Humane? My first reaction on hearing this was, “Hey guys, you do realize this is still a cage, don’t you?” But let’s be evenhanded about this and look at the reasoning put forward by the American Humane Association.

The  American Humane Association’s  rationale for this decision is that these cages are “enriched” to allow hens to exhibit natural behaviors. In making this decision AHA states that it has carried out an extensive scientific review of the behavior and welfare of laying hens housed in such systems – mainly looking at research from Europe where conventional cages are soon to be totally banned.

Okay, so I might consider accepting that an “enriched” battery cage possibly offers better welfare opportunities than a standard battery cage. But AHA fails to recognize some key behavioral needs that hens are driven to perform. I am talking about providing the birds with space to run, stretch, flap their wings, and fly; litter and somewhere to dust bathe; and vegetated areas to peck at and forage in. AHA also significantly underestimates the ability of enriched cages to provide adequate nesting and perching.  So what does the research really tell us about “enriched” battery cages? And are they really a humane option? I was pretty confident that a lot of research existed to say some of these behaviors are not wants but programmed driven behavioral needs.

AHA is quite correct in turning to Europe where the bulk of the research has been carried out on enriched cages. In 2012, standard battery cages will be prohibited across the whole of the EU, following legislation first introduced in 1999. In order to facilitate the transfer of egg production from standard battery cages to other systems the EU funded the LayWel project, which examined welfare implications of changes in production systems for laying hens, with a particular emphasis on what the project described as “furnished”  or enriched cages. It may seem like wordplay to insist on this term rather than “enriched,” but the LayWel project makes the valid point that adding a perch or a nest area to a cage can be factually described as furnishing it but that it is a matter of opinion as to whether or not it “enriches” the cage. The LayWel project terms “furnished cage” the more accurate description and it’s the term I will use going forward.

In Europe, legislation lays down specific provisions that must be met by furnished cages. It is not clear whether AHA will require cages to meet the EU legislative requirements or if they will draw up their own standards for cages. The EU legislation requires at least 116 sq. inches of total space per hen. In March 2010, U.S. manufacturer Chore-Time Egg Production Systems unveiled its furnished cage at the Midwest Poultry Convention which only provides 68 sq. inches per bird – less than the current legal minimum for a standard cage in the EU, which requires 85 sq. inches per bird. Even taking the legislation into account, there are a multitude of options for cage design, some of which the LayWel project found can severely restrict the ability of the birds to gain a welfare benefit. For example, furnished cages in the EU must provide 6 inches of perch space per bird, but if the perches are arranged in a crosswise manner to fit them into the cage it may be difficult for the birds to actually use them.

On the topic of perches, you might wonder how it is possible for a bird to get up on a perch in a cage. Your picture of a bird roosting is probably similar to mine – a bird way up in a tree or high up in the rafters of a barn. High perches make birds feel safe from predators and other threats, but in a furnished cage the perch is likely to be less than 3 inches off the floor – and the wire top of the cage will be just 15 inches above that. You might argue that there are no predators that can get into cages but this misses the point. Chickens originate from jungle fowl of southern Asia and, regardless of the cross breeding and hybridization of the species, their behavior remains pretty much the same. For the chicken to be free from fear and distress it needs to be able to get up on a perch where it feels safe (Olssen and Keeling 2000; Cooper and Albentosa 2003). The EU Animal Health and Welfare Panel states, “Resting and perching are important aspects of birds’ welfare. Roosting at night on an elevated perch is a behavioral priority” (AHAW, 2005a). At just a couple of inches off the floor, the perch in a furnished cage will be seen by the hen as part of the floor and not as a perch (Tauson, 1984).

Let’s move on to one of the other supposed benefits of a furnished cage – the fact that it has a nest area. It is well established that hens place a high value on a secluded nest site. Research has shown that hens will move weighted doors and squeeze through gaps to get to what they consider a suitable site.

The reduced space in cages in general and the small area set aside for nesting in furnished cages in particular is a problem. Hens naturally lay at the same time each day – early in the morning – so there could be a queue of hens waiting their turn to get into the nest area. Early work on furnished cages (Guesdon and Faure, 2004) showed that the number of eggs laid in the nest area varied between 43 percent and 68 percent in a trial comparing four designs of furnished cages with standard cages. This suggests that the nest areas were not always satisfactory for the hens. While LayWel project research showed a higher percentage of use of the nest area in furnished cages versus standard cages, the fact that a nest is provided is not the point; hens must find it acceptable or they will not lay eggs in it. This is not an issue for non-cage systems which provide far more space and more numerous nest boxes.

Space to “turn around, spread their wings and lie down” is quoted as being a benefit of a furnished cage. Let’s take the EU space per hen of 116 sq. inches per bird in a furnished cage. Is this really enough? Well, the bird can definitely stand in this space and it can probably lie down. But can it really spread its wings and turn round with ease? How much space does this take?

Dawkins and Hardie (1989) looked at the average space required by a hen to carry out basic needs: turning around requires an average space of 198 sq. inches, stretching her wings requires 138 sq. inches, and flapping her wings requires 290 sq. inches. These figures are all far greater than the space provided per bird in a furnished cage. Of course, each furnished cage holds multiple hens so total space will be more than one hen needs; so you could argue that within the cage there is more than enough room for a particular hen to flap her wings at any given time. Of course, she’d have to count on the cooperation of all the other hens to be out of her way and not trying to stretch their own wings at the same time. And, we’re not even considering the need of the bird to run, fly, dustbathe and forage.

In natural conditions, hens spend 50–90 percent of their waking time foraging, making up to 15,000 pecks a day (Webster, 2002; Picard et al, 2002). No wonder feather pecking is an issue in cages – imagine the frustration of being deprived of doing what could take up to 90 percent of your day? That natural drive and energy must be directed somewhere and, sadly, the only option is to peck at the other hens you are trapped with. Furnished cages fail to meet the need for foraging behavior and making only the most minimal of accommodations for pecking.

