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Let’s be clear: there is no solid evidence that the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the cause of the current Covid-19 disease pandemic, is an open seafood market in Wuhan that also trades in domestic and wild animals. All that we know is that several early cases of people diagnosed with Covid-19 either worked at this market or shopped there in the days preceding their diagnosis.
Yaak Pabst for the German socialist magazine Marx21 spoke to evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu (Monthly Review Press, 2016) about the dangers of Covid-19, the responsibility of agribusiness and sustainable solutions to combat infectious diseases. Marx21 released the interview in advance of its scheduled March 30 publication date.
In mid-March, as the reality of how COVID-19 would upend daily life became real for people across the U.S. and Europe, Katja Bartholmess went out for provisions in her Berlin neighborhood. At the REWE supermarket, she found long lines and emptied shelves, apart from the odd box of pasta. By contrast, the Boxi (Boxhagener Platz) farmers market was “well visited but well stocked.”
The COVID-19 stimulus package signed into law last week included US$23 billion for agriculture. This relief is warranted: access to safe and healthy food is paramount right now, and agriculture is a crucial pillar of our economy. While the package provides financial assistance to school nutrition programs, farmers, and food banks, it didn’t go far enough to protect family-scale farmers, food workers, and local food businesses that have been hit hard by this crisis.
Where did the virus causing the current pandemic come from? How did it get to a food market in Wuhan, China, from where it is thought to have spilled over into humans? The answers to these questions are gradually being pieced together, and the story they tell makes for uncomfortable reading.
When Anthony Castle moved to rural Rockwell City, Iowa, he pictured working on cars outside while his 6-year-old daughter, Hannah, played in the yard nearby. Castle’s house is on a secluded stretch of one of Calhoun County’s many narrow, unpaved roads that crisscross the cropland grid and, in winter, accumulate snow that no one bothers to clear. He and his wife Tiffany bought the fixer-upper in 2017, and he moved in a month ahead of the family to rewire it.
Thanks to animal welfare groups, most people are now aware of “factory farms.” Concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs abuse workers, animals, the environment, human consumers and even our tax dollars. (How? Price supports and government bailouts when diseases occur.) Thanks to greedy CAFOs crowding, diseases killed one-tenth of all US pigs and millions of chickens and turkeys a few years ago.
In the Texas Panhandle, which produces a fifth of the U.S. beef supply, communities are being choked by fecal dust from nearby feedlots. The state’s regulatory agency isn’t doing anything about it—and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
As the number of massive livestock farms balloons in states like Iowa, Maryland, and Nebraska, communities are scrambling to figure out how to control the pollution and waste produced by thousands — or tens of thousands — of animals. In some places, officials have opted to ban the mega-farms altogether, and the idea of a moratorium on the biggest animal farms is gaining support in local governments, statehouses, and even in Congress.
America’s agriculture secretary has urged Britain to move past “the political science of fear” over products like chlorine-washed chicken, as an animal welfare group warned a Brexit trade deal with the US could see eggs from battery hens return to UK supermarkets.
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