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Beyond a dense strip of forest, off a narrow single-track road in north west Poland, is what looks to the casual observer to be a man-made fishing lake, or perhaps a small reservoir. But as you approach, an appalling stench and a giant factory-style building begin to suggest otherwise.
The hogs screech as the barn fills with steam. Thousands jostle and shriek. It takes hours, but eventually they quiet and then collapse. By morning, their bodies cover the floor. Survivors snort and squeal weakly through the haze, until two workers, using captive-bolt guns, put them down. At the end, a John Deere track loader is brought in to scoop up carcasses and carry them off.
As we walked quietly through the trees, the water ahead looked like a manmade fishing lake, or maybe a small reservoir. We were in a strip of forest, along a single-track road, making our way towards a huge industrial farm. It was overcast and the high trees made the day even more gloomy.
You’ve never seen this company’s name on a package of ground beef or steak. That’s because the world’s largest beef producer, JBS, doesn’t sell beef under its own name.
But U.S. consumers buy millions of pounds of JBS beef every year, under brand names like Cedar River Farms, Swift Black Angus, 5 Star Reserve and others, in stores like Costco, Walmart and Kroger, to name a few.
Consumers also unknowingly support JBS when they buy burgers at fast food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King, and at other restaurants supplied by the meat giant.
JBS isupplies Sysco, the world’s largest food distributor, which distributes to hundreds of restaurants, hospitals and nursing homes, schools and hotels.
Sysco, in turn, wholesales JBS meat and other food products to Aramark and Sodexo, food distribution companies that in turn supply institutions like schools, hospitals, government agencies, prisons and more.
JBS is big. In fact it’s the biggest of the world’s Big Meat companies.
JBS also has some big problems.
On a former tomato field near the tip of the Florida peninsula, in a remote expanse of shabby nurseries growing palm trees and garden plants at the edge of the Everglades, there’s an imposing new building that doesn’t seem to belong in an area that doesn’t seem to change.
All it’s taken to expose the precarious state of our modern industrial meat supply is a tiny bit of infectious genetic material wrapped in a protein coat. The coronavirus pandemic has shone a not-so-friendly light on the inhumane ways both animals and people are treated in a system dominated by four major companies: Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef.
Industrial factory farming threatens our health, our environment and our local economic and food security.
The handful of “Big Meat” corporations that monopolize industrial meat production are guilty of exploiting meatpacking workers, farmworkers, farmers and ranchers—and torturing billions of farm animals.
There’s a better way. We need to act now.
The corporate meat industry is the target of a new campaign that asks consumers to boycott products from large operations. Those behind the effort point to recent situations in Iowa as examples of longstanding issues that need to be resolved, and cite a wide range of issues including worker safety, animal welfare, environmental impact and consumer health.
Under the gun, reeling from an unprecedented public health, racial justice, environmental and climate crisis, now is certainly not the time to mince words nor offer up piecemeal reforms to greenwash a failed, degenerate system. As I point out in my recent book, "Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Climate, Farming, Food, and a Green New Deal," there are no magical, easy tweaks to business, politics and consumer behavior “as usual” that can save us.
After the pandemic, lockdown and economic depression, in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter rebellion, there is no healthy, just and climate-friendly “normal” we can go back to. The old red, white and blue normal of Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton et al. was and is degenerate, racist and self-destructive, a 21st Century suicide economy that is dragging us toward climate catastrophe, societal meltdown and what Vandana Shiva has aptly described as a Digital Dictatorship.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), Forward Latino, Socially Responsible Agricultural Project (SRAP), Dr. Mercola and U.S. Farmers & Ranchers for a Green New Deal, today launched the “Boycott Big Meat” national consumer education and lobbying campaign.
The campaign is endorsed by 50+ groups, including Cedar Rapids, Iowa Sunrise Hub and Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture.
Join the virtual press conference July 14, 7 p.m. CDT.
“Consumers must lead the just transition to a decentralized system of organic regenerative pasture-raised/grass-fed meat production, run by a diverse network of local/regional independent farmers, ranchers, processors and retailers who are committed to fair pay and safe working conditions, and environmental and climate justice,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director.
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