October 16, 2012
When I was at the local organic farmers’ market recently, there was a queue a half a block long at the only meat vendor. There are often two or three people waiting but this was unusual. The desire to have safe, organic meat is a reasonable response to the recall of E Coli tainted beef from the massive X-L slaughterhouse in Alberta.
Predictably, the crisis at X-L has ended with claims that the plant is now clean, the system safe, and the food healthy. Our national regulator, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has authorized the plant to reopen.
But don’t be fooled. The decision is political. The owners of this privately held massive slaughterhouse announced they were laying-off 2,000 workers. The reputation of Canadian beef was at stake. The pressure was on for CFIA to declare the plant clean.
It’s business as usual. And business as usual is a globalized food system that is an incubator of disease and, it turns out, profoundly unhealthy and occasionally fatal.
In recent years, huge numbers of poultry in the Fraser Valley were destroyed because of the risk of transmitting avian flu to humans, old people have died from processed meat from an Ontario plant and borders have been shut because of “mad cow” disease in Alberta.
Of the mad cow scare, former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said the crisis could have been avoided. His famous solution to food security was for farmers to “shoot, shovel and shut-up.”
This prescription exemplifies how spineless politicians and toothless regulators have put our food security at risk. In the service of a global food distribution system that is controlled by a few multi-national corporations, politicians have reduced regulations and subsidized the global trade of cheap, nutrient-deficient food.
The superior quality and safety of Alberta beef is a myth. It may have been true in the 1950s when cattle were grass fed; when farm families had a multi-generational commitment to the land and to good animal husbandry; and, when people didn’t eat much meat.
Today, cows are fed an unnatural diet intended to make them bigger and fatter than normal and faster than their natural biological maturity. They are “finished” in feedlots whose sole purpose is to fatten them to “market weight” as quickly as possible. Slaughterhouses like XL are the end step in this industrial process.
Greens believe we must reform our food system. We must localize food production and get out of the globalized food system.
Transitioning to regional food security will require changes to legislation. BC Greens would remove subsidies that distort the true cost of imported foods. We would reduce the control of marketing boards. We would return the ability of small producers to process their own animals. We would return farmland to farming and find ways to increase the amount of land available for food production through urban agriculture; community gardens and small scale farms with long tenure.
Each individual can make daily decisions that will hasten the inevitable return to local food production. Purchase from local markets or as part of a farm supporting box program. Grow more of your own food. Reject processed foods. Boycott fast food companies, additive laden processed food and corporations that sell heavily subsidized imported food that puts local producers at a disadvantage.
Taking back control over our food supply will take individual commitment and government action. Until there is a government willing to act, people must take food security into their own hands.
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