How can the President order meat-packing plants to continue operations? (Logistical, not political!)

[Selkie]

3 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Clearly, your opinion of the National Guard is not very high.  

And I am not sure that anything in the rest of this post has anything to do with the necessity of maintaining this aspect of the food supply chain during this crisis.  

Doesn't mean she has a low opinion of the National Guard. Have you ever seen what goes on in slaughterhouses? It is horrific.

[Pam in CT]

19 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

The idea that the National Guard can just step in and take over these jobs is absurd. They'll be puking and passing out left and right. There's a reason this kind of work is only done by the poorest and most desperate people with no other options. The working conditions are horrific and the workers have little to no protection. It's not just the slaughtering and direct processing that's an issue either, the cleaning crews are probably the most exploited and abused group of workers in the US. They are almost all undocumented, and they have zero protections because cleaning crews are subcontracted and not employees of the plants. Their rates of illness and injury are astronomical — 1 in every 1000 suffers a job-related amputation. Americans are not going to literally risk life and limb for $12/hr and no worker's comp or unemployment.

 

6 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Clearly, your opinion of the National Guard is not very high.  

And I am not sure that anything in the rest of this post has anything to do with the necessity of maintaining this aspect of the food supply chain during this crisis.  

 

Maintaining the food supply is both necessary and also extremely difficult, in ways we've had the luxury of not-having-to-think-about for a long time.  To focus on the truth of either one is not to negate the truth of the other. 

I think highly enough of our National Guard that they will be able to do such work... and also that many of them will be surprised and troubled to learn up close about the conditions underpinning the cheap food which we've largely taken for granted.

I actually think highly enough of our National Guard to hope that these kinds of emergency details to unexpected workplaces will lay the groundwork for better wages, better work conditions, and better safety nets on the other side of this crisis than we had the political will to effect before it.  Sinclair's Jungle for the CoronApocalytpic Age.

[Corraleno]

4 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Clearly, your opinion of the National Guard is not very high.  

 

Huh? My comment has nothing to do with the intelligence or work ethic of the National Guard. Animal slaughter, meat processing, and plant cleaning are horrific jobs that require very very fast repetitive movements in an environment that would make anyone who isn't used to it retch. People with zero experience are not going to be able to go in there and start processing thousands of chickens that go flying past them on hooks every hour. They are not going to be able to hack carcasses up at anything close to the rate that experienced workers can. They are not going to to be able to clean the plant at night, when experienced workers struggle to work as fast as possible to get it done in the limited time available and suffer horrific injuries in the process.

 

"The third-shift workers, as the cleaners are often called, wade through blood and grease and chunks of bone and flesh, racing all night to hose down the plant with disinfectants and scalding water. The stench is unbearable. Many workers retch. ... the nightly storm of high-­pressure hoses, chemical vapors, blood, grease, and frantic deadlines, all swirling in clouds of steam around pulsing belts, blades, and blenders, can be treacherous. From 2015 through September 2016, Packers had the 14th-highest number of severe injuries — defined as an amputation, hospitalization, or the loss of an eye—among the 14,000 companies tracked by OSHA in 29 states... Adjusting for size, Packers topped the danger list by a wide margin, with a rate of 14 severe injuries for every 10,000 workers [and an] amputation rate of 9.4 dismemberments per 10,000 workers. "

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-29/america-s-worst-graveyard-shift-is-grinding-up-workers

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Plum said:

But they have. That mask manufacturer that opened up a new plant to make masks in the US during H1N1 got burned when it was over because everyone went back to cheaper Chinese made masks. (See SIP extended thread) I’ve heard the same stories from vent manufacturers. 
 

I look at it as hospitals being allowed to stretch PPE out against manufacturers recommendations. Hospitals are essential. The food supply is essential. If that means meat processors have to adjust how they do business and slow down production or open more plants, that’s what we are going to have to do. They are not going to be able to force workers to work. That could mean they don’t have a job, but there are nurses that have to make that same choice.
Hopefully, the meat processors will come up with a plan that will keep meat moving, save the farmers, and protect the workers. 

That is exactly what I hope.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, TechWife said:

This is a fascinating conversation, but work calls. I'll check in later this afternoon to see how we have solved the world problems. I really think the government entities should crowd-source these problems, people can be amazing at coming up with solutions.

😄 I was out for a couple of hours, procuring food for my family (poultry case totally empty...) and came back, opened this thread and it said 72+ new replies...

[Corraleno]

There is a massive difference between sending National Guard to work in a factory that produces masks, and asking them to do this kind of work:

 

"After hours, my hands would swell up, and the pain never went away," [Gaytan] said. "I saw a lot of injuries from the work speed. Twice I saw saw operators cut off their fingers."

Evaluations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and academic studies found the nation's estimated 526,000 meat and poultry processing workers face hazards including tasks involving repetitive motion and prolonged standing linked to musculoskeletal disorders, exposure to chemicals and pathogens, and traumatic injuries from machines and tools, the GAO said in its report.

[A]fter a new regulation increased the level of reporting required by companies, a look at Tyson Foods (TSN), the nation's biggest poultry processor, found it had reported 34 instances of amputations or hospitalizations in a nine-month period starting Jan. 1, 2015, a figure that excludes 10 states in which Tyson operates but that run their own OSHA programs."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-and-poultry-work-is-dangerous-but-not-all-injuries-counted/

[mumto2]

6 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

 

 

Maintaining the food supply is both necessary and also extremely difficult, in ways we've had the luxury of not-having-to-think-about for a long time.  To focus on the truth of either one is not to negate the truth of the other. 

I think highly enough of our National Guard that they will be able to do such work... and also that many of them will be surprised and troubled to learn up close about the conditions underpinning the cheap food which we've largely taken for granted.

I actually think highly enough of our National Guard to hope that these kinds of emergency details to unexpected workplaces will lay the groundwork for better wages, better work conditions, and better safety nets on the other side of this crisis than we had the political will to effect before it.  Sinclair's Jungle for the CoronApocalytpic Age.    
 

Many even have significant food safety training........you know the military actually does occasionally eat things other than MRE’s.  😉 The military veterinarians are actually in charge of meat for the commissaries etc.  Suspect we are in safe hands if they do take over.

 

[OH_Homeschooler]

54 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

And more to the point, the reason that one cooks protein to a certain temp is because e-coli and other bacteria are also issues.  I have been kinda chuckling at the people worried about picking up covid-19 from the meat.  Wrong focus, people.

 

Yes, I agree. I've never been concerned about the meat spreading the virus.

If anyone needs additional reassurance, a spokesperson from the pork plant I mentioned earlier said on the local news that simply cooking the meat will kill the virus. Sure, he has a vested interest in saying that, but it still makes sense. 

He did go on to address the packaging, which could still be an issue. But as I see it, any packaging from the store has the possibility of having been touched by someone who is positive. So as usual, the recommendation is to wash hands, etc. 

[BlsdMama]

This is actually a shockingly complex question.

The pat logistics answer to your question is this: Capacity changes.

Capacity is impacted by machines, layout, people, conditions, input, etc and each has an impact on output.  Capacity is the maximum output that could potentially be achieved when the process is working at 100%.  So, machine goes down? Capacity decreases.  Fewer people? Plant is still open, capacity decreases.  Will they put out 800 hogs in a day? No.  Do they redistribute personnel and maintain an output of 200/day? Sure.