Dustbathing is another key natural behavior (Lindberg and Nicol, 1997) that the furnished cage is supposed to facilitate. True dustbathing involves the hens lying down and throwing litter or other loose material over the feathers of their backs and wings, rubbing it in, and then shaking it out. When hens do not have a suitable area and litter in which to dustbathe, they still go through the motions of dustbathing. This is known as “sham dustbathing” and research suggests that it does not properly satisfy the motivation of hens to dustbathe. In furnished cages, sham dustbathing on the wire cage floor takes place far more frequently than in the littered area (Lindberg and Nicol 1997) with two thirds of dustbathing taking place outside of the designated area. At first it was thought that competition for space was contributing to this, as well as the fact that, like egg laying, dustbathing tends to take place at the same time each day. But further research (Olsson and Keeling 2002) shows that there was no relationship between sham dustbathing and competition for use of the litter area, suggesting that the area, the type of litter provided, and the depth of litter in furnished cages just does not meet the hens’ requirements, and so they treat all areas as equal when dustbathing. Like the nest box, it’s not just the provision of a designated area that is important; it’s whether the hens see it as acceptable. In non-cage systems where there is appropriate litter on the floor and/or access to outdoor areas there is no evidence of sham dustbathing (AHAW, 2005b).

From the points raised above it is clear that furnished or enriched cages provide very few potential benefits compared to standard cages – and in no way compare with the kind of high-welfare pasture based systems supported by Animal Welfare Approved (AWA). No wonder then that European welfare groups such as Compassion in World Farming are calling for a ban on “enriched” cages, and that in Germany all cage systems – including furnished cages – will be prohibited beginning in 2012. While AWA can agree that almost anything is better than a standard barren battery cage, let’s not kid ourselves that the enriched cage is anything other than an inhumane confinement system.

References:

AHAW (2005a) Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare on a request from the Commission related to welfare aspects of various systems of keeping laying hens (Question EFSA-Q-2003-092), adopted by the AHAW Panel on 10th and 11th November 2004. The EFSA Journal, 197: 1-23.

AHAW (2005b) Report of the Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare on a request from the Commission related to welfare aspects of various systems of keeping laying hens (Question EFSA-Q-2003-092), accepted by the AHAW Panel on 14th and 15th September 2004. Annex to The EFSA Journal, 197: 1-23.

Cooper, J. J. and Albentosa, M. J. (2003) Behavioural priorities of laying hens. Avian and Poultry Biology Reviews, 14: 127-149.

Dawkins, M. S. and Hardie, S. (1989) Space needs of laying hens. British Poultry Science, 30: 413-416.

Guedson, V. and Faure, J. M. (2004) Laying performance and egg quality in hens kept in standard or furnished cages. Animal Research, 53: 45-57.

Lindberg, A. C. and Nicol, C. J. (1997) Dust-bathing in modified battery cages: Is sham dust-bathing an adequatesubstitute? Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 55: 113-128.

Olsson, I. A. S. and Keeling, L. J. (2000) Night-time roosting in laying hens and the effect of thwarting access to perches. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 68: 243-256.

Olsson, I. A. S. and Keeling, L. J. (2002) No effect of social competition on sham dustbathing in furnished cages for laying hens. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A, Animal Science, 52: 253-256.

Picard et al (2002) Visual and tactile cues perceived by chickens. In J. M. McNab and K. N. Boorman (eds.), Poultry Feedstuffs: Supply, Composition and Nutritive Value. CAB International.

Tauson, R. (1984) Effect of a perch in conventional cages for laying hens. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, 74: 193-209.

Webster, A. B. (2002) Behaviour of chickens. In D. D. Bell and W. D. Weaver (eds.), Commercial Chicken Meat and Egg Production. Kluwer Academic Publishing.

The Pew Commission’s 2008 report, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, has been one of our most potent weapons in up-ending a loathsome business where profits depend on the inhumane treatment of animals, and where unsustainable, unsafe health and environmental practices are the norm. For too long, agri-business has been allowed free reign to transform American agriculture in a way that undermines our most basic beliefs about how animals and farmers should be treated, and what our children should eat. Not to mention the incredible long-term damage being inflicted on our soils and waterways.

The importance of the Pew Commission report in refuting the bad science and malevolent spin of agri-business has already had an impact here in the U.S. — AWA farmers are able to build viable farms that put the care of the animals and the land at the center of their production practices. It’s heartening to see that that Pew’s report is becoming a global resource for all communities fighting the export of an ill-conceived, greedy farming system that has proven to have dire long-term effects.

Rick Dove is just one of the ordinary citizens-turned-activists that Kirby follows in Animal Factory, and he wisely lets the power of their stories drive the narrative. For Rick Dove of New Bern, North Carolina, Helen Reddout of Yakima Valley, Washington and Karen Hudson of Elmwood, Illinois, farming originally meant what we’ve all been taught to believe—happy animals standing in lush grasses with a welcoming red barn in the background. It’s not until Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, known as CAFOs, move nearby, complete with stench and large manure spills, that they begin to realize what today’s industrialized agriculture really represents. Polluted fields and waterways, cruelly confined and mistreated animals, dreadful working conditions, fish kills, stink, illness.

Kirby is an experienced investigative reporter, Huffington Post contributor and the author of Evidence of Harm, an investigation into the possible link between mercury in vaccines and autism. For the latter he won the 2005 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. In Animal Factory he skillfully weaves the personal and political to expose a world where profit and efficiency come at a steep price to people, animals and land. In Kirby’s capable hands, Animal Factory reads like a political thriller, but the stakes are hardly imaginary.

Corporate agriculture maintains that you can’t feed the world, much less the United States, without CAFOs to make meat, dairy and eggs plentiful and affordable. While Michael Pollan and others have talked about the “true” cost of food, Animal Factory plainly illuminates the incomprehensibility of industrialized animal farming. It’s a system where seemingly no one but the parent company profits yet all are at risk. Not only do the regions where CAFOs are located experience an alarming rise in pollution and reciprocal loss of quality of life, but the systems lead to increased and more deadly risk to humans from diseases such as antibiotic resistant E. coli and mad cow disease (BSE).

At its core, Animal Factory is a personal story—a story of individuals coming together to protect their land, the health of their community, the dignity of the farm animals and the safety of the nation’s food supply. Kirby uses the activists’ stories as the backbone of his book, weaving in science, statistics and politics to enhance but not overwhelm the reader’s experience. No doubt it’s been an unwelcome surprise to industrialized agriculture that three such disparate people as Rick, Karen and Helen would ever find each other, much less build a movement that is forcing them to be accountable, but they did. Using their compelling stories, Kirby shines a light into the dark corners of industrialized agriculture and what he finds isn’t pretty.

