Boycott Big Meat

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

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#BoycottBigMeat

“Boycott Big Meat” is a national consumer education and lobbying campaign to advance the transition away from today’s centralized industrial meat production to a system of organic regenerative pasture-raised and grass-fed meat production built and run by a diverse network of local and regional independent farmers, ranchers, processors, and retailers who are committed to:

• Justice, including fair pay and safe working conditions, for all producers and workers throughout the supply chain;
• Respect for animals and all natural systems, including water, nutrient, and carbon cycles; and
• Public health, through the production of drug- and pesticide-free meat and animal products.

"Boycott Big Meat" was launched in July 2020, with several partners, including Forward Latino, Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, Mercola.com, Regeneration International and the national coalition of U.S. Farmers & Ranchers for a Green New Deal. The campaign is endorsed by dozens of food, farm, climate and social and environmental justice organizations.

The COVID-19 crisis exposed as never before how our highly centralized industrial meat production system, dominated by a handful of huge corporations, exploits family farmers, slaughterhouse workers, and the environment—all while providing us with unhealthy pesticide- and drug-contaminated food. While the campaign is named "Boycott Big Meat," it's really about building something better. This is a campaign about taking back our food system from exploititve absentee corporations who care nothing about the communities where they locate their operations, and putting meat production back in the hands of producers who live in the communities they serve.

13 Reasons to #BoycottBigMeat

13 Reasons to #BoycottBigMeat
Why are we letting a handful of 'Big Meat' corporations destroy our health + communities?

Why are we letting a handful of 'Big Meat' corporations destroy our health + communities?
‘Right to Harm’ Anti-CAFO Film Panel Discussion

‘Right to Harm’ Anti-CAFO Film Panel Discussion

Take Action!

Big Beef: You May Not Recognize the Name. But This Bad Actor’s Meat Is Sold Everywhere—Except by Your Local Grass-Fed Farmer or Rancher.

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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.

The Regeneration Revolution: Rising Up Against Big Meat and Factory Farms

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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.

13 Reasons to #BoycottBigMeat and Build a Better Food & Farming System

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Consumers are key to building a better food and farming system. You can help by supporting farmers and ranchers who produce meat using practices that protect your health, the rights of food & farm workers, animal welfare, the environment, and climate stability. You’ll find these producers online, at your local farmers markets, through CSAs, and in your local organic retail stores.Here are 13 reasons to #BoycottBigMeat and build a better food & farming system: