This is especially true for Shannon Williams, a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, as she shops at her neighborhood Safeway on the west side of town. This is the closest option to South Cushman. Williams picks that store mainly for cost savings.

Across the street is a Fred Meyer grocery store. When asked what she thought of both supermarkets falling under one ownership, Williams was concerned. “It’s a bad idea. These are our two options, and Safeway is cheaper. If Fred Meyer owns both, I’m afraid they’ll control the prices.” 

The fate of food access in South Cushman turns on a proposed merger between Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer, and Albertsons, which owns Safeway. The Cincinnati- and Boise-based owners announced their $24.6-billion deal in October 2022, hoping to close by early 2024. Reaction to the proposed merger has been mixed, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and some states threatening legal action to stop it. If successful, one company will have control over grocery prices for South Cushman. The same goes for neighborhoods like it across the country. Kroger would own 22 percent of the U.S. food retail market.

Over the past four decades, ownership over retail grocers in the U.S. has concentrated further and further. Four companies—Walmart, Kroger, Costco and Albertsons—own more than half of all grocery sales today. If Kroger goes ahead with its purchase of Albertsons, it would be just three companies that control the majority of all grocery sales in the country. 

Food deserts, too, are on an upward trend. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has defined urban food deserts as low-income areas where at least one third of the residents live at least one mile from a supermarket. A 2017 report shows that, since 2010, the number of food deserts in the country have increased, with estimates that almost 30 million Americans live in one. Further, 34 million Americans lack access to affordable, healthy food. Grocery corporations often say that consolidation can help counter those problems, but the evidence proves otherwise.

Photography by Shutterstock.

Less competition, higher prices

A spokesperson for Kroger tells Modern Farmer the merger “will mean long-term job security, higher wages, expanded benefits and a strong unionized workforce for associates. The merger will also mean lower prices and more choices for fresh food for customers and more investments in our communities. The alternative is lose-lose, undermining good union jobs and putting our communities at risk of higher prices, fewer options, shuttered stores, and more food deserts.”

It’s a common claim in the industry.

Yet, several studies, including the USDA’s own review, found that consolidating grocery stores results in higher prices in markets that have few options. In a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) states, “there is no evidence the projected efficiencies” in the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger will pass savings on to consumers. According to Sara John, a senior policy scientist at CSPI, this comports with basic economic principles. “When there is less competition, that leads to higher prices.”

This is especially concerning with food prices already at a historic high. Competition between a Fred Meyer on one side of the street and Safeway on the other generally helps consumers. If Kroger and Albertsons merge, a shopper might find their grocery bill changes, even if the stores’ names do not.

We’ve been here before

In a food desert, a significant portion of a neighborhood’s residents lack a supermarket within one mile. That distance cuts access to healthy foods, as low-income folks often lack reliable transportation, especially in difficult weather. The inconvenience alone forces shoppers to choose shelf-stable food, rather than fresh produce.

One study found that “the availability of supermarkets has been associated with more fruit and vegetable intake, more healthful diets and lower rates of obesity.” Kroger and Albertsons state that the merger will “expand access to fresh and affordable food.”

That’s true; supermarkets do provide access to a range of foods. Whether those options are available to low-income neighborhoods, however, depends on their price and store location.

Advocates, legislators and state attorneys general are worried about Kroger closing stores, especially any Albertsons close to an existing Kroger. The FTC, as well as state attorneys general, are currently reviewing the deal under their antitrust authority to ensure that mergers don’t harm consumers. To address those concerns, (as well as other fears of a monopoly), Kroger and Albertsons announced it will instead sell more than 400 of its stores to a third party, C&S Wholesale Grocers. 

To some experts, this is cold comfort. Lina Khan, the current head of the FTC, wrote a law review article in 2017 outlining how divesting stores has not solved monopoly concerns.

History gives us a stark example. When Albertsons purchased Safeway in 2017, the FTC signed off on the deal because Albertsons promised to sell stores to a small chain called Haggen. Haggen was ill equipped to take on so many locations, went bankrupt, closed stores and even sold some of them back to Albertsons. As a result, says Khan, “the level of consolidation resulting from this [2017] merger will be greater than what the government has planned and approved.”

The Kroger-Albertsons’ plan has similar issues. In 2017, selling to Haggen failed because it was unable to manage an increase to 164 from 18 stores. Today, selling to C&S will increase their stores to 413 from 160.

Sara John at CSPI is also worried about the disproportionate effect of closures on low-income neighborhoods. She predicts that grocers “will close their worst-performing stores, which has the biggest impact on low-income communities, on average.”

During another merger between Amazon and Whole Foods, there was speculation that Amazon’s capabilities make ordering online easier. However, many low-income folks, especially in Alaska and rural areas, lack reliable internet access to take advantage of delivery options.

Photography by Shutterstock.

Communities respond

Considering the potential harm to consumers, the FTC has an open investigation of the proposed deal. The commission can review mergers for anticompetitive practices, and if it finds problems, it can negotiate with the merging entities to avoid them. If all cannot agree, the FTC can attempt to stop the merger under federal laws that prohibit unfair business practices.

