Let's Ask Marion Nestle: Who Needs Bioterrorism When We've Got Manure Lagoons?

(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)

Kat: Tom Philpott of Grist reported on Friday that a Chinese company called Cofco--a state-owned food-and-agribiz giant--is thinking of buying out U.S. owned Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, "at a significant premium to its share price."

Of course, that was before the shit hit the spam. Now, we're suddenly facing a swine flu outbreak, which Philpott aptly describes as "a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses.As Philpott subsequently reported on Saturday, the Mexican health agency IMSS suspects the outbreak may be linked to the clouds of flies that thrive in the manure lagoons of the Smithfield-owned industrial hog operations in Vera Cruz, where the swine flu was first detected.

With the World Health Organization warning of a prospective global pandemic, I'm not sure that Cofco is going to be so eager to acquire Smithfield. But supposing they were, do you think it's a good idea to have the largest industrial hog operation in the world run by the Chinese government?

Dr. Nestle: Whoa. Let's not be too xenophobic about China. China already owns vast amounts of American real estate, holds vast amounts of American debt, and produces vast amounts of the food we eat--globalization in all its glory. We can no longer survive without China so we better figure out quickly how to make this marriage work.

We also better figure out how to make our food production system more sustainable and less harmful to farm animals, the environment, farm workers, and consumers. I was a member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which released its report last April. Our report fully documented how CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) are not nice to animals; pollute air, soil, and water; turn communities into garbage dumps; and promote transmission of nasty--and often antibiotic resistant--microbial diseases to farm workers, community residents, and everyone else.

This time, it's swine flu, a viral disease. I can't tell from the reports whether a Smithfield CAFO in Mexico really is responsible for transmission of this new flu virus from pigs to people, but one thing is clear: Smithfield is in big trouble financially. This means it is for sale to the highest bidder. Our investment system is not in the business of making ethical or moral judgments about such things. Investors are unlikely to care who the highest bidder might be as long as the bid is high.

Why China might want to buy Smithfield is an entirely separate question. Its pork operations are still small relative to ours and maybe its pork producers want to learn how to do things bigger. Whatever they do, they will have to follow U.S. rules and regulations. And that is a problem. As the Pew Commission report made clear, we have laws on the books that govern production and emission standards in CAFOs; it's just that nobody bothers to enforce them. Somebody needs to, whether the owners are Chinese or American. Otherwise, this won't be the last of the swine flu scares.

Comments

[dobermanmacleod]

Frankly, you don't understand the difference between an accidental Mother Nature virus and a recombinant supervirus:

"A virus that has been engineered in the laboratory is called a recombinant virus. This is because its genetic material-DNA or RNA-has genes in it that come from other forms of life. These foreign genes have been inserted into the virus's genetic material through the process of recombination. The term construct is also used to describe it, because the virus is constructed of parts and pieces of genetic code-it is a designer virus, with a particular purpose." -The Demon in the Freezer, page 220

"The main thing that stands between the human species and the creation of a supervirus is a sense of responsibility among individual biologists­." -The Demon in the Freeze by Richard Preston, 2002, page 227

[joebaggadonuts]

So Smithfield was producing pork in Mexico so it could ignore public health and sanitation rules, is that right? We should criminalize such decisions. The Chinese simply kill people who cause factories to produce poisonous milk and distribute it to babies. Maybe having the Chinese run this operation will improve it.

[BonnieJW]

American food should come from America, period. Factory farms should be outlawed. We can certainly satisfy the demand for farm products by having more private farms that use sustainable methods, and humane practices raising farm animals. I became vegetarian more than a year ago and I don't miss meat at all. My husband did not take that journey with me, but I purchase only organic meat for him, although organic does not insure the animal was raised humanly. How can we fear our food's safety in 2009? It's like we're in the Middle Ages.

[Anthro]

I agree with most of what you say, but I'm not quite ready to part with coffee, tea, spices, bananas (are they grown in Florida?), and a few other luxuries. I am 90% localvore and only eat meat I kill myself (which means I rarely eat meat). I eat in season, grow a garden and can. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the most important food group--cho­colate--do­esn't grow in the US as far as I know.