The key message is that there is no doubt about the direct links between the overuse of antibiotics in intensive farming and the rise of bacteria that are resistant to common antibiotics. The major culprit at the moment is Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus – more commonly known as MRSA.

What happened?

So what’s the problem with MRSA and how has it developed? There are many different MRSA strains but, as the name suggests, all MRSA bacteria are resistant to certain important antibiotics. The effect of this is that if you are infected with MRSA it is much more difficult for your doctor to find an antibiotic that will help you. Some estimates put the number of Americans suffering from MRSA infections at 90,000 per year – leading to nearly 20,000 deaths. As you can see, this is a serious problem.

So how has MRSA developed?  Staphylococcus aureus is a very common bacteria in humans, often found on the skin, in the nose, or in the mouth. But how did it get to be so deadly? To understand that we have to look at what has been going on in some of the largest and most intensive farms in the U.S. since the 1950s.

As farming became more intensive and animals were kept in ever greater numbers, farmers inevitably found that pests and diseases began to spread more easily. In effect, the intensive system made the animals sick. When animals are sick they don’t grow as fast – and may even die. But rather than changing the system to one that was better for the animals, the industry realized that it could “solve” the problem more inexpensively by routinely adding low doses of antibiotics to the animals’ feed and water. This medication worked very well at keeping the animals alive and growing. However, as more and more bacteria were being exposed to antibiotics – especially at low doses – the risk that they might develop resistance also grew.

Scientists have known for many years that bacteria can mutate to become resistant to antibiotics or pick up genetic material from other bacteria that have survived the antibiotic use, and then further spread this within the bacterial population. And this is exactly what has been happening on intensive farms across the U.S. over the last few decades.

Part of the problem with this overuse of low-dose antibiotics is the fact that while the low dose kills off the more susceptible bacteria first, it leaves behind those bacteria that aren’t susceptible – in other words, the ones that show resistance. And because the farmers generally use the same antibiotics over and over again, in the end the only bacteria left are those that are resistant. Without anything to control them, these resistant bacteria can multiply and easily spread from animal to animal, and then from farm to farm.

However, the real problems occur when antibiotic resistance spreads to bacteria that can make humans sick. This is why we are now seeing the emergence of antibiotic resistant diseases like MRSA in humans – and we are fast running out of options to treat these new diseases.

But it’s not too late!

Let’s make one thing clear: we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and ban all antibiotics in animal agriculture. Antibiotics are a vital weapon against serious diseases in both animals and humans, and we know that the treatment of individual sick animals does not contribute to the rise of resistant bacteria, such as MRSA. We’ve know this for almost as long as antibiotics have been used as “growth promoters” in agriculture. As early as 1948, the British journal the Veterinary Record reported concerns about the potential development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria:

The present enormous consumption of the drug (penicillin) can be accounted for only by a good deal of indiscriminate use and it is generally considered that widespread use particularly of inadequate doses is a potent factor in breeding resistant strains of bacteria.

The good news is that countries like Denmark that have recently banned the indiscriminate use of antibiotics for growth promotion and other non-therapeutic reasons are now reporting a sharp fall in the incidence of resistant bacteria. So it’s not too late! We can do something about not just stopping the development of new strains of resistant bacteria, but also reducing the incidence of the ones that are already out there.

The key to stopping all non-therapeutic use of antibiotics – and reducing the need for therapeutic doses – is not to blindly carry on with farming systems in which we are simply trying to prevent exposure to disease. What we need to do is to encourage farming systems in which we are actively managing animals so they can develop strong natural immune systems – a concept sometimes called “positive health. “

I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that the kind of farms we are talking about are the kind of farms that are Animal Welfare Approved. Research shows that animals that are under stress have reduced immunity. And if animals are kept on farms where they are not overcrowded, where they have access to pasture and space to move around, where they are fed a diet that matches their natural needs, and where they are managed to promote health and well-being, then the levels of stress and the incidence of disease – and the need for antibiotics – is much, much lower. In many cases AWA farmers cannot recall the last time they had to use antibiotics. It is that simple.

Making the right choice

The CBS report ended by saying that if consumers want to make sure that they don’t buy products with a risk of MRSA, then they should look for meat which is labeled “no antibiotics ever.”  But while this seems like a straightforward way to ensure that consumers  aren’t at risk, I am afraid it isn’t quite as simple as that.

The MRSA found on meat gets there during the slaughter and butchery process. As mentioned above, MRSA normally lives on the skin, so an animal that carries MRSA doesn’t automatically have the bug in its meat – but the bug could be transferred to the meat during processing. The problem is that the slaughterplant worker or butcher could then transfer it to any other meat they touch. So while it may be true that meat from animals reared without the use of antibiotics might have a lower risk of carrying MRSA, just saying “I’ll buy meat from animals raised without antibiotics” doesn’t actually do anything to help solve the problem.

The solution lies in looking at the causes of MRSA – intensive farming that relies on excessive amounts of low-dose antibiotics – and putting a stop to the continued non-therapeutic use of these vital medicines on which these farming systems are so dependent.

Just like guns, antibiotics themselves are not the problem. The irresponsible use of antibiotics is the problem. And it’s not the farmers that are at fault; it is the farming systems which result in the need for indiscriminate antibiotic use.

In falsely marketing its chicken meat as produced from birds “raised without antibiotics” while still feeding them antibiotics, Tyson Foods was shamelessly exploiting the growing public concern over the excessive use of antibiotics in industrial farming, particularly in the form of non-therapeutic growth promoters.

But while the intensive meat industry continues to vigorously oppose any attempts to reduce antibiotic use in farming, the irony is that Tyson Foods may well have inadvertently shot itself in the foot by publicly admitting that the overuse of certain antibiotics in industrial farming really is a threat to human health.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria

The practice of feeding farm animals low doses of antibiotics in food and water began back in the 1950s, and has since become standard practice. Nowadays, virtually all intensively farmed animals will receive low levels of antibiotics in their feed, water or by injection throughout their lives as so called “growth promoters” to help maximize production and minimize costs. This approach allows today’s intensive poultry farmers, for example, to keep tens of thousands of chickens indoors in an unnatural state of false health, whereby the low-level antibiotics suppress key diseases which would otherwise spread like wildfire in such close-confined and all too often unsanitary environments. Sound too good to be true? Well, it is.