State attorneys general, such as those in Arizona and Washington, are also conducting their own investigations. Nevada has an open survey to take the pulse of consumers. The US Senate will be holding an antitrust panel this month. 

Other stakeholders are organizing to stop the merger. For example, a nationwide Stop the Merger coalition brings together consumer protection, privacy and labor advocates, to name a few. One member of the coalition, Katy Milani, is associate director for policy and advocacy at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She is calling on the FTC to enforce existing laws. “In the ’50s and ’60s, when the FTC enforced the antitrust laws on the books…independent grocery stores flourished,” Milani told Modern Farmer in an email. “We had a dynamic food ecosystem—we didn’t have food deserts.”

There are also more local efforts. In Alaska, an effort by the Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AKPIRG) led to the state’s Republican and Independent US senators, as well as its Democratic House representative, to urge the FTC to oppose the merger. Some (no less cold) communities, such as Chicago, are organizing to form publicly owned grocery stores.

Kroger states the merger will conclude in early 2024. To the shoppers outside Safeway in Fairbanks, consolidation often feels out of their hands. Still, movements to slow consolidation are gathering steam. To continue that movement, we have to recognize that consolidation does not, as the grocers claim, create oases.

This story has been updated to include a statement from Kroger. 

The post How Supermarket Mergers Affect Food Deserts appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Kraft, who runs a small chicken farm in Richland County, Montana, sent the money on the last day. And it might have worked out fine, as it has with other horses she has purchased after having only seen them online. But Nacho was coming to her via a vast network of greedy horse traders who prey on good-hearted people who want to give these equines a better life—and the sellers who oftentimes think they are sending their companions to loving new homes. 

A couple of days after they sent the money, Kraft and her husband were surprised to hear frantic banging on their door. The transporters who picked up Nacho told them the horse was in such bad shape when they got him that they rushed to Montana from the facility in Arkansas as fast as they could in fear the horse would go down in the trailer and not be able to get up. Nacho looked defeated, his head hanging low, old pressure sores on his bony hips, body propped against the side of the trailer to stay upright. “We were heartbroken and devastated,” says Kraft, who bought the horse for her daughters, who were 11 and 14 at the time. “The girls saw him come off and were bawling.”

They managed to get the horse out of the trailer. He quickly went down and didn’t get up for 12 hours. The family medicated him and checked to see if his legs could still move. Kraft’s farrier—a specialist in equine hoof care—came out a few days later. When he touched the sole of Nacho’s hoof with his rasp, it immediately bled. The soft tissue in his hoof was so inflamed, a condition known as laminitis or founder, that his coffin bone had rotated all the way down to the sole. An intense fight to save Nacho’s life began.

Fountain Hill claims to be “helping horses who are actually in immediate danger.” In fact, according to experts, Kraft is one of countless animal lovers before her to get sucked into a scam that not only doesn’t save horses from slaughter but actually pulls more horses into a cruel corner of the horse-trading world. These traders claim to offer animal lovers a chance to save horses from so-called “kill pens.” But they are endangering them throughout the entire process.

“Once they get into the auction/slaughter pipeline, so much of the callousness and cruelty starts there with no vet care and misrepresenting the horses to be rideable, healthy and young—anything to sell them,” says Wendy Thomson, the administrator of multiple social media pages to document and warn about kill pens. “Many times people have been sent horses straight out of the kill pens having strangles, salmonella and other diseases, basically on death’s door.”

After arriving at Crystal Kraft’s home, Nacho went down and didn’t get up for 12 hours. (Photo courtesy of Crystal Kraft)

The problem is so widespread that the American Horse Council released a statement on the scams: “These ‘bail-out’ or ‘ransom’ operations are run in conjunction with feedlot operators who buy animals at low market prices. These order brokers then post the animals on social media platforms with exaggerated price tags and an arbitrary deadline implying a day of shipment across an international border where the horses will be processed for human consumption.”

Slaughtering horses for their meat has essentially been banned in the United States since 2007 and some states have even banned the transportation of equines for slaughter. The number of horses getting shipped across the borders for slaughter has been dropping substantially over the past decade, from 148,848 in 2014 to 20,933 last year—a nearly 50-percent decrease from 2020. 

In the past month, two bills were reintroduced in the House and Senate that would stop these scams from happening. The Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act (S.2037/H.R.3475), which will be tacked onto the 2023 Farm Bill if successful, would permanently ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the United States and prohibit the export of horses for slaughter abroad.

Polls have found that 83 percent of Americans oppose the slaughter of US horses for human consumption. Yet, there are a number of equine industry organizations that are against the SAFE Act, including the American Quarter Horse Association, American Veterinary Medical Association, and the American Association of Equine Practitioners, which states that slaughter is a humane alternative to “a life of discomfort and pain, and possibly inadequate care or abandonment.”

