Processing: The Bottleneck in Local Meat

About three weeks ago it was pork chops in a brown sugar/chocolate/chipotle rub. Two weeks ago it was lamb, kabob-style, marinated overnight in a yogurt mixture, basted with an olive oil/lemon juice/oregano "vinaigrette" I guess you might say, as it cooked on the grill. About a week later it was a burger, grilled, topped with some sauteed wild mushrooms and a sunny side-up egg. Last night it was some (big-a#$!) grilled chicken thighs that had been marinated overnight in a mixture of fennel seed, dried oregano, crushed red pepper, salt, garlic, and olive oil.

In other words, we eat some type of meat about once a week (often with enough for leftovers the next night). All of the meat from the last month came courtesy of local farms. One is in Ohio, but it's a small family farm that sells a lot of product through Slow Food Pittsburgh's Farmers @ Firehouse market and Laptop Butcher, and it's within 60 miles I believe, so that counts as local to me.

Anybody who gets local, sustainably raised meat probably has some familiarity with a big issue that these farmers face: finding a processor. There were, at one time, a good number of small processors who could serve the needs of their like-minded small family farmers. That has changed.

For small meat businesses in America, catastrophic events result from changes high up in the regulatory food chain that make it very difficult for small plants to adapt. The most recent extinction event occurred at the turn of the millennium, when small and very small USDA-inspected slaughter and processing plants were required to adopt the costly Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) food safety plan. It has been estimated that 20 percent of existing small plants, and perhaps more, went out of business at that time.

The HAACP, as Joe Cloud -- who operates T&E Meats and works with the uber-sustainable farmer Joel Salatin of Ominvore's Dilemma and "Food, Inc." fame -- explains in his Atlantic piece from which this little excerpt came, is supposed to keep meat free from nasty bacteria and other gnarly pathogens.

The problem is a common one: the regulations were written as if every meat processing plant is the same, whether it has 10 employees and a handful of regular customers or hundreds of employees, operates 24-7, and processes thousands upon thousands of pounds of meat each day.

And let's face it. They are very different. The way they operate and the level of risk they pose could not be more diametrically opposite. So the regulatory structure that ensures the safety of the meat they process must reflect those differences. It's that simple.

Which brings Mr. Cloud to the point:

On March 19, 2010, the FSIS published a draft guidance document on HACCP system validation, outlining new rules which would institute regular, year-round testing of all meats, whether or not problems have been identified. The proposal recommends testing for testing's sake, and it will cost small plants tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, every year. The financial burden appears great enough that this will destroy much of the remaining community-based meat processing industry, which is enjoying a renaissance and creating jobs.

You can learn more here about the new draft guidance and how to tell the USDA that the one-size-fits-all approach is ill-advised and will have multiple deleterious effects on local food and small farmers and processors.

And there is at least some hope that the USDA will listen. As part of the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" program that so angered several Republican senators in the back pocket of big ag with budgetary concerns, the USDA completed and released the results of a survey of meat processors that are available to small farms (the big processors often won't serve the little guys 'cause they don't give them enough business, and the small farms, apparently, don't like to work with the big guys anyway: they do their best to raise their animals in a humane and sustainable fashion, and the big processors aren't necessarily known for their, uh, strong track record on safety and humanity). The agency concluded from its survey:

"To support consumer demand for locally produced agricultural products, meat producers need to have access to local or regional slaughter facilities, and the study we are releasing today shows that there is often a shortage of facilities needed to bring food to market," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "The 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' initiative is working to address various shortcomings in the food supply chain on behalf of our country's producers and consumers. If there is a stronger, closer link between production and consumption, there is often an economic benefit."‬ 

 I truly stink at reading charts and graphs and maps, so, based on the maps in the slides from the USDA that lay out the situation (starting around slide 7), I'm having a hard time coming up with a coherent analysis of how western Pennsylvania fairs with regard to access to slaughter houses/processors. But it looks like that, for beef, the situation may be all right; for pork, also possibly not too bad; and for chicken, downright terrible.

I'll have to make some inquiries to the folks I get meat from and see what their experience is like. I'll give myself that homework assignment for tonight and report back on what I learn.

Science Saturday

It's taken as somewhat gospel in certain circles that reducing meat consumption in the U.S. and globally would be a good thing for reducing waist lines, the impact of climate change, etc. And, based on my limited understanding of these various issues, that seems logical and I generally agree.

But I found this news story from the journal Science to be quite interesting.

Although cutting back on meat has many potential benefits, [food-security researchers] say the complexities of global markets and human food traditions could also produce some counterintuitive—and possibly counterproductive—results. "It's not this panacea that people have put forward," says Mark Rosegrant of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRPI) in Washington, D.C. One provocative forecast: If people in industrialized nations gave up half their meat, more Asian children could become malnourished.

Read more »

Where Did That Burger Come From?

Monday afternoon.

Man and wife in kitchen. Man slapping some ground beef into patties.

“Honey?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Where did that beef come from?”

Jabs hand into plastic bag littered with tomato and lettuce bits. Pulls out black styrofoam with crinkled plastic wrap attached.

“Huh. It doesn’t say.”

This afternoon.

Wife and husband in kitchen. Wife, just done finely dicing some ginger, moves to put some chicken thighs into a hot pan.

“Honey?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Where did that chicken come from?”

Jabs hand into plastic bag littered with cilantro stems, coconut milk can top. Pulls out white styrofoam with crinkled plastic wrap attached.

“Canada.”

“It’s aboot time.”

Country of origin labeling on many, but by no means all, food is here. It has some glitches, however.

That’s because the regulations exclude a variety of foods that fall under the labeling requirement but are considered to be processed, including roasted peanuts, breaded chicken and bacon. The exemption for processed food also means that certain foods that are mixed together don’t have to be labeled, such as a bag of lettuce that includes both Romaine and iceberg, or a package of frozen peas and carrots.