The complexity is in this though:

My familiarity is only with the hog industry.  My dad is part of a very large farmer owned cooperative.  Once upon a time, you kept your own boars (male studs) and your own sows (breeding females.)  However, it's become more efficient to keep the boars and sows on one major farm, then put the feeder pigs (3 week old little pigs) on a semi and send them out to the grower farms.  The grower farms have inside temperature controlled climates.  Pigs are now bred so lean and so specific that their ability to handle stress is impacted. Their immune systems are lower and their ability to handle stress is impacted so they don't grow as well or get sick more easily.  To decrease exposure, pigs are essentially held in quarantine - one large group comes in, one large group goes out.  My dad used to get a shipment of pigs every 2-3 months.  So he might have one pen of 1 month old pigs, one pen of four month old pigs, and one group headed to be butchered.  But, if one group got sick in there, the entire building couldn't be cleaned, so they'd infect the new group coming in and it would just continue.  So, most farmers have moved to an "all in all out" system.  They get shipments of babies twice a year.  Each group is butchered between 5-6 months, giving a week to rest and a week to clean (give or take) and disinfect the entire facility.  It reduces illness and then reduces medication, thus reducing costs.

But, therein lies the problem.  If your facility is full of 260 pound "fat hogs" you have ZERO space for the new batch of hogs.  These hogs can't just "be put in the barn" out back.  They're carefully cultivated for one thing (butchering) and not fit for stress (weather fluctuations, drafty areas, etc) and would die.  Thus, your new babies have little cost wrapped up in them - it's cheaper to kill them.  Your adult hogs have all the costs wrapped up in them.  It would be stupid to kill your fully finished animals.

Okay - so you've kissed off your next six month group.  Do you then get pigs next month? Or do you not get yours again for six months? Remember, every litter is completely spoken for and carefully timed.  There are no "extra" animals in this system.


More than that?

While butchering is not a fine art, it does require some serious OSHA requirements and training.  There are federal regulations on how you can legally move animals, legally butcher animals. My first "adult" job at 18 was actually at what is now Tyson's in Iowa.  It paid well and I could work third shift while going to school.  It is not a clean job, it is not an easy job, and it is a little more complex with regulations than "handing out food." So, I don't foresee NG coming in and just taking this over.  Not to minimize, but that's like saying, "Hey, we need more CNA's."  While not complex, CNAs do require  some on the job training, a learning curve so you don't hurt yourself, and understanding the need for regulations and rules.  You really want your meat contaminated or not checked? Remember, it's not just employees, but also the FDA in these facilities daily to check meat and make sure the food source isn't contaminated.  


So, logistically, the answer is: If you want to operate at capacity you must replace people.  If you have fewer humans, you can stay open, but your capacity is reduced.

The harder part is: How do you keep capacity? Who can do the work? What if we just accept low capacity? What do the farmers do with their fat hogs? What do they do with the babies? 
The food chain WILL be affected.  Those living in farming areas called this meat shortage a month ago and it WILL have impact.

Meat freezes.  I froze three freezers worth.  Just sayin'.  

[TechWife]

1 hour ago, happysmileylady said:

Well, the virus needs living tissue to reproduce in right?  So in terms of food production, I don't think a worker who is sick can later infect the person who consumes the chicken leg later....the virus can't stay alive long enough to get there.  It's not like a bacteria that consumes the meat to survive and therefore still alive and growing when the end product is used. 

 

 

So this information is what needs to be widely distributed, because it has not been up to this point. I didn't know this and I keep up with the news on several different outlets. I'm not a biology person, so I don't get the details unless and until someone spells it out to me in plain language, like you just did. If the federal government is interfering with the public health decisions that are made on a local and state level, then they need to educate the general public about how the food supply is still safe. They need to start doing that now and keep doing it.

[BlsdMama]

2 hours ago, Frances said:

I would have to disagree on the proactive part. The governor of IA should have been on top of this much earlier and requesting federal assistance. It’s devastating to watch what is going on in my small hometown.

Frances, this is a very simple answer to a very complex problem.   Name specifics please.  We've discussed pretty heavily in this forum that Iowa's plan was blessed by Fauci and moreover, while not called a Shelter-in-Place was actually as stringent as some states SIP, they just chose to stand up and say, "SIP! SIP!" whereas Kim Reynolds emphasized personal responsibility.

Look, did you notice Polk County (Des Moines) lagged behind Linn (Cedar Rapids) for a while?  Linn is definitely less populated.  So why was that? Easy.  Des Moines is largely financial corporations - banking, insurance, etc.  Linn is more agriculture driven - ethanol, corn processing, cereal makers, government companies like Collins.  More "essential" businesses that would have operated, regardless of a shelter in place order.

And those pork processing plants? Essential.  They were NEVER going to be shut down with a shelter in place.  Look what's going on now.  They shut down and they were ordered back up.  I assume you're from Black Hawk County (Waterloo area) which is getting smacked right now with positives.  Iowa is running at a high test.  We've tested 1 in 76 Iowans.  The death toll is 148.  With a diagnosed 6,843 that's a rate of 2.162% - and that's considering the deaths have largely been in nursing homes which got hit early here.  Our hospitals are running well under capacity.  Even as a high risk person, I'm feeling incredible relief with the numbers coming in right now and I NEVER thought I'd feel that.  We have currently approximately 500-600 vents available, we have available beds, and we have PPE.  What else did you want her to do? I'm a registered independent so this one isn't political, but I heavily questioned the  "No SIP" and decided her choices were optimal.  This is discussed on another thread.

 

2 hours ago, TechWife said:

There is probably a set of people who need meat in their diets and while there are some non-meat options for protein, meat certainly is part of that need. For the general population, though, restricting meat intake would not cause starvation unless the produce & dairy food distribution lines aren't corrected. The people who raise livestock would run into issues and may need help re-configuring their spaces and with feed costs.

Reconfiguring their spaces?
Ever been in a hog unit?  It's an open building.  In order to become more effective, families that are still farming (vs corporate ag) have become shockingly efficient.  The big red barn of yesteryear is no more.  These are highly specialized buildings with fans, optimal air circulation, temperature controlled units.  They run at capacity because capacity pays the bills.  There is no reconfiguring.
As to feed bills, a large majority of animal ag owners also own/grow crops.  For example, my Dad grows, sells, and stores corn.  The cheapest feed is the feed you grow yourself.  He needs corn and soy prices to rise.  They are in the basement.  But, when gas/oil takes a hit, it makes ethanol look expensive.  Ethanol is gutted.  Ethanol accounts for what? 40% of the corn market? (That's just a guess.) So, no, hogs are dirt cheap to feed currently.  

The problem is animals are produced at demand to be killed on a schedule.  Disrupt the chain and you've disrupted the market. 

2 hours ago, Frances said:

It’s not as though the governor of IA did not know the working conditions in these plants before this and how difficult it would be to stop the spread if even one worker was sick. They should have stepped in much earlier to provide whatever assistance was needed to make them safe for the workers. Now many are sick and have spread it throughout their small communities.

And what?

And shut them down?  And what about the farmers? The impact there? What about the animals? 

Most importantly, is it better 2% die of virus or people quite literally starve?  Every industry is affected here.  Meat producers? Vegetable producers? Grain producers? Do they all just shut down to minimize impact? This is how essential workers were defined.  It is not as simple as, "Shut down everything. Stop the virus."