The current system is not comfortable or painless. Investigations have found horses crammed together in trailers for more than 35 hours at a time with no food or water. And there’s no guaranteeing that the slaughter methods used are humane at all. “Half of these may be going to fairly decent export-approved abattoirs, but the other half are going to local abattoirs and being killed by punctilla, which is stabbing the horse in the back of the neck,” animal behavior expert Dr. Temple Grandin, a proponent of horse slaughter, told Horse Journals. 

To prevent this from happening, United Horse Coalition created an Equine Resource Database with a list of resources for horse owners in need, from castration services and veterinary grants to hay banks and euthanasia programs and clinics. “A lot of these horses are coming from situations where it has nothing to do with the horse and everything to do with the owner’s life circumstance, like losing a job or declining health,” says UHC director Ashley Harkins. “We want to head it off at the pass, so horses don’t end up at auction.”

It’s hard to know exactly where Nacho came from before arriving at Fountain Hill. A horse flipper could’ve found him for sale in a Craigslist ad saying something like, “Hoping to find forever home where he will be given the attention deserved.” He could have been sent to local auction by his previous owners, then listed for several hundred dollars more later that same day. Or he could have been passed around from auction to auction and dealer to dealer, each one earning their cut, as the laminae in his hoof became increasingly inflamed and broke down.

“The girls saw him come off and were bawling,” says Kraft, who bought Nacho for her daughters. (Photo courtesy of Crystal Kraft)

In many cases, the threat of imminent slaughter is a lie. 

Nacho shouldn’t have been eligible to transport to slaughter, according to USDA regulations, which require that the horse is able to bear wear on all four limbs and walk unassisted. Kraft’s vet and farrier told her that Nacho had been foundering at least a month before she got him and there was only a slim chance he would’ve been able to make it to the slaughterhouse standing up.

Jason Sexton, a horse dealer in Tennessee who does send horses to slaughter, says that most slaughter-bound horses are unrideable adults or far past their prime. He is disdainful of the dealers that inflate their prices and prey on buyers’ emotions with bail prices far higher than what a horse will fetch on the normal auction market. Around the time Nacho, who was calmly ridden in his sale video, was purchased for $2,500 last year, Sexton, who prices horses fairly, had advertised a beautiful but unbroke toffee-colored paint Quarterhorse for $850. 

“It’s a scam,” Sexton told me by phone. “Very few even have a deal to ship to plants.”

Unlike many of those fake so-called kill pens, Fountain Hill actually does have connections to slaughter plants. The page is moderated by Loren Austin Stanley, who is married to Boots Stanley. The Stanley family is one of the most prolific slaughter horse exporters in the country.

They also have a track record of abuse. Boots pled guilty to charges of aggravated animal cruelty in April 2018 after posting a video of himself and a friend slitting a dog’s throat, killing it on Snapchat, for which he received no jail time. In 2016, his father Greg and cousin Michael were charged with battery for hitting an animal rights activist in the face with a wood board. 

When Kraft found out who she had been dealing with, she was dismayed. She called the Stanleys seeking answers, but says she’s been ghosted for the past year.

For 22 days, the Kraft family cared for the horse that had been dumped at their door. They cut foam pads to cushion his feet every day. Kraft’s daughters spent their days showering him with affection, hoping that would give him the will to pull through. None of it was enough.

When they made the decision to euthanize Nacho and end his misery, Kraft was furious and heartbroken that her daughters were forced to watch the gentle animal they nursed suffer from the day they met him until the moment they put him down. “It’s not something I would wish on anyone,” she says. “I was so naive to the whole kill pen thing.”

The post Kill Pen Scammers are Preying on Horse Lovers appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The groups are referring to a policy rider in the Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture Appropriations bill. The rider prevents the USDA from “promulgating, implementing, or enforcing” its proposed rules to strengthen the P&S Act.

The P&S Act is intended to level the playing field, promoting competition for farmers and ranchers. But it’s been notoriously undermined for decades, resulting in a handful of corporations running the vast majority of meat and poultry production, and using lobbyists to influence legislation. This consolidation of power and profit means that many meat producers are at the mercy of these conglomerates, which have come under scrutiny for price fixing in the past. During the height of COVID-19, amid supply chain breakdowns, beef and hog ranchers were struggling, while meat packers saw record profits. 

The Biden administration has released executive orders to look into the P&S Act and promote competition in the industry, and the executives of the “big four” meatpacking conglomerates have faced harsh criticism from opponents on both sides of the political aisle. The USDA has even proposed rules that would require poultry companies to be transparent about contract terms and increase protections against retaliation from major meatpacking corporations. 

However, the rider attached to the FY24 act would prevent the USDA from writing, preparing or publishing rules that could strengthen the P&S Act.  

In response, 102 groups have submitted an open letter to the House Committee on Appropriations, urging the removal of the rider. 

“This rider is an unacceptable attack on the ability of the Department of Agriculture to do its job: protecting American farmers and ranchers and ensuring fair and competitive markets,” the letter states. “Instead of carrying water for multinational meatpacking corporations, we urge the House Appropriations Committee to stand with American farmers and ranchers and reject any attempts to limit the Secretary’s authority under the Packers and Stockyards Act, or the USDA’s capacity to fully and effectively enforce it.”