Mounting scientific evidence now suggests that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are a breeding ground for diseases that pose a real threat to human health. Indeed, the routine low-level, non-therapeutic use of antibiotics as growth promoters to suppress diseases – rather than as a therapeutic treatment for outright cure – is leading to the development and proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the animal and human population.

Key antibiotic-resistant bacteria are now starting to hit humans hard, with various emerging resistant strains of E. coli, salmonella and MRSA, to name just a few. The US Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy claims that MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infections are up more than 50% since 1987, while some estimate that antibiotic resistant infections are increasing healthcare costs by $4-5 billion a year. It is clear that antibiotic resistant disease represents a ticking time bomb for human health – and people are finally waking up to this fact.

False marketing

In a rather cynical attempt to capitalize on this growing public concern, in 2007, Tyson Foods began marketing its chicken as “raised without antibiotics” after first gaining approval from the USDA to do so. But the problem was that Tyson Foods wasn’t telling the USDA the whole story; after finding out that the company was still including ionophores in its poultry feed, the USDA quickly revoked its decision.

Classified by the USDA as antibiotics, ionophores are a group of animal medicines commonly added to industrial poultry feed to help prevent coccidiosis, an intestinal parasite. Ionophores are just one of several groups of antibiotics that are used by the major industrial farming businesses; the problem is that many are also vital for treating disease in humans.

Initially, Tyson’s legal team tried to argue that ionophores weren’t officially classified as antibiotics, but the USDA quickly reaffirmed that they were and that Tyson must therefore stop selling its chicken as “raised without antibiotics.”

Tyson approached the USDA again, this time arguing that because ionophores were not actually used in human medicine, their use in farming could not lead to the possible emergence of diseases with antibiotic resistance to important human drugs. On this basis, Tyson said that they were willing to compromise and would modify their labels to state “chicken raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans.” But it never got that far; once Tyson’s key competitors got wind of the issue, they filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Tyson Foods’ labeling ideas constituted false advertising. In June 2008, Tyson Foods voluntarily withdrew the label entirely, and finally settled the case in early 2010.

Tyson backfires…

But while many journalists will simply dismiss this whole episode as yet another damning indictment of our troubled food and farming systems, this story might not end there: for Tyson Foods has inadvertently shot itself – and the industrial food lobby – in the foot.

By modifying its label from “chicken raised without antibiotics” to “chicken raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans,” Tyson Foods is implicitly admitting that the non-ionophore antibiotics used in industrial farming “impact antibiotic resistance in humans.” It’s there in black and white for us all to see (http://www.tyson.com/Corporate/PressRoom/ViewArticle.aspx?id=2955).

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that about 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals, so it’s understandable that you might think that this practice is essential for the production of our meat. But the US farming industry is already four years behind the European Union, 14 years behind Denmark and 24 years behind Sweden in banning the non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics in farm animal production. All of these countries have taken positive action to protect the long-term viability of their citizens and the antibiotics that protect them against disease. And, unless I’ve missed something, I am pretty sure that all of these countries still have a thriving livestock farming industry. Indeed, early evidence suggests that the antibiotic bans are already leading to a lower prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in animal bacterial populations – and increased livestock growth rates. It seems that managing animals in order to make sure they don’t get ill in the first place leads to more productive animals. Common sense, don’t you think?

Industry opposition

So why does the US industrial farming industry – including the American Farm Bureau, American Meat Institute and the National Pork Producers Council – still have such an issue with recent proposals which seek only to reduce the (mis)use of antibiotics in agriculture and preserve these tools which are so vital for the protection of human health?

Well, the sad truth is that intensive farming operations have knowingly profited from the misuse of medically important antibiotics for years, at the expense of human health and animal welfare. How else can you explain their dogged opposition to the introduction of simple safeguards that would help to prevent the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of life-threatening diseases, such as E. coli and MRSA?

In 2008, after a lengthy independent investigation to assess the farm animal industry’s impact on the public’s health, the environment, farm communities and animal welfare, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production called for stricter regulation of antibiotic use in large-scale animal operations, stating that “the present system of producing food animals in the United States is not sustainable and presents an unacceptable level of risk to public health.” Without any real research its calls were refuted by the industrial farming lobby, which claimed that limiting antibiotic use would threaten animal health and welfare and increase the risk of food-borne disease.

PAMTA – a step in the right direction

Similarly, the recent proposal to introduce the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) is at risk of being derailed by the intensive farming lobby – despite the fact that the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Association of County and City Health Departments and hundreds of other health, consumer, environmental, agricultural, and humane organizations all support the legislation.

PAMTA would still allow therapeutic use of antibiotics to treat sick animals, but would prohibit the non-therapeutic feeding of medically important antibiotics to livestock, as well as require any antibiotics that are destined for non-therapeutic livestock use to undergo safety tests to ensure that they will not harm human health due to antibiotic resistance. Surely this is just plain commonsense?

Yet the industrial farming lobby – and even the usually very enlightened American Veterinary Medical Association – is forcefully opposing PAMTA, claiming that animal health and welfare would suffer and food-borne diseases would increase. Again, as far as I am aware, I’m not hearing regular reports of mass public food poisoning incidents from countries which have banned non-therapeutic use of antibiotics.

We’re already doing it – naturally…

The truth is that farmers don’t need to use non-therapeutic antibiotic treatments in order to keep their animals healthy and productive. Just like farmers in other countries, thousands of farmers across the USA – including Animal Welfare Approved farmers – already rear their livestock without ongoing reliance on non-therapeutic antibiotics.

AWA farmers maintain herd health through vaccination, pasture management, exceptional hygiene, and the reduction of stress which weakens animal immune systems. Of course, if an animal is sick and needs medical treatment AWA standards allow the use of antibiotics, where appropriate. It’s just plain old reasonable farming; nothing more, nothing less.

Despite its continued opposition to PAMTA and the Pew Commission, Tyson Foods has now openly admitted that some antibiotics used in agriculture risk creating “antibiotic resistance in humans.” We also know from experience here and in Europe that we can farm successfully without reliance on these growth promoters. We cannot afford to allow industrial farming to carry on misusing antibiotics for profit, at the expense of public health and animal welfare. It is time that we stop using antibiotics to prop up unsustainable and poor welfare farming systems, and instead do everything we can to ensure that these remarkable medicinal tools remain as effective as possible for treating killer human diseases. The alternative is simply unthinkable.

