Finger-Lickin' Bad

[donsu]

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/21/parker/


How poultry producers are ravaging the rural South

-snip-

"There's a horrible odor, a stench, and I have flies and rodents digging in, trying to get into my house," says Bernadine Edwards, whose 39-acre farm near Owensboro, Ky., is surrounded by 108 chicken houses within a two-mile radius. "It is unbelievable."

-snip-

Since the early 1990s, observers say, thousands of chicken houses have cropped up across the South as consumer demand for poultry has grown. Today, the U.S. is the world's poultry leader, with production of broilers, turkeys, and eggs valued at $29 billion in 2004, according to the National Chicken Council. Broilers -- chickens raised for meat -- generated $22 billion of that. The leading broiler production states in 2004 were Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, which is home to the world's largest poultry producer, Tyson Foods.

-snip-

"These companies seek rural areas where unemployment, or underemployment, is high and people are desperate for ways to stay on the farm," says Aloma Dew, a Sierra Club organizer in Kentucky. "They assume that poor, country people will not organize or speak up, and that they will be ignorant of the impacts on their health and quality of life."

-snip-

The effects on those who work directly with the animals are clearer. "In rural America, the poultry companies can get workers for a song, and the workers are so grateful to get the jobs," says Jackie Nowell of the United Food and Commercial Workers. These workers -- usually poor, and often African American or Hispanic -- "are exposed to feces any disease the chicken has," Nowell says. "There are also horrible levels of dust and dander inside these houses."
-snip-
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that's OK, pretty soon the chicken barons will have used up the rural south and move on to poorer places to toxify and reap piles of money

[murray hill farm]

1. And, then, of course...

bird flu may get there first.

[flamin lib]

2. I'm sorry, but producing food is not a pretty thing and producing it

in quantity is not pretty in a big way.

I grew up on a dirt farm in S Texas and know exactly where the neatly wrapped meat comes from. Been there and done that. Hung 'em up, cut 'em open. The chicken Mom fried was walking around the back yard a half hour earlier.

Chicken farms, pig farms, cattle farms it's all the same.

The problem isn't the farms, it's the consumers who demand low price. The farms should be required to install waste treatment plants and maybe even methane production plants but that raises the price from $.89 a pound to $2.00 a pound.

As long as the mass of consumers live sufficiently far from the production there will be no correction of the pollution problems.

[EC]

5. Big mega farms are the problem

we should get back to local small farms and local butchers, etc.

The taste of these bulk grown chickens is so bad compared to a farm raised free-range chicken it's not even funny. And beef, grass feed free range is the best. All these corn fed (genetically altered corn)are so high in fructose they cause increased fat cells in humans and acid reflux...I can't even eat corned beef, turkey or chicken anymore because of the acid reflux. Whenever I buy locally farm raised meat, free-range I have no problems, just the cheap supermarket shit...

[flamin lib]

7. Yeah, I'll go with that for poultry and beef, but pork is a different

matter. Domesticated poultry will just hang around the property and beef can be easily managed. Pigs are way too intelligent to manage. Give 'em an opportunity to "free range" and they'll free range into the next county. Herding cats is nothing compared to herding pigs--it can't be done. Hence the need to confine them, hence the parasite problem.

Free range pigs are a major problem in some parts of rural Texas. They tear up fences, vegetable gardens and cause erosion with their foraging trails.

The old fashioned way of raising both pigs and cattle produced a high fat product. Modern poultry is just the opposite--used to be lean, now fatty.

Anyway, I can go a long time without butchering another cow.

[EC]

9. Yeah, I remember the hogs on my grandparents farm

they were yummy when butchered and canned and smoked...but the thing with them is, more pens that can be kept up, instead of packing them in...my main thing with pork now a days, is what they are feed...corn...again high fructose.

I love ham, but again with the acid reflux from the corn they are feed, and there is an odd after taste now, too.

[Warpy]

3. Those are bad, but nothing compared to factory pig farms

Once you've smelled the filth that commercially raised pigs spend their short lives wading in, you're off pork for life, unless you can find a source for farm raised pork and can afford to pay the premium price for it.

[flamin lib]

4. Well, actually you may be mistaken.

Rural small farm raised pork is pretty dangerous unless you cook it to complete dryness. Farm raised pork walk in their own muck because they are housed outside in relatively small pens. They try to keep clean--they will select one corner of the pen as the toilet and use it exclusively--but it simply isn't possible for them to keep out of it. It is often infested with trichinosis and other parasites because of the conditions.

Megafarms raise the animals in concrete paved pens and wash the waste out several times a day which is the source of the massive pollution. Water + feces/urine = hell-uv-a-mess in large quantities.

No, megafarm pork is much better for you than the old fashioned pork.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Lots of chicken farms around me

and I've been behind plenty of "gut trucks" taking the offel from one plant to be rendered into pet food at another plant. Most of the workers at plants here in NW Arkansas now come from Central America. They are hard workers, wanting the American Dream. But the repetative stress injuries and other dangers of the plants make me wonder how many will have their dreams turn into a nightmare.

There are a number of folks who are raising free range chickens around here, and beef with no chemicals, etc. But you have to have a market for these products, which is the chief obstacle keeping many in my area to going to this type of operation. If you've ever tasted these chickens, or beef, you know they are superior, far superior, in flavor.

[flamin lib]

8. I have and I agree. Nothing like it and it's not just nostalgia for the

good old days. I really don't want to smack a chicken in the head for dinner.

There is a market for organic and free range produce. When possible I enjoy it and support it. Possible being when I can get it and when I can make it fit the budget. Surprisingly it isn't that much more than regular pricing at the mega mart.