Signatories of the letter include the Farm Action Fund, the National Farmers Union, National Center for Health Research, Center For Food Safety and Farm Aid, along with several state-run groups of independent cattle ranchers and farms. 

Along with the signatories, Farm Action’s chief strategy officer, Joe Maxwell, told media that the bill “is a blatant act to protect the world’s largest corporations at the expense of America’s farmers and ranchers.”

The bill passed the markup stage this week, with a 37-24 vote along party lines. However, either the House or the Senate could strike the wording from the bill during their individual votes.

The post Farm Groups Urge Legislators to Allow Changes to the Packers and Stockyards Act appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Previously, SNAP requirements stated that “able-bodied” adults 18-49 years old without dependents had to show they were enrolled in a job training program or worked for at least 80 hours a month in order to receive assistance. The legislation, signed into law by President Biden earlier this month, stretches that age range to 54 years old, although veterans, the homeless and young adults who were previously in foster care are exempted. The change is expected to be implemented gradually, according to the USDA. In October 2023, adults aged 50-52 will have to abide by the new rules. By the fall of 2024, adults up to 54 will have to adhere to new proof-of-work standards. 

Republicans who were involved in finalizing the debt ceiling legislation, notably House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, plugged the new work requirements as a win for welfare reform, by “putting people back to work.”

But advocates such as Gina Plata-Nino, deputy director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center, reject those assertions. She says there’s simply no evidence to indicate a proof-of-work requirement is an effective policy measure in growing the workforce. 

“This largely comes down to a misunderstanding of how difficult it is for low-income Americans to access these programs and, unfortunately, it’s going to be the cause of food insecurity rates spiking,” she says.  

Approximately one in 10 Americans experience food insecurity, but food banks and charities across the country have recently noted an uptick in demand. Last month in Boston, the line for the American Red Cross Food Pantry stretched the length of two football fields, exceeding some of the worst periods during the pandemic, while simultaneously reaching the second-highest monthly traffic since it opened 41 years ago. In April, more than half of the shelves were bare at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. And in central Ohio, Reuters reported that the number of households seeking food bank aid has increased by nearly half since last year. 

Photography by Ringo Chiu on Shutterstock

Plata-Nino points to a study from the American Economic Association, analyzing SNAP’s work-reporting requirement. It found that the reporting requirements do not “increase economic self-sufficiency.” The research also showed a 53-percent reduction in program participation. On the contrary, she notes that when SNAP benefits were issued during the pandemic, it reduced poverty by 9.6 percent and child poverty by 14 percent in states with emergency allotments.

Additional studies have shown that every $1 invested in SNAP benefits yields between $1.50 and $1.80 in economic activity during economic downturns.

The debt ceiling legislation falls on the heels of a Congressional decision to end pandemic-era emergency allotments to the SNAP program, which will impact more than 41 million Americans. Ed Bolen, director of SNAP state strategies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, notes this earlier decision and says the additional changes to SNAP will likely push more marginalized groups farther into a state of poverty.

“It’s very unfortunate to see that in negotiations on what’s required for the government to keep its debt obligations and pay its bills, people think it’s worth taking away a program that provides basic food assistance to low-income folks,” he says. “The older you get, the more health challenges you experience and the harder it is to find a job.” 

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released estimates that some 750,000 adults aged 50-54 will lose food assistance as a result of increasing the age on the proof-of-work requirements. 

If individuals are unable to find work, and they are subsequently cut off from the program, it could exacerbate or create health challenges, says Bolen. This creates a dangerous cycle for already marginalized Americans. He adds that the new exemptions will be as much of a burden on eligible groups as they will be on the state agencies who will be tasked to fill out paperwork and provide documents to check all the boxes. 

Both Bolen and Plata-Nino believe the success of the exemption will largely depend on the resources of individual states, the training provided to caseworkers and how well the USDA co-ordinates and collaborates on the roll-out. 

Modern Farmer contacted the USDA to inquire about next steps and co-ordination plans with states to ensure eligible groups are supported in the exemption process. 

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act contains important exemptions from work requirement time limits for homeless individuals, veterans, and youth aging out of foster care, who often face significant barriers to employment that make it difficult to meet work requirements,” a USDA spokesperson wrote in an email. 

“We are working diligently to review the legislation, communicate with state agencies, work with our federal partners at the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, and issue guidance as expeditiously as possible to meet the parameters of the law.”

Despite the debt ceiling legislation being signed into law, there is a handful of Democrats who also oppose the SNAP changes and say they will continue to put up a fight. On June 7, House Democrats who sit on the Agriculture Committee also took a stand against the bill’s measures. 

Rep. David Scott, ranking member on the committee, told Modern Farmer he will “fight tooth and nail” to oppose any “legislative vehicle” that makes access to food more difficult. 

