As investors who apply an extra degree of diligence to our capital markets holdings – whether compelled by faith or in the interests of sustainability, or both --ICCR and its members are concerned that meat industry practices are insufficiently attentive to worker, consumer and environmental health risk long-term harm to both the meat marketplace and the meat industry itself.
CAFOs: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
Swine flu is a red flag for the portion of the meat industry that relies on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, known as CAFOs. Pigs in CAFOs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. The heat and concentrated waste in the CAFO barns creates gases so toxic that if the ventilation systems fail the animals (and workers) will die. Animals kept under these conditions have weakened immune systems and CAFOs rely on antibiotics to keep the animals healthy and increase their growth rates. The deadly MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infection, which is resistant to most antibiotics, is linked in part to routine use of antibiotics administered to CAFO animals. As Nicholas Kristof pointed out in The New York Times on March 11, the CDC reported that by 2005 MRSA killed more people in the U.S. than the AIDS virus.
Antibiotic-Resistant Infections
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in 2007, that the industrialization of pig and poultry production “could lead to a higher risk of disease transmission from animals to humans.” CAFOs are ideal environments for infection to spread among the thousands of animals in close quarters generating tons of pathogenic manure. The Pew Commission on Animal Farm Production called industrial farms “super-incubators for viruses.” The American Public Health Association, the largest association of public health professionals in the world, called for a moratorium on factory farms five years ago.
Worker Health
Worker health is another casualty of the industrialization of meat. Meat companies are especially intent on keeping labor costs as low as possible and volume as high as possible--which translates into hiring cheap labor, fighting unions and maintaining unsafe line speeds, even if those things contribute to the industry's 100% annual turnover rates.
Few reports look at the daily risks that workers in pork and other meat processing facilities face due to exposure to a host of chronic illnesses (such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, respiratory infections), deadly diseases (such as swine flu, avian flu, and antibiotic resistant staph infection), and the cuts and repetitive motion injuries they face due to sped up production lines.
Did You Know?
Meat processing employs 500,000 people--more than any other food processing sector.
Employment by meat processors is expected to rise 11% by 2016.
Antibiotic resistant staph infections (MRSA) kill more people than AIDS.
