate investment.  I think that it makes sense to get your foot in the door with cattle, and then take your chances later with hogs, then poultry.