“We have the resources and farming capacity to feed every single American. We should take pride in SNAP and our ability to lift millions out of poverty by ensuring they have access to food until they’re able to stand on their own two feet,” Scott wrote in an email, where he noted that 43 percent of all SNAP participants are children. “Politicians who want to increase hunger in America should expect fierce resistance. I won’t stand for it.”

Although Scott did not elaborate on how he plans to rectify the recent SNAP changes, those who are part of advocacy and food policy circles say there’s an opportunity to do so in the 2023 Farm Bill. The Food Research & Action Centre has already proposed a slate of measures that includes expanding SNAP benefits for immigrants, people with disabilities and college students with lower incomes and eliminating three-month time limits on SNAP eligibility for certain working-age adults who cannot document sufficient hours of work, allowing benefits to be used at more food retailers. 

The Congressional Budget Office’s recent baseline projects that the next Farm Bill in the United States will cost US$1.51 trillion, making it the most expensive one in the country’s history, with 80 percent of the spending accounting for nutrition assistance. 

The post Changes to SNAP Benefits Spark Fear of Hunger Crisis appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Render of Indigo Commons courtesy of CultivateLAND

The pair ran that farm for three years as Houston built up around them. Eventually, the outskirts of the city were encroaching on their farm, and the pair ran into bureaucratic issues. They wanted to renovate restrooms for the growing farm team, but they weren’t able to get the right building approvals. If they wanted to improve the road on their property, they were looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars; they weren’t making that even with the success of their CSA. 

And then, Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. While the nearby Brazos River didn’t flood, the guys lost everything. All of their crops. They took it as a sign to rethink their plans and how they were making use of the land. If developments were going up around them left and right, well, they could jump on that bandwagon, too. But they would do it as farmers first, part of the recent trend of farmers rethinking how best to use their land in the face of uncertain economic futures.

That’s when Indigo was born. 

“We’re urbanists at heart, as well as the farmers,” says Snodgrass. With that in mind, Snodgrass and Garrett planned out a new community, using their existing land as a base. The goal is to have 750 residential homes, commercial and public areas, even a lake—all centered around a 42-acre working farm. 

Render of Indigo Commons courtesy of CultivateLAND

After a few months of grading and readying the area, they broke ground at Indigo two weeks ago. This summer, the water and sewer lines will get installed, along with the critical infrastructure and paving. Then, in the fall, builders will start on the homes, with the grand opening currently scheduled for early 2024. 

Throughout the building process, the pair says the goal is to weave nature and agriculture into the fabric of the neighborhood from the ground up. For example, the lake is also the drainage facility of the community. “We’re investing more than you would into a typical drainage facility, in order to make a wildlife habitat for birds and fish,” says Snodgrass. Investing in the natural benefits of the lake in turn “make it a more engaging amenity for residents who want to go there, for birdwatching, and they can fish in the lake, they can ride in a kayak, instead of it just being a typical retention pond.” 

But it’s the 42-acre production farm that will anchor the community. Six acres will be devoted to vegetable production, with community plots and farmer’s markets. The other 36 acres will house livestock, both broiler chickens and hens, and traditional row crops, with some fun additions such as watermelon thrown in. If this sounds like a big undertaking, it is. But, for Garrett, it’s also exciting. “Farmers by nature are stubborn,” he says. “When we started our development journey, we were both stubborn. And we knew we were just going to have to do all of these things to accomplish our vision, to build the community that we’d be proud of.” 

Render of Indigo Commons courtesy of CultivateLAND

While not everyone who lives in the community will necessarily be connected to the farm, residents will have access to the community garden plots and the vegetables produced onsite through a farmer’s market. Snodgrass and Garrett hope that many of the farm’s workers would also choose to live in the community and that people want to participate in community gardening projects. 

That means, the guys say, that they want to make the units affordable within the growing Houston real-estate market and provide enough of a community and active neighborhood to entice people. They are looking at building vertically, committing to two- or three-story homes, rather than sprawling bungalows on huge lots. “Then you can condense everyone into a smaller space, and they can then walk to everything they need to get to. And we can reserve huge portions of the property for wildlife habitat and agriculture,” says Snodgrass. It’s a form of conservation development, where city planners start at the center (a main street or a community square) and build out from there, keeping in mind the facilities people will need as the neighborhood grows. 

But when they initially tried to explain their vision to financial planners, there was resistance. “Our biggest challenge every step of the way was financial people and city managers saying ‘well, where has this been done before?’ We think we can be that new model,” says Snodgrass. “We’re farmers. We’re focused on the biodiversity within our habitats, interplanting, crop rotations and all those things that really [impact] how soil systems work. And we want to get our soil into healthy cycles. We take the same approach when we look at development, and I think it is shocking to some people.” 

Still, Snodgrass says he and Garrett have worked hard to maintain their optimism and ethos throughout the project so far, and they will continue into the future. Instead, with this first agriculture-focused community as a model, they can tweak the formula and keep going. “Indigo will not be our last community.”

