fox and chickens

Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture and chicken magnate, has allowed the pork slaughter industry to begin taking over pork inspections from the federal inspection services.  This is one more indication that our government and civil society have gone off the rails.  This is not a new idea; it has been talked about for several decades now and pilot programs have been run.  The impetus here with industry is to speed up the slaughter.

Since our pork sales business started in 2000, we have depended upon the quality of the product and the predisposition of some people to support farms like ours and related businesses.  We still do.  But it has become necessary to state certain facts that we never formerly thought we had to, in view of the crippled state of our government.  To wit:

1) Animal welfare is a central concern for us, an ongoing and important effort.  Animal welfare on the farm is central.  Transportation of the animals and slaughter are other important aspects.  We make a constant effort in all these facets of pork production and supply.  Our animals are slaughtered under state inspection, and the inspector has no qualms about stopping slaughter or throwing out substandard product.  Sonny Perdue has no intention of cancelling this inspection and we would not agree if he did.

2) We use processing businesses that pay the kind of wage that employees can live on and that provide safe and clean working conditions.

3) And we expect the kind of return in our business that allows us to be adequately compensated for our work on the farm and in the business.

These three statements could serve as a guideline for a conscientous buyer of pork in making purchases.  None of these are honored by the mainstream meat industry, from farm through retail.