Consumer and food safety advocates say they are generally happy with the rules, and relieved that the regulations are finally going into effect at all after so many delays. Still, they expect the guidelines will be puzzling to some consumers.

Frozen peas are a “processed food”? Technically, I guess they aren’t fresh out of the ground, so freezing and bagging required some sort of, well, process. But I don’t think frozen peas are what most people think of when they think of processed food.

It seems like where a food comes from should be a pretty straightforward question, eh? Me thinks me smells a regulatory nightmare.

The nearly final rules are now scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 30, and retailers will then have six months to make sure they understand the regulations correctly and come into compliance. The next step will be for the government to come out with a final set of rules, incorporating separate seafood and shellfish regulations, but there is no date set yet for that to happen.

Me thinks me also smells the wretched scent of industry lobbyists.

That’s one of the great things about this time of year. Much of the food we’ve been eating comes from Pennsylvania.

From within 60 miles of our house.

Often within 10 miles of our house.

Very often from our yard.

Maybe I should make my own label:

“Poblano pepper from garden 10 yards from back patio.”

All the Industrial Meat School Kids Can Eat

This is a story about meat. It is not good.

It is a story about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Under this voluntary program, participating farms and other “livestock premises” register any cows, chickens, etc. that they raise – even if not intended for consumption -- with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and place a satellite-tracked “tag” on them.

This system is designed to respond to a disease outbreak in such animals, a la the “mad cow disease” problems in the UK a while back. Apparently, some members of Congress think it would help in the case of a massive E. coli-related meat recall like those the United States has experienced in the last few years.

In practice, it would do nothing of the sort.

This program is precisely the opposite of what is needed to improve our food safety. Not only does it provide incentives for [confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)], but it fails to address the main source of food-borne illnesses – poor practices at the packing plants and food processing facilities. In the Hallmark/Westland beef recall, the problem was that the packing plant broke the law governing “downer” cattle and the USDA inspectors didn’t properly inspect the plant. In the Humane Society’s video, every time there was a clear shot of a cow’s left ear, you could see a tag! Changing the type of tag to an NAIS electronic tag would do nothing to address the problem.

The immediate issue? A provision in the House Appropriations Committee 2009 agriculture appropriations bill that requires the USDA to purchase meat products for the National School Lunch Program from livestock premises registered with NAIS beginning next July.

The National School Lunch Program, for those who don’t know, “provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children [in public schools] each school day.”

So, let’s revisit. What’s been the genesis of the U.S. meat recalls? Questionable meat as a result of questionable practices at massive packing/processing companies like Hallmark (meat that is then distributed by other large companies like Westland).

Where do they get their meat: the big CAFOs. So what? Under the said provision in this appropriations bill...

Confinement operations and massive corporate operations get essentially a free ride through provisions for “group identification,” which would not be available to most family farms. The industry organizations who helped create the program carefully provided that group or lot identification would only be allowed where animals are managed as a group from birth to death and never commingled with animals outside of their production system, a practice that is essentially limited to CAFOs and vertically integrated corporate operations. Family farmers stuck with tagging every animal (in most cases, with electronic identification) and reporting their movements would quickly be crushed by the expense, paperwork burdens, and potential fines for any failure to comply with this complex program.

[Quick aside to define something. From the comments to this op-ed, a family farmer provides a good definition of “vertically integrated corporate operations.”

The consolidation in the food animal industry, as well as the continued growth of completely integrated operations (where the processor owns the farm, the animals, and the processing plant), has led to a situation where independent producers, whether contracting or selling on the open market, are beholden to big corporations.]

I don’t know how many smaller-scale farms provide meat products to schools. I suspect it’s not many. But this requirement seems to have the sole purpose of driving any meat from small farms out of the school lunch game -- or, more likely, never letting them get started in the first place.

And, again, it would do nothing to address the problem raised by Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro in describing this bill:

This proposal would increase participation in the animal ID program. Also, in a case such as the historic Hallmark/Westland beef recall earlier this year, we would know about the history of the animals involved which could help address public health concerns.

Based on my own reading, most small farms do not rely on the same large meat processing plants that the big CAFOs do, mostly because, even if they wanted to (which at this point, given what’s been exposed in books like Fast Food Nation and in other reports about the inhumane way workers are treated and the foul conditions in many of these allegedly federally inspected plants, you wouldn’t think would be the case), they don’t provide enough volume for the plants to accept their business.

And, even more frustrating is that many small farms have a hard time finding processing plants they can work with, and the small processing plants – according to a recent report from the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (to which I can’t track down a link at the moment!) – have their own serious regulatory and workforce issues that are threatening their ability to continue operating.

What’s the bottom line?

Contact your member of Congress and let them know that 1) this proposal sucks, and 2) make it go away. Just say it nicely. Something along the lines of…

In the wake of the recent Hallmark beef recall, I appreciate any effort to ensure meat safety, particularly any meat intended for consumption by our school children. However, this NAIS provision in the House 2009 Agriculture Appropriations bill will do little to nothing to address situations like this, while effectively ending the participation of small- to mid-size family farms that engage in sustainable practices and provide what many consider far superior meat products to those that come from large confinement operations and meat processing plants.

It occurs to me that if Rep. DeLauro is really concerned about meat safety and our school children, she would take steps to provide some help to smaller farms and processors, directing the USDA to specifically purchase a certain percentage of organic fruits and vegetables, and pastured/grass-fed meat from said farms, and offer grants to help processors with their challenges.

I guess that’s too much to expect, though.

In the meantime, hopefully this lawsuit will stop this legislative atrocity in its tracks.