The post Building an Agri-hood: When the Development Revolves Around the Farm appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“The nomenclature changes with the marketing decisions of industry actors,” says Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, author of Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food, who notes that these actors—including food startups and environmental nonprofits—choose their words carefully in the hopes of winning consumer acceptance. (Wurgaft prefers “cultured meat” due to its relatively neutral proximity to the technology that defines it.)

In 2013, Dutch scientist Mark Post presented the first cultured meat product, a hamburger made possible by the financial support of American entrepreneur Sergey Brin. A decade later, cultured meat (by any name) still is not for sale on supermarket shelves. 

It is also still pending approval by the United States Department of Agriculture, despite some confusion in the media over the matter. In November of 2022, Upside Foods, a cultured meat producer based in Berkeley, California, received what is known as a “No Questions Letter” from the United States Food and Drug Administration. Wurgaft explains that this has since been “treated as regulatory approval in the media, when in fact it means that the FDA simply doesn’t have any questions to ask about the process.”  

A cultivation room at Upside Foods’ Engineering, Production & Innovation Center. (Photo via Upside Foods)

With or without government approval, leaders in the field continue to doubt the scalability of cultured meat. The result, Wurgaft says, is a “bizarre situation in which we have plants in the Bay Area shutting down while others are opening saying they will have a product very soon.” 

Nevertheless, a State of the Industry Report published in February by the US-based nonprofit organization The Good Food Institute reported that the cellular agriculture industry now comprises 156 companies working in 26 countries and is expected to continue growing, thanks to the investment of $896 million in 2022. 

The industry, however, will not continue its growth in Italy, which, as of March 27, 2023, has taken action to become the first country to formally ban cultured meat products within its national borders. In a press release about the ban, the Italian government claims it is acting in the interest of “preserving the agricultural and culinary heritage” of Italy.  

In the weeks since the announcement of the ban, its opponents—both in Italy and around the world—have vocalized their support for cultured meat on the grounds that it offers meat without slaughter and the reduction of pollution associated with industrial animal agriculture. While inspirational, the promises of the cultured meat industry remain aspirational. They also tend to omit the fact that this form of food production is not entirely harmless. Cultured meat makes no claims of being wholly vegan, but its proponents rarely advertise the details of its creation, which requires blood from a cow fetus in addition to cells from a live animal. Research by Frontiers also demonstrates that, while the production of cultured meat may produce less methane than conventional animal agriculture, it could produce more carbon dioxide in the long term. 

Despite ongoing obstacles, the original goals associated with cellular agriculture continue to spur startups to experiment with every kind of meat, from steaks to chicken nuggets to sashimi-style seafood, with the intention of replacing meat eaten both in the home and while dining out. “In terms of impact, numbers and scale, the ideal would be to undercut the forms of cheap meat seen at places such as McDonald’s so that we can work against the incredible environmental and animal cruelty footprints of the meat industry worldwide,” says Wurgaft.  

When it comes to making the most sustainable and ethical decision, Wurgaft points out that vegetarian sources of protein, such as chickpeas, will always be the better option in comparison to all types of meat products; however, this fact is rebuffed as “naive” when brought up in the discourse around cultured meat. “There’s this story about what is realistic to expect from the global population.” 

The “realistic” expectation is that the worldwide consumption of meat will continue to increase in line with a globalized version of the meat-centric Western Diet. It is precisely because of this global dietary trend—which manifested in the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome in 1986—that Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food Movement. As with the ban on cultured meat, the movement embodies the Italian tendency to favor tradition over innovation. 

Farmers Alessandra Rellini and Stefano Pinna make Italian-style cured meats with pastured pork sourced from their farm. (Photo courtesy Agricola Farm)

Farmers Alessandra Rellini and Stefano Pinna sit squarely at the center of this discourse in more ways than one. Rellini and Pinna are Italian immigrants, born and raised in Northern Italy, who relocated to Vermont, where they co-own Agricola Farm. They raise a variety of livestock, including close to 200  pigs, which they butcher at a facility near the farm to produce Italian-style cured meats. 

“It’s a love-hate relationship with my traditions,” says Rellini. “In one sense, I love the way that Italy preserves certain traditions—it’s what makes me feel alive and connected to other generations of Italians. At the same time, innovation and evolving is part of our human nature.” 

“I don’t think our culture will disappear,” adds Pinna. “But I can see that my generation and younger generations are getting too far from food production.” 

Rellini and Pinna have many practices in place to ensure the health of both the pigs and their farmland, including minimizing the use of commodity crops such as corn and soybean as feed in favor of fresh pasture when possible and following a rotational grazing plan that involves moving the pigs every two weeks and seeding cover crops on fields after grazing. 

