Mother’s Day, pig CAFOS, swine flu

Our Mother’s Day feast was a deliberately local meal. Now that Texas farms are rolling out produce, we were able to pick up some spring green beans and hot house tomatoes at the farmer’s market, along with some locally made pasta.

Our youngest noted that our meal was doubly green — green spinach pasta and local veggies. Oy, they get so smart in public school, no? (Yes, that’s a joke.) At least her green awareness is growing.

But about that local food. This brings me back, sort of, to a topic I wanted to revisit: CAFOs. Buying locally supports smaller farmers, and reduces the “food miles” borne by the meal, and thereby cuts greenhouse gas emissions. Which is all good.

CAFOs work in reverse, supporting big agricultural operations by concentrating animal feeding in big lots, then shipping the meat outward, around the globe. It’s a big wheel with many far-flung spokes, instead of the series of small, overlapping circles formed by local food networks.

The topic of CAFOs came up during the recent swine flu scare, when some people speculated that the ginormous pork operation near the little village in Mexico where the virus is believed to have hit the first human victims played a role in the spread of the disease. However, no pigs or workers were recorded as having the flu, according to the U.S. operators of the facility.

Some people remain suspicious, though, among them, Tom Philpott, a long time sustainability advocate and agriculture writer for Grist. Philpott flagged the pig operation early on and has more in an article posted today, “Another symptom of swine flu: instant amnesia”.

In the piece, he reviews the case against CAFOs, explains that “pig zero” in the flu outbreak might still have come from there because pigs don’t always exhibit symptoms.

It’s a worthy review. These large CAFO operations may have grown out of our need to feed an exploding global population, but they carry side effects, serving as a breeding grounds for host of pathogens. We know that animals raised or “finished” in such environments often require antibiotics to fend off diseases. Consider too that many of these facilities have caused environmental damage just from seeping manure catchments.

And these are just the health considerations. We haven’t even addressed the humanity of treating animals this way.