Day of reckoning dawns for industrial livestock farms

摘要

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing livestock farms and grocery stores to consider whether the meat industry is primed for a new way of doing business. Critics of industrial-scale livestock farming say the evidence has rarely been clearer. Pork processing plants have temporarily closed after workers tested positive for COVID-19. Federal meat inspectors have fallen ill by the dozens, disrupting the operations of plants that remain open. Farmers are suddenly forced to feed — or kill — tens of thousands of animals that can't find a way to market. "This is all being laid bare right now," said Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, an associate professor at American University's School of International Service specializing in global environmental and agriculture policy. Consolidation into fewer, bigger companies is a long-running trend across food production, Graddy-Lovelace said, but "the meat industry is where it's at its most extreme." Ever-expanding livestock farms carry an environmental impact, too, as concentrated animal feeding operations with more than 2,500 pigs or 1,000 beef cattle trigger environmental regulations on manure and raise worries about greenhouse gas emissions. Lack of slaughter facilities can make those farms bigger still, for a time.