Alessandra Rellini and Stefano Pinna raise their pigs on pastureland. (Photo courtesy Agricola Farm)

Among Agricola Farm’s selection of cured meats is lonzino, a product similar to the more popular prosciutto. With a recorded history of production on the Italian peninsula dating back to the eleventh century BC and a Protected Designation of Origin label that limits production to a certain area within Italy and requires the meat be aged for a minimum of 400 days, prosciutto is precisely the kind of product the Italian government is seeking to protect. Rellini and Pinna uphold similar traditional practices on American soil in the making of all their products, including the lonzino, which is aged for four months. Add to this the 12 to 16 months of the pig’s life before slaughter—more than twice as long as the life of most commercially raised pigs—and the result is two years of skill, hard work and care put into a single product. A portion of cultured meat, by comparison, can be grown in as little as two weeks. 

Faster, however, is not necessarily better, especially if it encourages an even greater increase in global meat consumption. Rellini points out that Italian cured meats, which are deeply flavorful because of the long curing process, are “a great way to consume meat because you don’t have a whole steak—you have a few slices and it’s satisfying.” 

While Rellini and Pinna state that they would not eat cultured meat, Rellini says, “I see a problem with banning it. Sometimes, as Italians, we are too quick to block change.” 

With the world’s population expected to surpass 9 billion people by 2050, there is no doubt that our global food system will need to change to adapt. The question of whether the most ethical and sustainable solutions can be found in the past, by carrying on historic farming traditions like Rellini and Pinna, or in the future, by inventing new means of food production, will be determined as much by consumers as by countries—and it all comes down to culture.

The post Italy’s Ban on Cultured Meat Raises Questions About Innovation Versus Tradition appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Germinating seeds and growing food on the red planet is difficult, particularly when it comes to Martian soil. The soil on Mars contains a high level of perchlorate salts, which are toxic for plants. 

To simulate Martian perchlorate levels, a team of researchers from the University of Arkansas gathered soil from the Mojave Desert, where the desert earth is similar to that on Mars. The area was developed by NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2007 as the Mojave Mars simulant (MMS). Researchers mainly use the area for soil sampling, but they’ve also test-driven rovers and practiced using sampling equipment in icy conditions. 

The research team grew three varieties of rice, including one strain of wild rice and two strains with gene-edited lines. The goal was to produce rice better suited to drought, salty conditions and a lack of natural sugars. All three rice strains were grown in three mediums: soil from the MMS, a regular potting soil mixture and a combination of the two. The plants were able to grow in the all-MMS soil, but they didn’t thrive. Instead, the combined potting mixture provided the best results. Researchers found that a 75-percent MMS soil to 25-percent potting soil mixture created improved plants. They also discovered that plants could still take root with one gram of perchlorate per kilogram of soil, but three grams per kg was the upper limit—past that, nothing would grow. 

The team presented its findings at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference last month. Its next steps will be to experiment with other Martian soil simulants and other rice varieties that tolerate high salt concentrations. The team will also work to determine how much perchlorate can leach into the plant from the soil. 

It’s not just potential Martian settlers that could benefit from this experiment. There are several regions on this planet that are covered with high-salinity soil, such as parts of the Australian desert. 

But perchlorate salts is just one issue facing would-be Martian farmers. Martian soil is lighter and looser than soils on Earth, meaning they would drain water faster than our soil. It’s also missing many nutrients on which we rely to grow crops, such as nitrogen. Plus, Mars has about a third of Earth’s gravity, which could be disorienting for plants that rely on gravity to root into the ground. 

However, we may be closer than we think to providing astronauts with a semi-varied diet. In recent studies, wheat, mustard and tomatoes have all performed well in simulated conditions. Those on the mission to Mars may not be able to order a pizza, but they might just be able to make one themselves.

The post How to Grow Rice on Mars appeared first on Modern Farmer.

While the ruling was fractured and reflected complex legal questions, it is a major victory for those working to improve farm animal welfare. A number of states will undoubtedly take advantage of the power that the Supreme Court has recognized.

As a specialist in animal law, I expect that this will result in a patchwork of laws that are likely to make national meat producers very uncomfortable. Ultimately, it could push Congress to set federal standards.

More indoor space for sows

Pork producers sued California over a law that the state’s voters adopted in 2018 via ballot initiative with over 63 percent approval. It set new conditions for raising hogs, veal calves and egg-laying chickens whose meat or eggs are sold in California. The state produces virtually no pork, but represents about 15 percent of the US pork market.

At most commercial hog farms, pregnant sows are kept in pens called gestation crates that measure about 2 feet by 7 feet—enough room for the animals to sit, stand and lie down, but not enough to turn around. California’s law requires that each sow must have at least 24 square feet of floor space—nearly double the amount that most now get. It does not require farmers to raise free-range pigs; just provide more square footage for hogs in buildings.

The National Pork Producers Council argued that this requirement imposed heavy compliance costs on farmers across the US, since large hog farms may house thousands of sows, and that it restricted interstate commerce. The Constitution’s commerce clause delegates authority to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government. In a series of cases over the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has made clear that it will strike down any state law that seeks to control commerce in another state or give preference to in-state commerce.

States control farm animal welfare

Congress has remained mute on standards for handling farm animals, which are not covered under the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. Consequently, each state regulates this issue within its borders.

