[A-List] A food system that kills

[MARGARET WYLES]

> Factory farms are time-bombs for global disease epidemics. Yet, there
> are still no programmes in place to deal with them, not even programmes
> of independent disease surveillance. Nobody on high seems to care, and
> it's probably no coincidence that these farms tend to be located amongst
> the poorest communities, who suffer dearly to get the truth out. Worse
> still, so much of our food supply now comes from this bloated system
> that the main task of government food safety agencies now seems to be to
> calm fears and keep people eating. Smithfield is already on the
> financial brink and just last week was negotiating for China's largest
> agribusiness company, COFCO, to take it over. {17}
>
Great article.  A couple of points.  Recently, I saw a comparison of
the price of several items in the 1940's and current.  A quick example
is that in 1942, cars cost about $125 and a house around $1200.  Milk
was in the area of 20-40 cents a gallon.  My numbers are not exact,
but close enough to determine that food as a percentage of a family
budget has increased by about 10 times and cars and houses in the
hundreds.  Food is cheap.

Secondly, if you've not seen it or read the book, I would recommend
Fast Food Nation, a scathing indictment of meat 'production' and its
costs to humans and animals and the environment.  Warning:  You will
never look at that Big Mac the same.

Finally, this article speaks to the myriad of problems that evolve
when food is not produced locally.  If people were to become aware of
the circumstances that brought that burger to the table, they would
think twice.

M