The virus is here.  It's here to stay.  There will be no "Don't get it." You WILL get it.  This season, next season, beyond that...

The goal was to flatten the curve so that hospitals could cope with the influx and not be driven beyond their capacity because healthcare workers were acquiring the novel virus at the same time as the population.  It had to be spread over time, rather than the massive influx that would have occurred.  But I'd rather not starve if the hospitals aren't overwhelmed.  
 

 

1 hour ago, happysmileylady said:

Clearly, your opinion of the National Guard is not very high.  

And I am not sure that anything in the rest of this post has anything to do with the necessity of maintaining this aspect of the food supply chain during this crisis.  

While I don't disagree with you, also realize your own opinion of food processors is so low that you are effectively saying, "Pshaw, anyone could do that with no teaching, no training, at the turn of a dime." It's not exactly that easy either.  Do I think soldiers can stomach a little blood and guts? Sure I do or I sure as hell better hope so.  But, will there be accidents to people because they're trying to peak capacity with fewer workers? Yes.  Will there be more accidents because the workers are untrained? Absolutely.  Will there be as many people to train because people are out? Nope.  And not everyone can teach what they do either.  So, it isn't easy to say, "Geez, they could step in, it's just...." It is more challenging than handing out sandwiches to school kids.

[TechWife]

37 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

We must have food to address food security. The critical thing was getting the food first from production to grocery stores which was broken in my estimation or starting to break around 2 months ago. That has been addressed now. The cooking temperature thing has to come from the FDA, not the government at this point is my understanding. It has been already addressed here.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during-emergencies/food-safety-and-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19

Preparation 

https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-safety-your-kitchen

The FDA is part of the government.

My point is that they need to communicate with everyone, not just on their website.

[Frances]

23 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

Frances, this is a very simple answer to a very complex problem.   Name specifics please.  We've discussed pretty heavily in this forum that Iowa's plan was blessed by Fauci and moreover, while not called a Shelter-in-Place was actually as stringent as some states SIP, they just chose to stand up and say, "SIP! SIP!" whereas Kim Reynolds emphasized personal responsibility.

Look, did you notice Polk County (Des Moines) lagged behind Linn (Cedar Rapids) for a while?  Linn is definitely less populated.  So why was that? Easy.  Des Moines is largely financial corporations - banking, insurance, etc.  Linn is more agriculture driven - ethanol, corn processing, cereal makers, government companies like Collins.  More "essential" businesses that would have operated, regardless of a shelter in place order.

And those pork processing plants? Essential.  They were NEVER going to be shut down with a shelter in place.  Look what's going on now.  They shut down and they were ordered back up.  I assume you're from Black Hawk County (Waterloo area) which is getting smacked right now with positives.  Iowa is running at a high test.  We've tested 1 in 76 Iowans.  The death toll is 148.  With a diagnosed 6,843 that's a rate of 2.162% - and that's considering the deaths have largely been in nursing homes which got hit early here.  Our hospitals are running well under capacity.  Even as a high risk person, I'm feeling incredible relief with the numbers coming in right now and I NEVER thought I'd feel that.  We have currently approximately 500-600 vents available, we have available beds, and we have PPE.  What else did you want her to do? I'm a registered independent so this one isn't political, but I heavily questioned the  "No SIP" and decided her choices were optimal.  This is discussed on another thread.

 

Reconfiguring their spaces?
Ever been in a hog unit?  It's an open building.  In order to become more effective, families that are still farming (vs corporate ag) have become shockingly efficient.  The big red barn of yesteryear is no more.  These are highly specialized buildings with fans, optimal air circulation, temperature controlled units.  They run at capacity because capacity pays the bills.  There is no reconfiguring.
As to feed bills, a large majority of animal ag owners also own/grow crops.  For example, my Dad grows, sells, and stores corn.  The cheapest feed is the feed you grow yourself.  He needs corn and soy prices to rise.  They are in the basement.  But, when gas/oil takes a hit, it makes ethanol look expensive.  Ethanol is gutted.  Ethanol accounts for what? 40% of the corn market? (That's just a guess.) So, no, hogs are dirt cheap to feed currently.  

The problem is animals are produced at demand to be killed on a schedule.  Disrupt the chain and you've disrupted the market. 

And what?

And shut them down?  And what about the farmers? The impact there? What about the animals? 

Most importantly, is it better 2% die of virus or people quite literally starve?  Every industry is affected here.  Meat producers? Vegetable producers? Grain producers? Do they all just shut down to minimize impact? This is how essential workers were defined.  It is not as simple as, "Shut down everything. Stop the virus."

The virus is here.  It's here to stay.  There will be no "Don't get it." You WILL get it.  This season, next season, beyond that...

The goal was to flatten the curve so that hospitals could cope with the influx and not be driven beyond their capacity because healthcare workers were acquiring the novel virus at the same time as the population.  It had to be spread over time, rather than the massive influx that would have occurred.  But I'd rather not starve if the hospitals aren't overwhelmed.  
 

 

While I don't disagree with you, also realize your own opinion of food processors is so low that you are effectively saying, "Pshaw, anyone could do that with no teaching, no training, at the turn of a dime." It's not exactly that easy either.  Do I think soldiers can stomach a little blood and guts? Sure I do or I sure as hell better hope so.  But, will there be accidents to people because they're trying to peak capacity with fewer workers? Yes.  Will there be more accidents because the workers are untrained? Absolutely.  Will there be as many people to train because people are out? Nope.  And not everyone can teach what they do either.  So, it isn't easy to say, "Geez, they could step in, it's just...." It is more challenging than handing out sandwiches to school kids.

No, I don’t think they should have shut down if they could be reconfigured to be safe. My point was that the governor of IA should have realized sooner the potential for what happened in these plants to happen and asked for federal help to make it safer for the workers before the virus swept through them and the surrounding communities. I’m glad it’s happening now. It should have happened much sooner. Weeks ago I was talking about this with family and friends there.

[Carrie12345]

4 hours ago, MEmama said:

Um, no. Have you been to South Dakota and the other very underpopulated states where this kind of work often gets done?  The “who” is a very real concern. And anyway it’s not like people are just replaceable?
As for immigration, smh. 

Also, I’d encourage anyone who is concerned about factory farm/slaughterhouses to go vegetarian. Lol. Factory meat isn’t vital in the least. 

I’ve got to be honest, after years of research, documentaries, books, etc., knowing full well how disgusting our meat industry is, there’s still only 1 pescatarian in my house. I have no idea what’s wrong with us!!! I love me a burger. 🤷‍♀️  But we are definitely downshifting our consumption and moving toward small local farms using small local processors. Not only out of concern for the system slowing down, but for what it may take to keep it running.

[prairiewindmomma]

I think that, unfortunately for my grocery budget, part of the solution is also acknowledging that meat prices have been kept low through the somewhat sketchy treatment of processors both with the farmers (contracts are written so that the risk is entirely on the farmers) and with their employees (plants haven't been expanded or modified to improve safety, injury payouts are low).

