Laws: July, 2003 - Number #02

Migrants are increasing their share of employment in the US meatpacking industry, and some packing plants are providing more services to their immigrant workers. For example, Swift & Co opened a Multicultural Education Center at its plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, and in June 2003 the first worker enrolled received a high school diploma. However, a bill in the Nebraska Legislature in 2003 would have prohibited state tax breaks for casinos and slaughterhouses. Colorado. The Greeley Tribune published a series of articles in 2001-02, "Worlds Apart-Coming Together," that explored the impacts of Mexican immigrants on northern Colorado. A September 29, 2002 article dealt with farm workers, and reported that, in 2002 the piece rate for topping onions- gathering eight to 10 onions, cutting off the green tops, and putting them in 14-gallon or 60-pound burlap sacks, was $0.60, with most workers filling 70 to 80 sacks a day. (www.greeleytrib.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=WORLDSAPART) The EPA said that Petrocco Farms near Greeley would be cited for a near-record $232,000 in fines for failing to post warnings about pesticide hazards and posting precautions for workers. Petrocco, which employs a peak 250 workers to generate $12 million a year in sales, was warned in 2001-02, but did not post the warnings in 2003. Of the Colorado farms checked in 2001, 87 percent were in violation of the EPA's worker safety protection program for pesticides. PETA. Under pressure from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the president of KFC in May 2003 pledged to improve the lives and deaths of the 350 million chickens it serves in the United States each year. According to PETA, KFC agreed to change its killing system to ensure that, when chickens are dunked, head first, into a "stun bath" to anaesthetize them before they are killed, they are truly stunned, with video cameras installed to monitor the process. PETA would like animals to be killed with gas, a practice followed in several US poultry and pork plants. The US has 900 meat and poultry processing facilities that "disassemble" eight billion chickens and turkeys; 97 million hogs; 35 million cattle; three million sheep and lambs, and one million calves a year. USDA has 6,500 inspectors in these plants. In June 2003, McDonald's announced that its suppliers would have to reduce their use of antibiotics in sick animals and eliminate the use of certain growth-promoting antibiotics that are fed to healthy animals, particularly chickens. McDonald's, which buys two billion eggs a year and is one of the biggest purchasers of animal products, has also pressed the egg industry to increase by 50 percent the amount of space it allocates to egg-laying hens in hen houses. McDonald's and PETA also support the use of machines to catch chickens. Chickens have been caught by hand at night to be taken to processing plants, with catchers expected to catch 1,000 birds an hour. A $200,000 mechanical chicken catcher injures fewer chickens as it moves slowly through darkened poultry houses. Broilers reach their processing weight of six pounds in less than eight weeks and they have trouble moving because of this rapid weight gain. Andrew Krimbrell edited a book of photographs and essays that "offers graphic testimony to the tragic consequences of how our food is produced." Krimbrell calls industrial food production a "fatal harvest--fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and mad cow disease find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms." Waste. So-called industrial meat farms, especially those with thousands of hogs, collect their waste in lagoons that emit toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. Water waste from such operations is already regulated, but neighbors complain that the gases from waste ponds make them sick; farmers say more study is needed before new clean air regulations are imposed on confined animal farms. Some neighbors of such farms are considering suits, based on medical research that suggests hydrogen sulfide can cause brain injuries. A North Carolina professor said that large animal farms are factories, and should be regulated "under the same constraints as a chemical operation." The Environmental Protection Agency is considering an amnesty for farms that generate air pollution if they agree to also install monitors to collect the data needed to see exactly what the farms are emitting. The National Research Council paved the way for this approach in a 2003 report, "Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs," that recommends more study of industrial meat farms. (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10586.html) Maryland has abandoned plans to hold chicken processors liable for the waste generated by the farmers who raise their chickens. A billion chickens a year are raised on the Delmarva peninsula, and the manure is washed from fields into waterways, fueling algae blooms that choke the water of oxygen and light. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called livestock pollution the major threat to US waterways, and in the late 1990s, it began regulating large livestock farms as factories. That effort was curbed in January 2003. Rural Development. Senator John Edwards (D-NC), one of seven Democrats vying for his party's presidential nomination, in May 2003 offered a $7 billion, 10-year plan to encourage more investment and technological development in agricultural communities to offset the economic stagnation he called "a permanent way of life for much of rural America." Edwards, campaigning in Iowa, in 2002 voted to allow meatpackers to own cattle and hogs, a position not popular with Iowa farmers. US senators from the plains states that are losing residents have introduced the New Homestead Act, aimed at helping counties that have lost more than 10 percent of their residents in the past 20 years. Under the NHA, the federal government would provide incentives for businesses to stay open or expand, forgive up to half of the student loans for anyone staying in an eligible county for five years and give tax credits for new home and business buyers. David Barboza, "Animal Welfare's Unexpected Allies," New York Times, June 25, 2003. Deborah Frazier, "Petrocco Farms endangers workers, faces fine, EPA says," Rocky Mountain News, June 7, 2003. Jennifer Lee, "Neighbors of Vast Hog Farms Say Foul Air Endangers Their Health," New York Times, May 11, 2003. Kimbrell, Andrew. Ed. 2002. Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture and Fatal Harvest Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Island Press. www.islandpress.org