An opinion piece a few weeks ago in the Des Moines Register, by a Register
staff writer, discussed in considerable detail the problem of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria resulting from indiscriminant feeding of
antibiotics to livestock. The article was completely silent on the fact that
factory farms are the worst over-users of antibiotics. The Lexington,
Kentucky Herald-Leader, in the editorial below, does a much better job on
this issue, and others, related to factory farming
Tom

> Lexington Herald-Leader
> EDITORIAL:  the real price of chicken
>
> December 28, 2001, Friday, BC cycle
>
> Lexington Herald-Leader
>
> No one who's watched the poultry industry in Kentucky can be shocked that
> Tyson Foods Inc. stands accused of smuggling illegal immigrants
> into this country.
>
> If anything is shocking, it's how easily such outrages are rationalized as
> long as food is cheap.
>
> One advantage Americans enjoy over much of the world is supermarkets
> brimming with low-cost food. When we stop to calculate the real cost,
> though, our cheap food may not be such a bargain.
>
> Poultry is a good example.
>
> In Kentucky, taxpayers underwrite the industry through tax breaks and
> government subsidies. The industry also shifts part of its financial risk
> onto contract farmers.
>
> Environmental risks are borne by the public, though the Patton
> administration is trying to make the industry protect water from manure
> pollution.
>
> Health risks? The public gets stuck again. The routine feeding of
> antibiotic drugs to factory-farm animals is breeding drug-resistant
> microbes. This, in turn, weakens the effectiveness of lifesaving drugs in
> humans.
>
> The poultry and livestock industries benefit from cheap grain that costs
> taxpayers billions in farm subsidies that spur overproduction.
>
> The industry's safety shortcuts are borne by its low-paid, under-trained
> work force. Remember the two Kentuckians who died in a vat of chicken
> guts at a Tyson plant two years ago?
>
> Finally, the industry, which once employed well-paid union members, has
> come to rely on poor Central Americans, who have few or no legal
> rights in this country, to keep its production lines running.
>
> Earlier this month a federal grand jury in Tennessee issued an indictment
> alleging Tyson officials obtained false documents for workers who were
> not supposed to be in the United States and that the practice was
tolerated
> to meet production goals and cut costs. Cheap food, remember?
>
> The 36-count indictment, naming two corporate executives and four former
> managers, was based on a 2 1/2-year undercover investigation.
> Fifteen Tyson plants, including one in Henderson County, are implicated.
>
> Tyson, the nation's largest meat processor, disputes the charges. The
> company says an internal investigation led to the firing of four managers
> and administrative leave for two others and that the wrongdoers were
acting
> outside company policy.
>
> No matter how high the blame goes up Tyson's corporate ladder, it's
> undisputed that meat processors rely on poor immigrants working for
> poverty wages.
>
> Cagle's-Keystone, which got tax breaks and grants through Kentucky's rural
> empowerment zone, employed illegal immigrants, including underage
> Mexicans in its Clinton County plant. In other words, children who speak
> little or no English were working under conditions dangerous even for
> adults.
>
> So, the next time you're waiting in line to pay for a package of chicken
> breasts, don't forget the price to the environment, public health,
> taxpayers, agriculture policy, worker safety and U.S. border security.
>
> Bon appetit.
>

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