I think that the fact that things are falling apart to the degree that they are also points to the monopoly that four processors have on the market (80% of the market goes through them).  Some of the consolidation that has happened in the last twenty years really should have been stopped.  Farmers became hyper-efficient and large volume to stay in the game.....but when they are tied so tightly to the system without a lot of diversification, when downturns happen it really, really hurts.  I actually think it's somewhat unhealthy that we are so corn dependent.  About 40% of the crop goes to ethanol, and about 40% to livestock feed. When you break down the calories of how much of that feed goes into feeding humans, it's really quite low.  Corn requires a ton of fertilizer, and it's that fertilizer washing into our waterways that has caused a lot of problems. Corn is always boom or bust---highly weather dependent---and heavily subsidized. (I haven't looked at the latest payouts but usually in the $20-30bn range.) Between the water, soil, and space it consumes....it's remarkably inefficient for feeding people. 

Big business got us into this mess, but it isn't going to get us out.  Really, this crisis is just highlighting some of the systemic illnesses we have in our system--access to medical care, access to safe working environments, and decision making geared towards profits for shareholders where a lot of wealth transfers into the hands of a few, and not to the working people.

[Corraleno]

39 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

 

*Background* I am an immigrant, I do not know a lot of things of the US Military especially history. This is my personal experience.

Two of the most common groups you meet in IT are immigrants and people discharged from the US Military who have made IT as a second career. These are the biggest segment of Americans I have met, worked with and become friends with. When we get talking and ask each other personal questions about why I chose to immigrate or why they joined the military, I was shocked because for most of them and I , we both had the same answer "For a better life". Most of them were from rural America, they told me how they felt they had no options other than to leave,  they told me about the education options of the G I Bill. These are people who have talked about war, knew about war, served on battle fields and were discharged. They were not just desk workers who were in the military, but people who saw active combat. They know the risks and yet signed up. You tell me these people will not show up as a last resort ? I disagree. This is nothing they have not seen before in a war situation or anticipate. 

Else open up the border and offer up a temporary visa and see how many will rush to do the job. The same as the doctors, nurses, grocery store workers, the amazon workers, instacart all those who still put their lives at risk. Many people do not have a choice or options for money. They will do it to feed their families. So don't tell me "no American will do it". If I need to work in a grocery store to put food on the table I will. I am privileged so I have it delivered. So are all of us who can do that.

 

 

The National Guard is not the US Army. They train one weekend per month and two weeks per summer. Even in the active Army, the majority of soldiers are not deployed in combat zones, and the majority of those that are in combat zones do not see actual combat. The idea that National Guard are all battle-hardened vets who've seen death and destruction all around them is just not true. 

As for the 2nd paragraph, there is really no comparison between stocking grocery shelves or doing instacart shopping and working in a slaughterhouse or processing plant. How many instacart shoppers have lost fingers while grabbing a box of Cheerios? How many grocery store clerks stand ankle-deep in blood in 100-degree conditions while racing against the clock to get equipment cleaned before the machines start up again automatically and rip an arm off?

The idea that it's OK to force people into these jobs in order to avoid starvation — with the threat of severe illness or death from coronavirus on top of the already terrible, dangerous conditions —  because "dammit we want our porkchops and hamburgers!" is not something I can comprehend. 

[mathnerd]

6 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

 

The National Guard is not the US Army. They train one weekend per month and two weeks per summer. Even in the active Army, the majority of soldiers are not deployed in combat zones, and the majority of those that are in combat zones do not see actual combat. The idea that National Guard are all battle-hardened vets who've seen death and destruction all around them is just not true. 

As for the 2nd paragraph, there is really no comparison between stocking grocery shelves or doing instacart shopping and working in a slaughterhouse or processing plant. How many instacart shoppers have lost fingers while grabbing a box of Cheerios? How many grocery store clerks stand ankle-deep in blood in 100-degree conditions while racing against the clock to get equipment cleaned before the machines start up again automatically and rip an arm off?

The idea that it's OK to force people into these jobs in order to avoid starvation — with the threat of severe illness or death from coronavirus on top of the already terrible, dangerous conditions —  because "dammit we want our porkchops and hamburgers!" is not something I can comprehend. 

I am getting worried that more and more people keep peddling the National Guard to do jobs that they are not trained to do. I agree that they can distribute food and help with testing. But, running meat processing plants, a lot of which are owned by China and Hong Kong based investment companies and had bad working conditions, is beyond their abilities, I think.

[prairiewindmomma]

I think the other thing that should be discussed in this conversation, but hasn't been, is how the big beef packers in the past would shut down factories to drive down prices for farmers....not the best article on this, but on a quick google: https://thecounter.org/meatpacker-price-fixing-class-action-lawsuit-cattlemen-tyson-jbs-cargill-national-beef/  I think farmers who are selling to processors (which is like, almost everybody) are right to be worried about what this will do to pricing for them. 

Right now there is a huge gap between futures and retails pricing.....a graph is in this link: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-agriculture/2020/04/01/rising-pressure-to-target-beef-price-fixing-786564  Reuters is calling it $600/head of cattle.... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-meatpacking/u-s-senators-scrutinize-meat-packers-big-profits-during-pandemic-idUSKBN21H38M

 

[Corraleno]

17 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I think that, unfortunately for my grocery budget, part of the solution is also acknowledging that meat prices have been kept low through the somewhat sketchy treatment of processors both with the farmers (contracts are written so that the risk is entirely on the farmers) and with their employees (plants haven't been expanded or modified to improve safety, injury payouts are low).

I think that the fact that things are falling apart to the degree that they are also points to the monopoly that four processors have on the market (80% of the market goes through them).  Some of the consolidation that has happened in the last twenty years really should have been stopped.  Farmers became hyper-efficient and large volume to stay in the game.....but when they are tied so tightly to the system without a lot of diversification, when downturns happen it really, really hurts.  I actually think it's somewhat unhealthy that we are so corn dependent.  About 40% of the crop goes to ethanol, and about 40% to livestock feed. When you break down the calories of how much of that feed goes into feeding humans, it's really quite low.  Corn requires a ton of fertilizer, and it's that fertilizer washing into our waterways that has caused a lot of problems. Corn is always boom or bust---highly weather dependent---and heavily subsidized. (I haven't looked at the latest payouts but usually in the $20-30bn range.) Between the water, soil, and space it consumes....it's remarkably inefficient for feeding people. 

Big business got us into this mess, but it isn't going to get us out.  Really, this crisis is just highlighting some of the systemic illnesses we have in our system--access to medical care, access to safe working environments, and decision making geared towards profits for shareholders where a lot of wealth transfers into the hands of a few, and not to the working people.

THIS.

A very small number of international conglomerates control our food supply, and they are maximizing profits at the expense of worker safety, consumer health, and national security. Monsanto's relentless campaign to bankrupt any farmer who refuses to become dependent on their seed and wants to save their own seed for planting is truly evil. Ditto the way Tyson and Perdue have been able to control poultry farmers by sucking them into massive debt and then bankrupting them if they don't continue to produce more and more under worse and worse conditions. We, the taxpayers, subsidize the cheap corn that goes into a HUGE percentage of the food we eat (in the form of HFCS, modified food starch, xanthin gum, emulsifiers, texturizers, etc.) and feeds animals that should be eating a grass-based natural diet, totally disrupting the balance of omega 3 & 6 essential acids. We have one of the unhealthiest populations in the developed world, and we are subsidizing the international corporations that are making us sick.