In a major move for the Obama administration, the US Department of Justice (Antitrust Division) and the US Department of Agriculture have opened an investigation into whether any illegal monopolies exist among the dominant agricultural companies.

The focus is primarily on three sectors: seed companies, beef packing and dairy. With a history of exemption from antitrust regulation, the industry as a whole has become extremely concentrated. This concentration is measured in terms of “CR4,” or concentration ratio (relative to 100%) of the top four firms in a specific food industry.

For instance, in beef packing, the top four companies (listed below with daily processing capacities) control 83.5% of the market.

1. Tyson (36,000 head/day)

2. Cargill (28,300 head/day)

3. Swift & Co. (16,759 head/day)

4. National Beef Packing Co. (13,000 head/day)

Source: Concentration of Agricultural Markets, April 2007, Mary Hendrickson and William Heffernan.

Similar levels exist in other agricultural sectors, including pork processing and genetically modified seed technology. This lack of competition has had serious implications for the independent producer; in any other industry it would be a red flag. Perhaps the recent banking crisis has shed some light? In the words of our friend at Rural Advancement Foundation International, Scott Marlow, “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big. Enforce antitrust.” Spoken at Farm Aid this past October, his call to action challenged the audience, “Now is the time and here is the place. If not us, who, if not now, when?” Regardless of the cause of this shift in focus, we predict a heated debate and a wide range of opinions on the subject. To voice yours, follow the directions on the DOJ website to submit your comments in hard copy or electronic form.

You can also contribute to the discussion in person. As part of this investigation, a series of workshops will be held across the country to “promote dialogue among interested parties and foster learning with respect to the appropriate legal and economic analyses of these issues, as well as to listen to and learn from parties with experience in the agriculture sector.” A schedule of the workshops is listed below, please see the aforementioned DOJ website for detailed information and physical locations.

Dates, Locations and Topics

March 12, 2009 – Ankeny, Iowa

Issues of Concern to Farmers

Introduction to the workshops series with a focus on the issues facing crop farmers. Discussion topics may include seed technology, vertical integration, market transparency and buyer power.

May 21, 2010 – Normal, Alabama

Poultry Industry

Discussion topics may include production contracts in the poultry industry, concentration and buyer power.

June 7, 2010 – Madison, Wisconsin

Dairy Industry

Discussion topics may include concentration, marketplace transparency and vertical integration in the dairy industry.

August 26, 2010 – Fort Collins, Colorado

Livestock Industry

This workshop will focus on beef, hog and other animal sectors. Topics may include enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act and concentration.

December 8, 2010 – Washington, D.C.

Margins

This workshop will look at the discrepancies between the prices received by farmers and the prices paid by consumers. As a concluding event, discussions from previous workshops will be incorporated into the analysis of agriculture markets nationally.

Entitled “Environmentally Friendly Food Myths Debunked,” the news article provided coverage of a presentation given by Dr. Jude Capper at the 71st Cornell Nutrition Conference in October 2009. Her presentation reported findings from a recent paper co-authored with R.A. Cady and D.E. Bauman, entitled, “Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production.”

The article quotes Dr. Capper – who is assistant professor of dairy sciences at Washington State University – as claiming that the “intuitively correct” food choice made by today’s consumers is actually often the least environmentally friendly option. The article went on to justify the paper’s position:

“Pasture- or grass-fed meat is growing in popularity, with the perception that it is more eco-friendly than conventionally produced beef. However, the time needed to grow an animal to slaughter weight is nearly double that of animals fed corn. This means that energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per pound of beef are increased three-fold in grass-fed beef cattle. Again, the intuitively environmentally friendly option has a far higher resource and environmental cost.”

Dr. Capper went on to rally the delegates present (who were mostly animal nutritionists), calling for the food industry “to use a whole-system approach and assess environmental impact per gallon of milk, pound of beef or dozen eggs, not per farm or per acre.”

Ties to Industrial Agriculture

Before discussing what I believe to be the inherent errors of this paper, it is worthwhile to note the credentials of the authors. There is an obvious tie to the industrial agriculture sector. R.A. Cady works for Elanco, a company that devotes itself to artificial productivity enhancers and feed additives for animals. Elanco is a division of Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical corporation.

But it is Dr. Capper and her association with American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT) that causes me the most concern regarding whether this paper represents unbiased research. It has been well-publicized that the use of rBST was banned in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe over concerns about the threat it posed to animal health. Indeed, researchers found that the use of rBST substantially increased health problems with cows–including foot problems, mastitis and injection site reactions–which impinged on the welfare of the animals and caused reproductive disorders. Thus it is appalling to note that AFACT is an industry-led pro-rBST advocacy group. It exists to “promote the truth about American agricultural products” – including, of course, the benefits of rBST, and is funded by the likes of Monsanto, Fort Dodge Animal Health, Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health, Merial, and Pfizer Animal Health.

An earlier paper of Dr. Capper’s, ”The Environmental Impact of Biotechnology: Application of recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rBST) in Dairy Production,” concluded that: “Overall, rBST appears to represent a valuable management tool for use in dairy production to improve productive efficiency and to have less negative effects on the environment than conventional dairying.” Is this the way we want to ensure our future food security?

And is the paper, “Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production,” reflective of general scientific consensus on the issues it covers? In fact, there is much research that contradicts its positions.

Whole System Approach?

The paper claims that a “whole-system approach” proves that intensive livestock systems – where meat or milk production is maximized per animal, per acre – are less environmentally damaging than “inefficient” pasture- or grass-based systems. In the face of increasing global demand for meat and dairy products, Dr. Capper argues in her presentation that the answer lies in further improving the “efficiencies of livestock productivity” by increasing the quantity of meat and dairy products produced from each farm animal, while maintaining current levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Yet it is Dr. Capper and her co-authors who are not actually looking at the whole system – or indeed the “bigger picture” we all face. The vast majority of scientists who are working on climate related issues contend that it is intensive agriculture – with its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and other damaging environmental practices – which is the real climate culprit. And in the face of the reality of climate change and ever-decreasing oil reserves, “business as usual” agriculture is just no longer an option.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the world’s leading body for the assessment of climate change – recognizes that modern agriculture contributes more than 20% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions in the form of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane (IPCC, 2001). And intensive livestock production is responsible for the vast majority of agriculture’s GHG emissions.

