For family farmers like Hans Breitenmoser, the odds of catching COVID-19 on the job are slim. Social distancing is not exactly a challenge when you’re farming more than 1,300 acres in rural Wisconsin. But Breitenmoser is one of many Wisconsin farmers who are showing solidarity with others in the food supply chain who are at the pandemic’s epicenter — meatpackers and food processing plant employees.
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Today, Representatives Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) introduced The Strengthening Local Processing Act, a comprehensive bill that addresses acute livestock supply chain issues and supports small meat and poultry processing plants.
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Around the end of March, Chris Swenson thought he had a problem with his Web site. Swenson is the head of Swenson ranches, a cattle operation in Elgin and Stamford that’s been in his family since 1882. It was started by his great-great-grandfather Svante Magnus Swenson, Texas’ first immigrant from Sweden.
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The facts are clear and they are shocking: Factory farming is unhealthy for consumers, dangerous for workers, and devastating for the environment, and it is the largest cause of animal cruelty in the history of mankind.
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On April 28, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the operation of meatpacking plants was a national security priority and directed his administration to "take all appropriate action" to "ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations." Trump also ordered meatpackers to "continue their operations to the fullest extent possible." At the time, 6,500 meatpacking workers had been diagnosed with COVID-19, and 20 had died.
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Cory Booker says the massive challenges facing the US right now are all tied to a “savagely broken food system”. And last week, his most recent challenge to that system gained new momentum, when a coalition of 300 farm, food, and environmental advocacy organizations sent a letter to Congress urging legislators to pass a bill that would eventually eliminate the country’s largest concentrated animal feeding operations.
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In the 1930s, the average chicken sold at market weighed about two and a half pounds, and it gained each of those pounds over the course of about 45 days. Now, broiler chickens average upwards of six pounds, and they put each new one pound in just over a week.
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While most of us have recently witnessed empty shelves and higher price tags from the aisles of our local supermarkets, 2019 Fixer Graham Christensen has been fighting for solutions to our fractured food system from the fields. A fifth-generation farmer, Christensen founded the consulting company GC Resolve to help his home state of Nebraska establish more ethical and sustainable agricultural practices.
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To eat meat, or not to eat meat: It’s probably one of the hottest debates around the dinner table.
But can vegans and vegetarians unite behind a campaign to #BoycottBigMeat—if the campaign incorporates grass-fed and pasture-raised meat production as part of the solution?
On August 25, the #BoycottBigMeat campaign hosted a Facebook Live discussion about veganism, vegetarianism and how meat is produced. #BoycottBigMeat 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.
Through conversations like these, we hope to help shrink the divide between vegans, vegetarians and producers of regenerative grass-fed and pasture-raised meat and animal products.
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For most Americans, the fallout from the pandemic offered a crash course in how supply chains work (or rather, don’t work), especially in the meat supply. Suddenly grocery stores were rationing how much pork and beef each person could purchase, and consumers could no longer depend on getting the meat they needed at their local store.
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