 

[prairiewindmomma]

I forgot to add.....and this matters because we need farmers to survive this.  

Like, the focus of the attention has been on supply getting through processors, but the really big picture (when we are talking about food security), is that we still need animals being raised.

[prairiewindmomma]

2 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

THIS.

A very small number of international conglomerates control our food supply, and they are maximizing profits at the expense of worker safety, consumer health, and national security. Monsanto's relentless campaign to bankrupt any farmer who refuses to become dependent on their seed and wants to save their own seed for planting is truly evil. Ditto the way Tyson and Perdue have been able to control poultry farmers by sucking them into massive debt and then bankrupting them if they don't continue to produce more and more under worse and worse conditions. We, the taxpayers, subsidize the cheap corn that goes into a HUGE percentage of the food we eat (in the form of HFCS, modified food starch, xanthin gum, emulsifiers, texturizers, etc.) and feeds animals that should be eating a grass-based natural diet, totally disrupting the balance of omega 3 & 6 essential acids. We have one of the unhealthiest populations in the developed world, and we are subsidizing the international corporations that are making us sick.

 

Yes. Cattle are happier and healthier and provide more nutrition when they are grass fed (not feed lot fed). Maintaining a diverse farmland is also healthier for the soil itself. 

[Corraleno]

6 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

Seriously ?? This is not about "pork chops and hamburgers". For the 100th time, THIS IS ABOUT FOOD SUPPLY. Yes, I am putting it in caps and bolded because I am internet shouting. I cannot stress this enough

As for starvation,  do you know what starvation really is and how desperate people can get ? Do you know what a really desperate person given the choice of COVID or starvation will do ? 

So this is not about hogs or pigs or meat or people going vegetarian. This is about people starving. Even now the school lunches are a lifeline to people, food banks have unemployed stretched in lines. This is with not so great disruption. If you have further food system disruption, security will collapse. This will happen.

Don't tell this will never happen in America. To avoid this happening in America, this has to be done. As someone who has come from a country with food riots, stampedes and having people die of starvation, food supply is very, very important. So don't tell me this is about "dammit hamburgers or porkchops". It food breaks, society breaks, law and order breaks.

Every single war in history has been won by starving the enemy. Food supply is that important. We are at war, even though we don't think we are. But if we close down the economy in a presidential election year, it shows how serious this is. So yeah, this is needed. They will train the NG, the army someone to do this. It will not be pretty, but it will be done. 

 

I actually understand quite a bit about the issues underlying food supply problems in the US. Those issues are a big part of the reason I am a vegetarian, and why I go to farmer's markets and buy pastured eggs and local grass-fed milk in glass bottles. The fact that I disagree with the idea that the solution to these issues is to force desperate people, or the National Guard, to risk their lives working in dangerous conditions during a freaking pandemic, doesn't mean I'm too stupid to understand the issues unless you SHOUT at me.

Do you really think there will be widespread starvation in the US — as in large numbers of people dying from lack of food — unless meat packing plants are all forced to reopen while a deadly disease runs rampant through them? I don't know why the conditions in 3rd world countries would be particularly relevant to a temporary, short-term shut down of some meat-processing plants in the US. People in Nigeria would rather risk their lives in a meat-packing plant than die of starvation? Um, ok. This isn't Nigeria, Americans are not going to STARVE to death because they have to cut back on meat for a while. And the idea that we should just force the most desperately poor, or the National Guard, to go do that work in the middle of a pandemic, so we don't have cut back on meat, is not something I support.

[mathnerd]

38 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

I don't think it's beyond their abilities.  It would require training of course....but it's not like they are untrainable or something.  

Having said that, like I said before, I think it's highly unlikely.  

When it came to shortage of medical personnel to implement widespread testing, the answer was, "Call the National Guards". When we needed Wuhan style hospitals built out of Convention centers overnight, the answer was "Call the National Guards". When it came to food distribution if our supply chain were to collapse, the answer was "Call the National Guards" to drop food packages to citizens. When it came to our electricity, water supply and sanitation systems shutting down due to infected employees, the answer was "Call the National Guards". When there was a ventilator shortage in NYC, the answer was "Call the National Guards" to go borrow ventilators from the states which had managed to scrounge enough ventilators by retrofitting mothballed ventilators. I can go on and on. I am just an armchair analyst of the Covid19 plague. But, it seems like we are asking the National Guards to magically be trained to take over the entire country and rescue us from every crisis while all the time there is increasing noise about people wanting to break SIP and create more disease spread. Calling on the National Guards to solve every problem in every sector and requiring them to train for butchering pigs seems a strange way to run a country.

This is America, there is plenty of FOOD to go around. If Americans cannot have bacon and pork chops, they can eat other things until the sector has recovered from the pandemic instead of training someone to go work in conditions that are not optimal (to put it politely). Said as a person who sees tonnes of produce still growing in California's farmlands and as a vegetarian.

Edited April 29, 2020 by mathnerd

[TracyP]

2 hours ago, BlsdMama said:

Reconfiguring their spaces?
Ever been in a hog unit?  It's an open building.  
 

BlsdMama, I think everyone might be barking up the wrong tree here. I worked at a turkey processing plant once upon a time. It actually does not seem like a particularly high risk situation for spreading covid. However, the majority of employees live in the same apartment complexes. They often live with extended family and friends - all of whom work at the same place. I think this is far more likely to be the cause of the spread. But maybe I'm wrong. Thoughts?

[BlsdMama]

4 hours ago, Selkie said:

Doesn't mean she has a low opinion of the National Guard. Have you ever seen what goes on in slaughterhouses? It is horrific.

I’ll step in and say it has drastically improved. Hogs are now dropped and gassed. A farmer cannot even prod an animal off a truck these days. Once they found out stress hurts meat, things improved. Still a lot more room for improvement but it’s gotten better. Bloody, sure, but most folks can readily adjust that agriculture animals are harvested. 

2 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

Thank you for all of this explaination.

In terms of National Guard just coming in and taking over....I don't really see that either.  I think the situation would certainly have to be very different.  I just think that if it was warranted, certainly they are capable of being trained to do such a job and doing so without passing out and puking left and right.  (though interesting you chose "CNAs"  Certainly the military was very able to provide medical personnel very quickly when needed.  Though obviously, there are likely more people in the military who are medically trained than there are people trained to butcher hogs or chickens.)

Food chain affected?  Sure.  Even with the order, I am SURE there will be differing effects in different areas.  But I think an order like this is necessary to mitigate such effects by trying to help support one link in the chain (the processors.)

(in terms of meat, yeah we have 2 freezers worth....though most came from an individual farm, not the factory situation you explained.  I am grateful for that privilege.)

Individual farms and factory farms aren’t far apart. My dad is an individual small time farmer as a part of a cooperative. I think you’re talking about forward thinking sustainable farmers who are emphasizing quality of life. I understand why farmers, like my Dad, have moved in the direction they do. The animals are well taken care of, but I appreciate people who really aim for a more natural way to raise their animals. Some day we can talk about the perspective of the farmer who has transitioned to mainstream farming methods because I think there’s great value in understanding where they’re coming from and what compels them. 

2 hours ago, Frances said:

No, I don’t think they should have shut down if they could be reconfigured to be safe. My point was that the governor of IA should have realized sooner the potential for what happened in these plants to happen and asked for federal help to make it safer for the workers before the virus swept through them and the surrounding communities. I’m glad it’s happening now. It should have happened much sooner. Weeks ago I was talking about this with family and friends there.