In the US and other industrialized nations, the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of carbon dioxide emissions. In developing nations, a significant source of global CO2 emissions comes from the clearance of vast areas of tropical forests and other land to grow livestock feed for the global commodities market. Clearing forests and the often concurrent result of soil compaction results in 2,400 million tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere annually (FAO, 2006).

Creating the fertilizers and growing the feedcrops to supply intensive livestock operations adds an entirely new dimension. A 2006 United Nations report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) clearly states that for intensive livestock farming, the carbon dioxide emitted globally from producing nitrogen fertilizer and growing feedcrops such as maize is equal to 131 million tonnes a year (FAO, 2006).

Of those emissions, 90 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are released from the production of feedcrops alone. Notice that we’re talking about intensive livestock production only? Grass-based systems do not depend on feedcrops and fertilizer for growing them. The FAO states, “On-farm fossil fuel use induced emissions in extensive [grass-based] systems sourcing their feed mainly from natural grasslands or crop residues can be expected to be low or even negligible in comparison to the [intensive livestock] estimate” (FAO, 2006).

And despite the fact that the intensive livestock industry in the US and other developed nations continues to rely on vast quantities of imported livestock feed – particularly soya – from developing nations, the related GHG emissions are not attributed to US agricultural activity, as they occurred outside of the US. A convenient omission of emissions.

Carbon dioxide emissions are not the only risk from the profligate use of fertilizers, though. According to the Energy Information Administration (a section of the US Department of Energy), more than three-quarters of farming’s nitrous oxide emissions – a greenhouse gas some 310 times more powerful than carbon dioxide – come from the production of artificial fertilizer, used to grow the vast quantities of soya and corn required by the intensive livestock industry to satisfy our ever-increasing demand for cheap meat and livestock products.

Finally, US farmers are only too aware of the fact that livestock production has come under increasing fire for its associated methane gas emissions. But while all livestock systems inevitably produce methane, most of the criticism can be laid firmly at the doors of intensive livestock systems, typified by indoor pig units or vast cattle feedlots, where literally thousands of cattle spend their entire lives confined to concrete or barren pens, where they are fed an unnatural diet of soya and corn, and where their manure gathers in vast liquid manure lagoons – releasing huge quantities of methane gas. In contrast to these systems, extensive livestock production again is the exception. The same FAO report states, “Manure deposited on fields and pastures, or otherwise handled in dry form, does not produce significant amounts of methane” (FAO, 2006).

Modern livestock production is dominated by industrialized facilities that maximize profits by treating animals not as sentient creatures, but as production units. We know only too well of the animal welfare issues associated with the unchecked pursuit of “improved productivity and efficiency” in modern livestock farming.

But our cheap meat habit is not without its human health and welfare costs. As our diets have changed over recent decades to incorporate the ever-increasing availability of cheaper meat and dairy products, devastating diet-related diseases – like obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and diet-related cancers – have developed to near epidemic levels in the US and many other countries. Recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that one in three people born in 2000 in the US will develop Type 2 diabetes by 2050. And, according to the World Health Organization, the same thing is now happening in countries across the world like China and the rest of Asia as the Western fast-food diet, with its high meat, sugar and fat intake, is taking hold.

Grassfed Pasture-Based Solution

The solution is not to further intensify our livestock production systems or to seek ways of further exploiting our livestock to feed our insatiable habit for unsustainable meat. The solution lies in changing how we farm and feed ourselves: the solution lies in grassfed livestock production.

We already know that grassfed livestock are reared on pasture and finished on pasture – no need for carbon-costly soya and corn feed and the vast quantities of nitrous oxide-producing artificial fertilizers necessary to grow it. We also know that grassfed meat is better for us. Grassfed meat contains higher levels of healthy omega-3 fatty acids, conjugated linoleic acids (CLAs), and vitamins A, E and D – and lower levels of the omega-6 fats that are linked to obesity and heart disease (see www.EatWild.org).

But leading scientists are now acknowledging that pasture land – and here we’re talking about traditional pastures that aren’t totally reliant on brought in fertilizers and pesticides – could have a vital role to play in cutting GHG emissions through capturing and storing atmospheric carbon. Indeed, the IPCC now suggests that soil carbon sequestration is the mechanism responsible for most of the mitigation potential, with an estimated 89% contribution to the technical potential (IPCC, 2007).

Carbon sequestration (as it is widely known) is the natural process of transferring carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the soil through crop residues and other organic solids, and into a form that is not immediately re-emitted. Indeed, there is more carbon locked up in the soil than there is in the atmosphere and, according to the US Department of Energy, enhancing the natural processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere is increasingly considered to be the most cost-effective means of potentially reducing atmospheric levels of CO2. The FAO also agrees that rebuilding soil integrity is an integral part of reducing the livestock industry’s carbon footprint. It states, “Compared to the amounts of carbon released from changes in land use and land-degradation, emissions from the food chain are small. So for CO2 the environmental focus needs to be on addressing issues of land-use change and land degradation. Here the livestock sector offers a significant potential for carbon sequestration, particularly in the form of improved pastures” (FAO, 2006, 115).

Pasture is the answer. Before the arrival of the European settlers, the prairies of the American West supported millions of bison, elk and deer. Since the 1800s, we have ”improved” thousands upon thousands of acres, much of it to now grow soya and corn for livestock feed and bioethanol. But looking at the production supported since the supposed improvement – the dust bowls of the 1930s, ever decreasing soil carbon levels, ever greater reliance on fertilizers and pesticides, and so on – perhaps we should look back at the sustainable production systems that were once supported in the past.

For those who might be thinking that I am suggesting a mass conversion to vegetarianism, let me stress again that some meat production systems are more benign than others. Remember the millions of bison that roamed the Great Plains? Livestock are a vital part of this system and necessary to manage pastures as carbon sinks. Regular grazing by livestock encourages grass root growth, which in turn sequesters more carbon in the soil. Livestock also utilize the forage, providing meat as an output while helping to increase the organic matter content of the soil.

