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An unappetizing review
Researchers say factory farming practices harm people and the environment
Monday, May 5, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.
Factory farming exacts such a hefty toll on human health and the environment that it should end such practices as using antibiotics and tightly confining animals, researchers say in a new report.
“Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Production in America” was released last week by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It is the result of two years of analysis by a 15-member panel representing a variety of backgrounds including agribusiness and public health.
The report says antibiotics given to healthy animals, used to prevent diseases among large numbers of animals confined in close quarters, promote drug-resistant illnesses in humans — both from the meat and from the public water supply where drug residue settles.
Factory farms also degrade the environment because the high concentrations of manure cannot dissipate naturally, the report says. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that animals confined at factory farms produce 500 million tons of manure each year. That is more than three times the amount of waste that Americans produce annually. Communities near factory farm operations also are exposed to high levels of methane and nitrous oxide emissions — two greenhouse gases — and as a result people in those communities are more susceptible to respiratory distress and neurobehavioral disorders.
One problem, the report says, is that farming operations have evolved into large industries and are based on assumptions that “nature provides unlimited sinks to absorb the wastes thrown off by that economic activity.”
The panel made numerous recommendations, including banning antibiotics use in animals that aren’t sick and phasing out confinement that prevents animals from moving freely. Also, antitrust laws must be strictly enforced, the panel says, to prevent further consolidation of the agriculture industry.
Barraged by recent recalls of imported food and other items, Americans and lawmakers have called for better standards for imports. However, this report should make Congress and U.S. consumers alike take a harder look at domestic food production and demand better standards here at home.
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Well, since the liberals in Congress insist continually on "taxing the dead"(mq), er, the "Death Tax", er = taxing monies already taxed when earned - and taxed again when people die, Farmers since the 80s have had to sell their farms nationwide == resulting in big corporations buying and consolidating the land. Get it??
"Farm Aid" should have consisted on a drive to eliminate the Death Tax liberals love.
Such problems as the filthy conditions and embarassing business practices of mega-ag-corps have coem about due to the long-standing desire of the liberal to tax the dead = forcing sales of millions % millions of acres of land to "Big-Ag".
Live with it, the animals sure don't.........
Actually, the inheritance tax largely taxes money that WASN'T taxed during the owner's lifetime. Mostly it's in the form of capital gains. Since the first couple of million of any estate are passed along to heirs tax-free, what the heirs get taxed on are the contents of investment portfolios, real estate profits, etc. The profits you realize in the increase in stock values and the profit you make on the sale of real estate aren't taxed until you sell them. So passing them off to you heirs tax free upon your death means nobody pays tax on that sale. Why should anyone get a tax-free ride on that?
The whole estate, all of it, is included in the estate tax. The first 3 (I think) million just props up that wealth over that for re-distribution and destruction of farms, businesses etc that the "little guy" for the most part, built themselves.
The first, second, third - whatever - bites of the govt at the tax "apple". Multiple taxations are the liberal's lifeblood.
Are you calling death a "sale"? Did you really mean that? These days, perhaps a "taxable event"?
The alternative to tax-free / much lower estate taxes IS the selling off of a family farm, or business or whatever over-qualifies = so the picking at the bones of the dead creates bargains, so to speak, for others.
Wealth re-distributioning IS the socialist way, isn't it? Steal from those who earned it isn't the "American Way".
Anyway, the selloffs of many millions of family farms BECAUSE OF THE DEATH TAX created buying opportunities for Big-Ag to snap them up, through straw-men bidders, and destroyed millions of lives in the process.
Think the smaller, private family farmers and farm families took much better care of their animals that "Big-Ag" does?? And, why animal-abuses in "Big-Ag is on the rise...
Better give a "yep-per" on that, chief.
THAT's the thesis I responded to, but it was a nice workout to throw yours under the bus as well.
NVMakz,
You were blaming the state of affairs on corporate farms on the estate tax, a misguided attempt at best.
The fact of the matter is that corporate farms are far more cost-effective than small, family-operated farms. That's why those farms don't exist any longer. The inheritance tax has nothing to do with it. I know a little bit about this as both my parents are Ag economists and we've had many discussions on this very subject. It's all about economies of scale. A family can't possibly manage a farm large enough to make the kind of profit a corporate farm can create. Therefore an acre of prime farmland is worth much more money to ConAgra or ADM than it is to Ma and Pa Farmer.
Thanks for throwing me under the bus. I feel remarkably refreshed. :-)
Glad I could refresh you, lol....
I'm not blaming all on one factor at all. It's just the main factor in the transfer from the family farm to Big-Ag.
The (inheritance) death / estate tax had nothing to do with it? Balderdash. Baloney.
Changing the subject to why Big-Ag operates more efficiently = kinda irrelevant, except that I guess it is more cost efficient to have animals suffer more (crammed-in for profit) and "Big-Ag" has grown much, while the family farm as a concept has suffered more.
Guess having all those little farmers out there wasn't as "efficient" as "Big-Ag" scooping them up (in estate tax sales by straw-buyers, millions upon millions of prime acres) and creating the problems the op-ed opined on.
The estate tax drove away the little guy and brought on "Big-Ag". "Big-Ag" is what the op-ed, mainly, is doing. Animals don't vote or own land, so we can't hear from them.
If you have "Ag-Economists" in your arena, and I frankly doubt this seriously, this should've washed pretty decently as a concept.
If they think the death tax had "nothing" to do with the dismantling of and scooping up by Big-Ag of the "family farm" - and then, further abuses of the animals under their charge (less competition) = then their cred is poofff.........
This was THE major factor in the massive growth of Big-Ag the last 25 years - and the "death" of their competition, the family farm or the co-op organizations of local family farms.
NVMakz,
I see. I should take it on faith that your opinion regarding agricultural economics is more valid than that of two Cornell-educated agricultural economists. Or would you care to establish your bona fides?
Establish your own credibility before commenting on that of others. Back up your assertions with facts.
According to the USDA:
Ninety-two percent of U.S. farms are small, and small farms account for 71 percent of the assets involved in farming, including 67 percent of the land owned by farmers.
But, large family farms, very large family farms, and nonfamily farms (8 percent of all farms) account for about 68 percent of production.
In other words, it's just as I said in my previous post. Large-scale, industrial farms are more productive than small family farms.
From Willard Cochrane, an ag economist at the University of Minnesota (and no, we are not related; my parents are at UMass and UConn):
Today, a small number of very large farmers produce about two-thirds of the nation's grain, livestock, fruit, and vegetables. The remaining third is produced by small- to medium-sized family farmers, who are struggling to survive. I say "struggling to survive" because smaller farmers do not have access to the favorable rates of short-term credit and long-term capital enjoyed by large, corporate farmers. In addition, small farmers are excluded from using the latest products of the biotechnology industry--such as genetically modified seed--unless they enter into production contracts with the agribusiness firms that supply these technologies.
In other words, economies of scale allow large-scale farmers to compete at an advantage.