I don’t see it as possible.  As soon as they shut down Tyson’s it was remanded they open up. No win. 

40 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I think the other thing that should be discussed in this conversation, but hasn't been, is how the big beef packers in the past would shut down factories to drive down prices for farmers....not the best article on this, but on a quick google: https://thecounter.org/meatpacker-price-fixing-class-action-lawsuit-cattlemen-tyson-jbs-cargill-national-beef/  I think farmers who are selling to processors (which is like, almost everybody) are right to be worried about what this will do to pricing for them. 

Right now there is a huge gap between futures and retails pricing.....a graph is in this link: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-agriculture/2020/04/01/rising-pressure-to-target-beef-price-fixing-786564  Reuters is calling it $600/head of cattle.... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-meatpacking/u-s-senators-scrutinize-meat-packers-big-profits-during-pandemic-idUSKBN21H38M

 

I know precious little about cows because while my brother and my extended family raises cattle, it’s not a very high volume. But the truth is, at least around here, you see feed lot cattle but they have the potential for greater space, I.e., the farmer has more land so reconfiguring is an option. Plus, the tight turn around and confinement farming isn’t as big of a problem with cattle. A sow is pregnant for fifteen weeks but a cow much longer. The market punishes farmers for less or greater than ideal weights. They have a smaller window to butcher in and the added pressure of needing the facilities for the next batch.  All this to say I don’t understand the pressure on the cattle industry that is similar to pork or chicken so this confuses and surprises me but I’d like to understand. 

[frogger]

3 hours ago, BlsdMama said:

.    
The harder part is: How do you keep capacity? Who can do the work? What if we just accept low capacity? What do the farmers do with their fat hogs? What do they do with the babies? 
The food chain WILL be affected.  Those living in farming areas called this meat shortage a month ago and it WILL have impact.

Meat freezes.  I froze three freezers worth.  Just sayin'.  

 

I am just curious. If someone went to your Father's farm and said they wanted a pig could he euthanize and load it into their truck to butcher at home? Because that is something I would do, if I lived closer. That is what I do with fish. 

[Ausmumof3]

8 hours ago, Plum said:

It is my understanding that this move opened up the ability to give money to help them reconfigure plants to be safer in this new reality we have, to open additional plants for better spacing of processors, to change regulations or be more flexible with them, making them essential allows them to even send in the national guard for support and logistics. It is necessary and vital to our food supply and now they have some tools to use to get it work without as much harm to the employees. It won’t be immediate but it will ensure the food supply chain isn’t broken. 

That makes sense.  The whose thing was really puzzling me.

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, The Accidental Coach said:

From my understanding, it is a strategic move to keep the supply chain working. We have a pork processing plant in our area that has seen an increase in positive COVID-19 cases which is forcing the plant to shut down. Local experts are predicting multiple pork farmers will go bankrupt since there is nowhere to take the pigs for processing, there will be a pork shortage (coming soon), and the price of pork will increase (double or triple); this will last for months. Workers (most of whom are recent immigrants and live in multigenerational housing) are going to be unemployed and will not have adequate income or ways to shelter-in-place safely. They are expecting a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in our county and the neighboring county. They are also expecting a greater demand on socio-economic resources as hundreds of individuals request assistance.  The town where the plant is located is already seeing economic impacts; double from what they had before due to the college closing for the semester and the general economic impact from the stay-at-home order.

Anecdote: A local pork farmer had 4000 pigs that were raised with the intention of having them butchered and processed in April. Due to the reduction in hours of the pork processing plant (and now the shutdown), he has nowhere to take his pigs. Some have suggested he just continue to feed them until the plants are up and running. Evidently his breed of pig was bred to grow quickly and produce the biggest pig possible in the shortest amount of time. The pigs are at butchering weight (something like 300 pounds). The farmer can no longer afford to feed 4000 300+# pigs.; pigs he has already fed weeks longer than he anticipated. The pigs are experiencing problems with their health because many of them are overweight and are in pig confinement with other now-overweight pigs; confinements that were only meant to be temporary holds not permanent residences. As a result, the farmer offered his pigs to anyone who could take one. He managed to get rid of around 1000 animals. The other 3000 he shot over the weekend. He has to wait a while until the sows are able to be bred again and the local plants are up and running and accepting pigs for processing.

This is not an isolated  case. Multiple farmers in our area are doing the same thing. Not only with pigs but with chickens, as well.

Same deal with meat chickens 

they are bred to grow so fast that they eventually can’t walk if they aren’t slaughtered 

same thing happened in China and then because the farmers with full grown chooks couldn’t get them slaughtered so the hatcheries got stuck with day old chickens and nowhere to send them so they stopped hatching.  It takes 12-16 weeks minimum to grow out the meat chooks so we haven’t even seen the global  food supply impacts from that yet.  
 

Probably an argument against overly specialty breeding and factory farming but that’s another story 

[Selkie]

21 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

I’ll step in and say it has drastically improved. Hogs are now dropped and gassed. A farmer cannot even prod an animal off a truck these days. Once they found out stress hurts meat, things improved. Still a lot more room for improvement but it’s gotten better. Bloody, sure, but most folks can readily adjust that agriculture animals are harvested. 

I don't doubt this is true in some places, but I have seen recent videos of extreme and unnecessary cruelty to animals by workers at US slaughterhouses.

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

This is the first decision that seems pro-active rather than re-active to me after this mess descended. Even though this is a hard decision, it must be done. You cannot be killing 2 million chickens and dumping milk and breaking eggs and plowing fields because the ways to get it from production to market are broken and and still say we have enough food. What is the point of having "enough food" if we are throwing it away at the source and empty shelves at the market ? Can you imagine the run if 80% of the meat supply is gone. The cutesy reply of let us all go vegetarian does not work here for what happens at the meat plants will be happening in the fields. All rotting. 

This is the first step I think in addressing the food supply. This is absolutely needed. It had to come under the civil defense act under my understanding of it as "emergency food, clothing...". Food is vital. Many countries have addressed their food supply somewhat as in ban exports. This includes things like rice in Asia. Exports are a big part their economy so to do that tells how serious they are. Starvation is a real possibility all over the world because of lack of food. In America it could become a possibility if we keep throwing away food recklessly. So this is the best decision., actually the only decision. Guidelines will be established, money will be spent to reconfigure the way I understand it to do it safely. Not everyone can grow a garden, have chickens or knows how to do it. So, I will roast the man for certain comments, but this is the first pro-active thing I am really pleased with. 

It also doesn’t work immediately.  The grains fed to those animals have already been fed.  You need to go back in time 6 months for that to work.  The animal exist and is either butchered correctly or euthanised 

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, GGardner said:

 

Do you know how to butcher a pig?  Safely?  I don't.

Yep.  Y’all better be checking your pork chops for bone chips for a while! 

[Corraleno]

42 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

What you have is a privilege, you are not stupid to understand the issues, you come across as very privileged based on your solution.

In America, you have produce rotting in the field, trees sitting with fruit still there for birds to pick on a good day. In the developing world, food is picked clean. If you come from a country of plenty, you will not recognize the signs of something that is breaking because produce rotting is usual. That is why perhaps food rotting in Florida or milk being dumped did not send people in a panic like it did to me. 

