IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 0
it is still possible to raise healthy pigs year round, efficiently, and without
disrupting supplies, if the environments in which the animals are raised are
hygienic, spacious, enriched with clean bedding, and comfortable from the
animals' point of view.
Food Irradiation: The Wrong Answer for Food Safety
Though most Cold War-era nuclear technologies such as the atomic
coffeepot and plutonium-heated long-johns have fallen into the dustbin of
history, 165 food irradiation has not only survived into the 21st century, it is
on the verge of becoming the food industry's no. 1 weapon in the war
against food-borne illnesses. No one is against creating a safer food
supply. But there are plenty of reasons to be against food irradiation.
Irradiation is murder on family farmers and marketplace diversity, because
it uses huge, centralized facilities and is intended to correct quality-control
problems endemic to today's factory-style food processing plants. 166
Simply put, irradiation and consolidation go hand-in-hand. IBP and Tyson
Foods, whose pending merger would spawn the country's largest poultry
and red meat conglomerate, are among the many corporate giants that are
on the verge of selling irradiated food in mass quantities.
III. Building Sewerless Cities
Part Three: Building Sewerless Cities describes the impacts on water
quality resulting from the separation of animals from the land. At one
time, crop and livestock production were complementary enterprises on
farms. Most of the nutrients originating from the soils of a given area were
returned to that same area. Animals' living quarters were bedded with hay
or straw and, when soiled, the bedding was removed to a manure heap
where it composted, killing most of the pathogens that may have been
present in the manure. Under such conditions, environmental problems
arising from animal production activities, when they sometimes occurred,
were minimal and relatively easily solved by improving management or
taking other, relatively low-cost, remedial measures.
Environmental problems were exacerbated when specialization separated
livestock production from the land and the availability of cheap, mineral
fertilizers made it possible to produce crops without manure nutrients.
Today, most farm animals are concentrated in large holdings on small
acreages and are raised under intensive conditions resembling
manufacturing processes. Animal feeds generally come from areas far
away from the industrialized livestock farm. Manures from these "animal
factories" may be handled as wastes or surpluses to be disposed of, rather
than as valuable soil amendments, and may be applied to the land in
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