{"id":58379,"date":"2021-06-25T09:46:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T14:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58379"},"modified":"2021-06-25T09:46:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T14:46:52","slug":"local-food-saves-the-day-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58379","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Local Food Saves the Day (Again)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u00a0Local Food Saves the Day (Again)<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
The flaws of an industrialized food system have, yet again, been exposed\u2014this time through a cyberattack.\u00a0 On May 30, 2021, a cyberattack caused JBS, the world\u2019s largest meat processing plant,\u00a0to close nine meat processing plants<\/a>\u00a0in the United States.\u00a0 Although the shutdown lasted for only a day, analysts report that even short stoppages\u00a0impact\u00a0<\/a>meat prices<\/a>.\u00a0Disruptions like the cyberattack highlight the problems with an industrialized food system and the need for policies that support local food systems.<\/p>\n

A more pronounced disruption occurred over a year ago when Covid outbreaks forced many meatpacking plants, food processing plants, and farms to close for several weeks and months.\u00a0 The Food and Environment Reporting Network\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that as of June 21, 2021, at least\u00a091,140\u00a0workers have tested positive for Covid-19; at least 464 workers have died.\u00a0 In addition to these tragedies, the pandemic forced farmers to\u00a0euthanize animals and dump milk<\/a>\u00a0because while production continued, meat and milk processing did not.<\/p>\n

The meat industry, like other agricultural sectors, has become increasingly consolidated over the past four decades.\u00a0 Four giant companies, including JBS, control\u00a0more than 80% of the U.S. beef<\/a>\u00a0supply.\u00a0 Poultry,\u00a0pork,\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0dairy, and field crop operations<\/a>\u00a0have experienced similar consolidation.\u00a0\u00a0The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports<\/a>\u00a0that there were 2.02 million U.S. farms in 2020, down from 2.20 million in 2007, and 6.8 million farms in 1935, with the largest farms accounting for more than\u00a070% of the cropland<\/a>\u00a0in the United States.\u00a0 The number of Black farmers\u00a0has decreased to<\/a>\u00a0just under 50,000 in 2017 from its peak of 1 million in 1920.<\/p>\n

Industrialized farming operations grew out of a need to accommodate these large-scale corporate processors.\u00a0 Bolstered by\u00a0discriminatory<\/a>\u00a0USDA programs,\u00a0monoculture farms<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0concentrated animal feeding operations<\/a>\u00a0(CAFOs) have displaced traditional farming operations.\u00a0 Prioritizing productivity and profits, these industrialized operations use techniques that\u00a0harm farmworkers, impact public health, degrade the environment, and perpetuate inequality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Local Food Saves the Day (Again) The flaws of an industrialized food system have, yet again, been exposed\u2014this time through a cyberattack.\u00a0 On May 30, 2021, a cyberattack caused JBS, the world\u2019s largest meat processing plant,\u00a0to close nine meat processing plants\u00a0in the United States.\u00a0 Although the shutdown lasted for only a day, analysts report that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[1912,31370,6726,3207,31371,6665,31369],"class_list":["post-58379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-food-production","tag-john-ikerd","tag-local-food","tag-local-food-production","tag-michael-reilly","tag-resilience-org","tag-sarah-morath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58380,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58379\/revisions\/58380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}