 If the food supply is disrupted with 80% of the meat gone, what do you think will happen to the fields ? Or do you grow your own vegetables ? I don't. I am a starter COVID panic gardener with a container garden, a terrible zero knowledge of gardening, lawn and hardscape yard. this is my American dream house. I have depended on grocery stores to feed my family. I have hoarded pulses, rice and spices because my Indian grocery store specifically called me. I did not know about food supply before April 10th. Now I know a lot more. 

That's an interesting interpretation... the person who goes without meat, aims to minimize food waste as much as possible, and buys/eats local as much as possible, is considered the "privileged" one, not those insisting that poor, desperate, and mostly brown people, many undocumented and with no protection, should risk their lives so people don't have to temporarily cut back on meat or change their diets for a few months.

Americans waste more food than any other country on earth — we throw out more than a third of the food we produce. If this pandemic makes a lot more Americans aware of just how much their food depends on a handful of international conglomerates and not local farmers, maybe they'll waste less food, eat less meat, and be healthier and safer in the long run.

 

From https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/

"The United States is the global leader in food waste, with Americans discarding nearly 40 million tons of food every year. That’s 80 billion pounds of food and equates to more than $161 billion, approximately 219 pounds of waste per person and 30-40 percent of the US food supply. Most of this food is sent to landfills; food is the single largest component taking up space inside US landfills. In fact, it makes up 22 percent of municipal solid waste (MSW).

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Americans waste more than $161 billion each year on food, with dairy products being the food item we toss out the most. The average American family of four throws out $1,600 a year in produce."

 

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

6 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

Ok, so going through it..

This part here makes it sound like it does have something to do with state/local authorities forcing closures, and needing to declare the plants as part of essential services so that the state and local governments can't continue to force closures.

And this part sounds like it's specifically about making sure the resources are there to put both safety measures and labor in place

 

In general though, it's really pretty vague.  

And I didn't see anything that I thought was about removing liability from the plants (in terms of sick workers being able to sue the company) but it's possible I am misunderstanding some parts.  

In terms of whether states get the right to shut down the factories who deals with the fallout if they have a massive outbreak?  Are the states going to be forced to allow plants to stay open and then have to fix the overwhelmed Hospitals or will federal fix the hospitals if there’s an issue? 
not trying to be political here I genuinely don’t know which things in US fall under state versus federal.  I know here in Aus there’s tension with vic because they are keeping schools closed when federal is trying to force them to open.

[Corraleno]

20 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Same deal with meat chickens 

they are bred to grow so fast that they eventually can’t walk if they aren’t slaughtered 

same thing happened in China and then because the farmers with full grown chooks couldn’t get them slaughtered so the hatcheries got stuck with day old chickens and nowhere to send them so they stopped hatching.  It takes 12-16 weeks minimum to grow out the meat chooks so we haven’t even seen the global  food supply impacts from that yet.  
 

Probably an argument against overly specialty breeding and factory farming but that’s another story 

In the Tyson/Perdue factory sheds, they slaughter them at 6 weeks. They die of heart failure if they go much longer than that. 

[Ausmumof3]

6 hours ago, TechWife said:

There is probably a set of people who need meat in their diets and while there are some non-meat options for protein, meat certainly is part of that need. For the general population, though, restricting meat intake would not cause starvation unless the produce & dairy food distribution lines aren't corrected. The people who raise livestock would run into issues and may need help re-configuring their spaces and with feed costs.

I don’t think it will cause starvation in the US but if the animals are euthanised and everyone in the US switches to grain your imports will reduce which will contribute to global hunger problems.

[Ausmumof3]

3 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

In the Tyson/Perdue factory sheds, they slaughter them at 6 weeks. They die of heart failure if they go much longer than that. 

Really?  My chickens at six weeks have literally nothing edible at that age.  They are really scrawny skin and bone.  My sis did meat chooks and they grow and fill out faster but not that fast.  They just be feeding them some serious crap to make them grow that fast.

[Corraleno]

4 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Oh, I would totally LOVE a whole thread on food waste.  Food waste is one of the things I hate the most, but I have some disagreement with some of the points of your article.  

None of which is relevant to ordering meat processors to stay open as a part of an essential supply chain.  

The comments about food waste were in response to Dreamergal's claims that we're all going to starve because food is "rotting in the fields." Even if 30% of the produce in America was left rotting in the fields, Americans would still have enough to eat. The 30-40% that now ends up in a landfill would just be plowed under instead.

[Ausmumof3]

6 hours ago, marbel said:

In the short term, what are farmers going to do with those animals?  The WSJ had an article about this today; this blew my mind:  "around 100,000 pigs due to be sent to slaughter each day this week will have to be held back on farms."  It goes on to say that likely some will be euthanized.  Someone above said a farmer shot pigs he couldn't feed or sell.  

Farming has always been risky but that takes it to a whole new level in my mind. 

So, maybe not catastrophic for many/most consumers, but it represents a huge catastrophe for these farmers. 

Also, as has been said, many people do depend on meat. One of my kids very much seems to need meat for general well-being.  Could they adjust?  Maybe, probably. (I mean my  kids, not the general population.)

On top of this up till twelve months or so ago when the African swine fever hit pork prices were so low that farmers were desperate and some went out of business already.  Then the swine fever went through China and demand soared.  We have friends that pig farm and feed bills can be huge.  They were even feeding the pigs seconds from a chocolate factory to try to get by.  But She said you have to be somewhat careful because if you don’t get feed right the pigs just run to fat so instead of bacon you get strips of fat with no muscles (meat).

[fairfarmhand]

6 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Really?  My chickens at six weeks have literally nothing edible at that age.  They are really scrawny skin and bone.  My sis did meat chooks and they grow and fill out faster but not that fast.  They just be feeding them some serious crap to make them grow that fast.

I did some Cornish crosses that were ready at 8 weeks. Nastiest chickens I’ve ever raised. Yuck.

[Ausmumof3]

Just now, fairfarmhand said:

I did some Cornish crosses that were ready at 8 weeks. Nastiest chickens I’ve ever raised. Yuck.

Wow yeah.  I raise australorps which are dual purpose and they keep filling out Till around 5 months.  They are big beautiful boys by then.  Earliest I think you could slaughter is 16 weeks.

23 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Yep.  Y’all better be checking your pork chops for bone chips for a while! 

 

Pork bone chips or human ?

[fairfarmhand]

Just now, Ausmumof3 said:

Wow yeah.  I raise australorps which are dual purpose and they keep filling out Till around 5 months.  They are big beautiful boys by then.  Earliest I think you could slaughter is 16 weeks.

I love an austrolorp. 

[Corraleno]

5 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Really?  My chickens at six weeks have literally nothing edible at that age.  They are really scrawny skin and bone.  My sis did meat chooks and they grow and fill out faster but not that fast.  They just be feeding them some serious crap to make them grow that fast.