[J G H]

I'll say it again, if the voters elect candidates who claim government can't do anything right, they will get government which does not enforce existing regulations and is inept in responding to crises. Whether it is Katrina, lead in Chinese-ma­nufactured toys, or financial operations, the Bush administration apppointed people who felt government was not capable of solving the problem and did little or nothing. Why should they? If they make government work, they invalidate their basic philosophy.

[johnnyhempseed]

wallyone, while you have a point,small domestic producers of livestock did not need to use large doses of anti-biotics to keep thier swine healthy.To­days livestock factories have such a high backround of e-coli that it is nessesary.­Geneticall­y modified foods often cross the boundaries of species and even introduce anti -biotic resistant viruses as markers.No­vel proteins and RNA lines fron the trans species "Frankenfoods" evolve randomly ,without engineerin­g.It is thought that this high anti-biotic environment contributed to the evolution of the super flesh eating staph , and e-coli strains that are multi anti-biotic resistant. peas in

[wallyone]

Influenza viruses that cross from animals to people have emerged historically not from large farms, but from subsistence farms in Asia. These family farmers live in very close contact with a few pigs and their domestic fowl. It would be prudent to withhold judgement before blaming the factory farms.

[WoodyTanaka]

The article was "withholding judgment." It noted that the IMSS suspected the "the clouds of flies that thrive in the manure lagoons," and Dr. Nestle did note that she "can't tell from the reports whether a Smithfield CAFO in Mexico really is responsible for transmission of this new flu virus from pigs to people..."

However, that does not disguise the fact that these industrial monstrosities are biological time bombs waiting to explode. If the disguisting inhumane manner in which these places are operated (leading me to conclude that this whole industry is populated by sociopaths [No one who could come up with the concept of a "manure lagoon" is in his or her right mind]) isn't enough to convince you that these "factory farms" are bad news and a really, really bad idea (and should be banned worldwide), what should is the fact that they can be so badly planned, run and managed so as to insure that the environment will be damaged, and virtually beg for disease to run amok as a result of them.

Small, poorly run farms have many, many problems themselves, for sure. But don't soft pedal the damage that these industrial hells produce.

[Anthro]

Another point is that the small family farm, simply by virtue of its smallness, has the benefit of containing any outbreak to the local area or making it easier to trace for what gets further away.

Critics claim that without the huge factory farms we cannot produce enough food at "low" cost, but fact is that most people in this country eat way more than their daily requirement of calories and most of the grain we grow goes to feed animals, not humans.

[dobermanmacleod]

While pig manure ponds are disgusting, poorly monitored and regulated, and a potential health threat, mankind has failed to realize an essencial truth:

Individuals can now construct highly contagious extremely lethal virus.

"A virus that has been engineered in the laboratory is called a recombinant virus. This is because its genetic material-DNA or RNA-has genes in it that come from other forms of life. These foreign genes have been inserted into the virus's genetic material through the process of recombination. The term construct is also used to describe it, because the virus is constructed of parts and pieces of genetic code-it is a designer virus, with a particular purpose." -The Demon in the Freezer, page 220

"Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary and now a biowarfare consultant to the Pentagon, said that while there are 1,000 to 10,000 "weaponeers" worldwide with experience working on biological arms, there are more than 1 million and perhaps many millions of "broadly skilled" scientists who, while lacking training in that narrow field, could construct bioweapons. "It seems likely that, over a period between a few months and a few years, broadly skilled individuals equipped with modest laboratory equipment can develop biological weapons," Danzig said. "Only a thin wall of terrorist ignorance and inexperience now protects us." --Washington Post, 29 December 2004 ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35011-2004Dec29.html )

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

America just needs to go vegan so that we don't feed all our food to the animals.

[LitDr2B]

"We can no longer survive without China so we better figure out quickly how to make this marriage work."

Um. No. How about we not rely on any other country for our own food? We need to get back to more local food systems, as much as we possibly can.