The world’s soils are the largest terrestrial reservoir of carbon, containing three times as much carbon as the atmosphere and five times as much as forests. By leaving behind intensive livestock systems and, instead, adopting sustainable management techniques, the soils have the power to literally take CO2 out of the atmosphere and to significantly help to mitigate the threat of global warming.

Building organic matter in the soil through grassfed livestock systems is the key to reducing the emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. OK, so it may not be the catchiest headline, but it will have a far more positive effect on reducing climate change than mass vegetarianism – and far less devastating impacts than the business as usual approach espoused by the authors of “Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production” and those who support industrial agriculture.

By all means, let’s reduce our intake of unsustainable, low-welfare, intensively reared meat – indeed, there’s a good chance that we’d all feel a lot better for doing so. But remember that buying high quality pasture-raised meat, such as that certified by Animal Welfare Approved, will mean that you’re not only eating a healthier product and supporting family farms who raise their animals using the highest welfare standards in the US – you are also helping to protect the planet for future generations.

Andrew Gunther
Program Director
Animal Welfare Approved
www.AnimalWelfareApproved.org

The Animal Welfare Approved program audits and certifies family farms that utilize high-welfare methods of farming. Farmers benefit from having a third-party affirmation of their practices and consumers benefit by knowing that the label means what it says. Animals are raised outdoors on pasture or range on true family farms with the “most stringent” welfare standards according to the World Society for the Protection of Animals in both 2008 and 2009 reports. The standards have been developed in collaboration with scientists, veterinarians, researchers and farmers and incorporate best practice and recent research. Annual audits by experts in the field cover birth to slaughter. Animal Welfare Approved audits and certifies family farms for both the AWA program and the American Grassfed Association (AGA).

REFERENCES:

The news release “Environmentally Friendly Food Myths Debunked” appears ad verbatim on numerous agricultural websites, including:

• Drovers –  http://www.drovers.com/news_editorial.asp?pgID=675&ed_id=6401
• Dairy Herd – http://www.dairyherd.com/news_editorial.asp?pgID=675&ed_id=9814
• Cattle Network – http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Environmentally-Friendly–Food-Myths-Debunked/2009-11-05/Article.aspx?oid=932439
• AgWired – http://agwired.com/2009/11/09/environmentally-friendly-food-myths-debunked/
• DairyLine – http://www.dairyline.com/releases/11062009capper.htm
• Beef Magazine – http://blog.beefmagazine.com/briefingroom/2009/11/10/environmentally-friendly-food-myths-debunked/

American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT) – http://itisafact.org/2009/04/dr-cappers-response-to-activists-claims-that-cows-are-bad-for-the-environment/

EatWild website (references to scientific studies on the health benefits of grass-fed products) – http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm (accessed November 10, 2009)

Energy Information Administration (a section of the US Department of Energy) – http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/nitrous.html (accessed November 10, 2009)

European Union (1999) Report on Animal Welfare Aspects of the Use of Bovine Somatotrophin, Report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare of the European Commission.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2006) Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, FAO. http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/env-livestockslongshadow.pdf

Harvey, G. (2008) The Carbon Fields, Grass Roots.

Hahn Niman, N. (2009) The Carnivore’s Dilemma, Op-Ed in NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31niman.html?pagewanted=all (accessed November 10, 2009)

Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (2001) Climate Change 2001: Mitigation: Contribution of Working Group III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press – http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg3/index.php?idp=115 (accessed November 10, 2009)

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2008) Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change, Cambridge University Press. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg3_report_mitigation_of_climate_change.htm (accessed November 10, 2009)

US Department of Energy – http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/sequestration/terrestrial/ (accessed November 10, 2009)

Venkat Narayan KM, Boyle JP, Thompson TJ, Sorensen SW, Williamson DF. ‘Lifetime risk for diabetes mellitus in the United States’. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2003;290:1884–1890.

World Health Organization (2003) Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases: Report of a Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation, WHO.

I got an email a few days ago with a link to footage taken at a Vermont slaughter plant. I often receive videos depicting horrific animal treatment, but this one stood out.  The footage I was sent showed veal calves—only days old—unable to walk or stand on their own, repeatedly kicked, slapped and shocked.

Once again, we have sickening proof that there are people who just don’t get it. In a civilized society we have to do things right. The USDA, despite the industry’s best efforts, does have rules that cover some parts of a slaughter plant operation. Slaughter plants that operate like this can’t hide anymore. People are no longer satisfied with being spoon-fed lies about production practices that are “in our best interests”; the consumer is educated, interested and is paying attention.

What makes these incidents particularly horrific is these workers surely know that a calf only days old needs to be lifted and carried. A newborn calf spends the early part of its life gaining strength by sleeping and lying down.

The law prohibits “downers” (cattle that can’t walk on their own) from entering the food chain, putting into motion a nice, big Catch 22—a young calf cannot be slaughtered if it can’t  stand up but it cannot stand up because it’s physically unable to. Enter stage right, the guy who sets about administering electric shocks, kicking the animals and screaming. He does this because the system he works in has taught him to believe that kicking and screaming and inflicting pain will motivate a calf who can’t stand up, to stand up. The video graphically displays the failure of his belief.

In perhaps the very definition of dereliction of duty, an inspector stands and watches as a calf–who because of poor management and zero thought process, has not been stunned or killed–has its skin peeled off. It defies reason. What on earth stopped the inspector, at the first sign of the calf’s sentience, from having the animal instantly stunned? As the law, by the way, requires.

I am proud to say we have many slaughter plants in the AWA program that take their job seriously and would never allow these violations; they have respect for the animals, the staff and consumers. What I am disappointed in is that we still need HSUS to show us that there are still some who just don’t get it. Well done HSUS—we don’t need these people representing American farmers and slaughter plants.

If you want to do something, write to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and ask him to enforce the regulations already in place.  If he doesn’t there will be no farm animal program for him to oversee—public outrage can and will bring an end to pitiless slaughter to the detriment of all farmers. Those who do it right don’t deserve to be painted with the same brush as those who clearly don’t know what is wrong.

Watch the video (Warning: graphic, violent and disturbing images)

Are things changing? Read Jane Black’s recent Washington Post story, “Veal, cast in a kinder light,” for more about the renaissance of humane veal in the United States.