 

"Today’s broiler chickens have been bred selectively since the 1950s to produce meat—breast meat in particular—and to produce it quickly. A modern meat chicken weighs up to three kilograms: almost double the size of a chicken from 60 years ago. And their breasts are 80% larger. They also manage to reach this size in six weeks, whereas it took a bird in the 50s up to 15 weeks to reach its fully grown (but much smaller) size. Not surprisingly, this accelerated growth leads to health problems and suffering for the animals.
        The rapid growth rate of broiler chickens makes simply moving from one place to another a difficult and painful task. A 2008 study of more than 50,000 chickens found that by the age of 40 days, over 27 percent of the birds had impaired locomotion capabilities and 3.3 percent were almost unable to walk. This large percentage of lame birds becomes even more disturbing when we consider that chickens whom the farmers considered lame had already been culled due to welfare policies.
       These disabilities largely stem from the imbalance in the birds’ bodies; due to excessively large breasts, they are “front heavy,” which adds to the strain on their legs. Other factors caused by rapid growth—including micro fractures and degenerative bone disease—also contribute to this lameness. Another study found that if lame birds received painkillers in their feed, they would become more mobile. In fact, lame birds actually chose analgesic-laced food over normal food, which non-lame birds did not do. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that a large percentage of meat chickens are in pain for at least a portion of their lives."

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-genetically-modified-chicken-how-we-have-altered-broiler-chickens-for-profit/

[Ausmumof3]

Just now, GGardner said:

 

Pork bone chips or human ?

lol pork bone chips I hope!  If there’s human bone chips the plants have some serious issues!

[Ausmumof3]

Just now, Corraleno said:

 

"Today’s broiler chickens have been bred selectively since the 1950s to produce meat—breast meat in particular—and to produce it quickly. A modern meat chicken weighs up to three kilograms: almost double the size of a chicken from 60 years ago. And their breasts are 80% larger. They also manage to reach this size in six weeks, whereas it took a bird in the 50s up to 15 weeks to reach its fully grown (but much smaller) size. Not surprisingly, this accelerated growth leads to health problems and suffering for the animals.
        The rapid growth rate of broiler chickens makes simply moving from one place to another a difficult and painful task. A 2008 study of more than 50,000 chickens found that by the age of 40 days, over 27 percent of the birds had impaired locomotion capabilities and 3.3 percent were almost unable to walk. This large percentage of lame birds becomes even more disturbing when we consider that chickens whom the farmers considered lame had already been culled due to welfare policies.
       These disabilities largely stem from the imbalance in the birds’ bodies; due to excessively large breasts, they are “front heavy,” which adds to the strain on their legs. Other factors caused by rapid growth—including micro fractures and degenerative bone disease—also contribute to this lameness. Another study found that if lame birds received painkillers in their feed, they would become more mobile. In fact, lame birds actually chose analgesic-laced food over normal food, which non-lame birds did not do. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that a large percentage of meat chickens are in pain for at least a portion of their lives."

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-genetically-modified-chicken-how-we-have-altered-broiler-chickens-for-profit/

Yep I know about this.  My sis couldn’t bring herself to do meat chooks after the first batch.  I know I’m still contributing because we still buy chicken although I stick to free range and hope it’s slightly better.  Doesn’t fix the genetic problems they are bred to have.

i feel like times of crisis like this are when all these decisions as a society we’ve made based on cost and convenience and ignoring the ethics of stuff really hit home.  

[ElizabethB]

I read somewhere that part of the order would allow PPE for the meat plants, giving them priority for PPE, and I also thought money for PPE.

Current meat plants and chicken plants are, sadly, just a small step up from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  But, you can't have all that food go to waste and people starving.  We need to do something fast while looking at long term fixes.

I watched an interesting food documentary that had people from the left and right in favor of small food.  The Polyface farm guy talked about small slaughtering operations and said that outdoor slaughtering and butchering was actually more hygienic and sanitary. I thought that seemed kind of crazy, but knowing how the Coronavirus spreads, I wonder if he wasn't prophetic!

 

[Corraleno]

10 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

I read somewhere that part of the order would allow PPE for the meat plants, giving them priority for PPE, and I also thought money for PPE.

Current meat plants and chicken plants are, sadly, just a small step up from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  But, you can't have all that food go to waste and people starving.  We need to do something fast while looking at long term fixes.

I watched an interesting food documentary that had people from the left and right in favor of small food.  The Polyface farm guy talked about small slaughtering operations and said that outdoor slaughtering and butchering was actually more hygienic and sanitary. I thought that seemed kind of crazy, but knowing how the Coronavirus spreads, I wonder if he wasn't prophetic!

 

That's Joel Salatin and he's absolutely right. The FDA wanted to shut him down because he butchers outdoors, but when they tested his birds they had FAR less bacteria than birds from commercial slaughterhouses. He has an amazing operation, all his animals are pastured/grass fed, and their droppings fertilize the fields so he doesn't use artificial  fertilizers or pesticides. His animals live perfectly normal, happy lives and the chickens are slaughtered quickly and humanely on site. And it's profitable.

[Corraleno]

23 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

You are an ethical, conscious consumer. By definition, that makes you privileged. You ask me how ? Because you have these choices in front of you, abundance and you choose to live a certain way because of those choices available.

It's like this, when people choose to become vegetarian, it is a choice they make. If someone gets to eat vegetables mostly or only because that is what they can get, that is poverty and no choice. You get what you eat.

When people dumpster dive in America, it is because they are ethical, sincere and conscious about food waste. When people dumpster dive in India it is because they are hungry and they are sharing the food thrown out at massive weddings with dogs.

Ethics is a privilege because people have choices.  Choice itself is a privilege. In most cases, the desperate do not have choices or if they do, it is bad or worse. 

The idea that the "choice" to eat black beans and chickpeas instead of factory-farmed meat is some emblem of rich American privilege is absolutely hilarious. 

And I could not possibly disagree more with the idea that having "ethics is a privilege," or that there is no real alternative to a food production system that relies on exploitation of the most marginalized and vulnerable members of society in order to maximize corporate profits and provide artificially cheap, crappy food for a country suffering from epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes — all of which, not coincidentally, make people more likely to die of diseases like Covid-19. Our current food production system is unethical, unhealthy, unsafe, and insecure. Forcing people to risk their lives even more than usual in order to prop it up does not fix any of the underlying issues.

[Corraleno]

This is what poultry processing looks like, and why these plants are such hotspots. Spreading people out to 6' apart will cut production by at least 2/3 if not more. These lines also move incredibly fast — replacing these workers with National Guard or other untrained people will require slowing the line waaaaaay down and reduce productivity much further. Then add in the fact that proper cleaning and disinfection at night will take much longer than usual, which will significantly cut processing hours. An Executive Order mandating that these plants stay open is not going to magically return meat production to anything close to normal levels.

[fairfarmhand]

But, it's not just in the plant that one must worry about. It's the workers driving together to and from work. It's two families sharing a rental home. It's the fact that those who have small children HAVE TO HAVE someone watch their small kids because mom and dad both work, so the kids go to granny's house and she's watching their cousins too. The workers at these plants may end up with social distancing at work, but it may be ineffective because they are paid so little that they can't afford an apartment for their own family, or have mom stay home to watch babies or drive their own car or whatever. So yes, it would help to have more space around them at work, but I don't know if that will be the ultimate solution. 

One thing I'm appreciating more and more about this virus is that it's exposing the food supply chains for what they are. The farmers aren't getting rich. Often they're barely making it. The meat packing workers aren't getting rich. Generally, its the huge corporations who are the only ones doing okay and they do it on the backs of the people who work so hard, risk injuries, and don't get a fair return for their labor.