This time, it was an article in the LA Times about the currently legal practice of feeding US cattle so-called “poultry litter.”  An unlikely sounding cattle feed, poultry litter is actually made up of industrial chicken feces, spilled chicken feed, feathers and other poultry waste collected from the floors of factory farms across the US. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – which is responsible for protecting public health and is at the center of this current situation for continuing to permit poultry litter as a feedstuff – estimates that US farmers currently feed between one and two million tons of poultry litter to their cattle each year.

If this is the first time you’ve heard about this shocking practice I’d like to make one thing clear from the outset: you won’t find a single Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) farmer feeding chicken waste to their cattle. AWA standards prohibit the feeding of processed industrial chicken waste – or any other unnatural feed, for that matter – and for good reason.

But this furor over feeding poultry litter to cattle isn’t new. Poultry litter has been used in cattle feed for decades as a high-protein by-product supplement; it’s just that the public didn’t know about it – or more accurately, they weren’t told. But since the emergence of  mad cow disease, numerous food and consumer groups have called on the FDA to ban the feeding of poultry litter.

They argue that industrial chicken feed (and therefore chicken feces) can contain rendered tissue from ruminants – cows and sheep, among other mammals – which is commonly used for poultry feed. They claim that feeding poultry litter to cattle therefore increases the risk of the cattle becoming infected with mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE) which devastated the British beef industry in the early 1990s. They also claim that poultry litter can contain a range of disease-causing bacteria which cattle can transmit to humans, such as campylobacteria, salmonella and E. coli, as well as veterinary drug residues, heavy toxic metals – and even rocks, nails and glass.

Yet the FDA continues to defend the practice, stating that there is little BSE risk to human or cattle health from feeding cattle poultry litter – particularly as all BSE risk material is now removed from cattle at slaughter. And with respect to pathogenic microorganisms, drug residues and contaminants in poultry litter, the FDA states that it is “not aware of any data showing that the use of poultry litter in cattle feed is posing human or animal health risks that warrant restrictions on its use.”

Representatives of the beef and poultry industry argue that the overall costs to the beef industry – and, ultimately, the consumer – would far outweigh any ‘”limited” potential safety gains from banning poultry litter as a cattle feed. They also claim that any ban would exacerbate the existing problem of the mass disposal of poultry litter from factory farms. In defending their right to feed poultry litter to cattle, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association recently said that “we must continue to look to the science to avoid over-regulating the industry and creating policy that doesn’t meet our objective of a safer animal health system.”

The fact that certain elements within the food and farming industry are willing to publicly defend the feeding of poultry litter to cattle – that is chicken feces, feathers and other poultry debris collected from the floors of factory farms – on the basis that this represents a “safer animal health system” is an appalling indictment of the state of US food and farming. It also is a stark warning to us all of the huge chasm that has emerged between how most of us think our food is being produced and the appalling practices that are justified by those who are so deeply embroiled in the drive to produce ever cheaper meat that they no longer have any sense of what is accepted as the norm.

John Maday, managing editor of Drovers website, recently called on beef producers to voluntarily eliminate poultry litter from their production systems. “Consumer perceptions drive beef demand,” he wrote. “Science might justify feeding it, but consumers don’t read scientific journals. I can’t imagine any of them wanting beef from cattle fed chicken s***.” While I welcome his ultimate conclusion, I can’t help but question the fundamental basis of his judgment. For it is fair to say that most of the meat, milk and eggs on the average American’s table now come from places that more closely resemble factories than farms in the traditional sense.

We at the Animal Welfare Approved program, seek to promote the well-being of animals and the sustainability of humane family farms, uniting conscientious consumers with farmers who raise their animals naturally with compassion and respect. Working with scientists, veterinarians, researchers, and farmers to maximize practicable, high-welfare farm management, our standards are the most rigorous in the United States. We are proud to be completely honest and transparent about how we raise our livestock, providing consumers with high quality, high welfare foods while ensuring the economic viability of family farms.

Americans didn’t choose industrial farming; it’s just that they weren’t given the full story. And more and more Americans are waking up to this fact.

The Times story follows a convoluted and widespread chain of production that ended with hamburger contaminated with the virulent E. coli strain O157:H7 being sold to the public, leaving one young woman paralyzed and more than 900 others ill. The story recounts the secrecy, obfuscation, and duplicity that processors engage in to avoid testing beef for E. coli and to protect a system that gives rise to tainted beef. In a modern agricultural business model, profits come before safety and business interests have been able to hold at bay the governmental agencies charged with keeping our food supply safe.

But there is a way to help ensure that America’s beef supply is safer and healthier. It’s a solution as old as the hills.  It’s 100% natural and it’s healthier for humans, the animals and the environment and it’s one that Animal Welfare Approved and the American Grassfed Association have been championing for years: keep cattle on pasture for the duration of their lives and feed them only the grass and forage diet they are uniquely evolved to eat.

The benefits of raising animals on pasture and grass are clear. Cows fed forage and grass diets have been shown to have no E. coli pathogens known to be harmful to humans.* On the other hand, cattle coming from feedlots have been shown to carry the deadly E. coli O157:H7 and other unsavory diseases. The bacteria live in unnaturally balanced intestines and can be carried on the cows’ hides. The feedlots where these cattle stand in their own fecal matter and are fed an unnatural diet are without a doubt the source. This cocktail of lethal bacteria travels with the cows to slaughter and processing, where contamination of the meat from feces flourishes.  No real dispute exists. As long as we continue to allow grain-finishing and feedlots, it should come as no surprise that pathogenic E. coli thrives in today’s beef.

E. coli, which is always with us, is historically mostly harmless; our own digestive acids normally kill any E. coli bacteria that we eat. However, E. coli strains resistant to both antibiotics and digestive acid have been on the increase for years. The rise of diseases and bacteria that human immune systems can’t fight off is a reoccurring theme in large, conventional farming systems. Rolling the dice on the health and well-being of your family every time you eat a hamburger is simply unacceptable. It’s time to stop gambling with our safety in order to protect a system that is deeply and fundamentally flawed.

* Russell, J.B., F. Diez-Gonzalez, and G.N. Jarvis, “Potential Effect on Cattle Diets and the Transmission of Pathogenic Escherichia Coli to Humans” Microbes Infect 2, no, 1 (2000) 45-53.