For example, in recent years, nine states have outlawed housing egg-laying chickens in “battery cages” that have been the industry standard for decades. These wire enclosures are so small that the birds cannot spread their wings.

Chickens in battery cages. (Photo: Shutterstock)

And nine states in addition to California have adopted laws requiring pork producers to phase out gestation crates. Massachusetts’ law, like California’s, would also apply to retail sales of pork raised elsewhere, but its enforcement has been on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the California case.

California’s market power

The California law says that if producers want to sell pork in California, they must raise pigs under conditions that comply with the state’s regulations. Farmers do not have to meet these standards unless they want to sell in California. The same requirement is applied to producers located in California and those based elsewhere, so the law does not directly discriminate between states in a way that would constitute a clear commerce clause violation.

Producers of eggs and veal that sell in California are on track to implement new space requirements for their animals under the law. But instead of working out how to comply, the pork industry sought to have the courts set the California law aside.

However, as the Supreme Court noted, major producers, including Hormel and Tyson, have said they will be able to comply with the California standard. Niman Ranch, a network of family farmers and ranchers who raise livestock humanely and sustainably, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court supporting California.

A fractured verdict

In rejecting the pork industry’s position, justices in the majority disagreed as to why the California law should be upheld. Some held that pork producers had not proved that the law would substantially interfere with interstate commerce. Others argued that regardless of the degree of interference, it was inappropriate to ask courts to balance compliance costs for the industry against California voters’ moral concerns about animal welfare.

“While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, “the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett largely supported Gorsuch’s opinion.

Similarly, dissenting justices differed as to why the California law posed a constitutional problem. Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Ketanji Brown Jackson asserted that the substantial interference requirement had been met, and they would have remanded the case back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Only Justice Brett Kavanaugh held that the California law should be held void because the positive animal welfare outcomes were not substantial enough to overcome the increased cost it imposed on pork producers.

Beyond pork

Farmers and animal welfare advocates understand that with this win, states with the most progressive animal welfare policies—primarily West Coast and Northeast states—will be able to effectively set national standards for the well-being of many agricultural animals, including chickens, dairy cows and cattle. Conceivably, California might also be able to require basic conditions for human labor, such as minimum wage standards, associated with products sold in California.

I expect that within five years, Congress will enact national legislation on farm animal welfare issues that will preempt differing state laws. It is impossible to predict now whether a new national law would improve animal welfare or adopt existing poor welfare practices – but California’s win represents a major victory for advocates who have sought for years to improve conditions for farm animals across the US.

David Favre is a Professor of Law at Michigan State University.

This is an update of an article originally published October 4, 2022. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Supreme Court’s Ruling on Humane Treatment of Pigs Could Catalyze a Wave of New Animal Welfare Laws appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Within a week, soldiers had come to his village near Zaporizhzhya, in south-east Ukraine. He started hearing of bombs dropping and deaths rising in cities such as Kyiv. He even saw bombs hitting an airfield close to his house, all the while growing increasingly worried. 

Still, he was composed. Soldiers were now occupying most of the homes near him, and had cut off the ability to move freely. That was tough for Mistiuk, who farmed wheat, sunflowers and legumes over about 500 hectares of land. 

At one point, Mistiuk and his father had to prepare grain for their chickens, and they needed to drive to the grain shed. On the way there, a soldier “started interrogating us. He searched our car for bullets. He didn’t find any, and he allowed us to keep going, but still, those soldiers were quite dangerous. They threatened to shell the city and kill everybody,” Mistiuk says through a translator provided by PR Army. 

It was a month into the full-scale invasion, and supplies were running low. When Mistiuk realized he didn’t have enough food for his then-eight-month-old daughter, the panic finally set in. He knew his family had to flee to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

“Of course, this was not easy,” Mistiuk says, now settled in Lviv. “They interrogated us a lot at the border, but we still managed to escape.” 

Mistiuk is one of the lucky ones. Some estimates put the number of killed or injured civilians at more than 25,000, with millions more impacted. Across Europe, more than eight million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded in border countries such as Poland and Slovakia. As the occupation drags on, farm fields have been left to fallow or, worse, been destroyed. Many fields are now littered with landmines and explosives. Ukraine is one of the world’s top producers of wheat, sunflower and barley. Without these crucial ingredients making their way out through the Black Sea, global prices for the commodities rose dramatically and fueled food insecurity. In Ukraine, a country heavily dependent on agriculture, the losses in the sector are estimated to reach nearly $9 billion. The damage to bombed and shelled granaries was so severe that the Kyiv School of Economics estimates losses of roughly 12 million tons of grain. 

Now, in the midst of spring planting season, many farmers must decide if working their fields is worth the risk.

Ihor Mistiuk with his family. Photography submitted.

Traversing the minefield

Farmers in Ukraine can generally be sorted into three groups. The first, like Mistiuk, have been displaced from their farms. Either their land has been destroyed or it is in the remaining occupied territory, mainly along the southern and eastern borders of the country. The second group of farmers still have access to their lands, but they have been unable to get their crops out of the country effectively. The usual ports of export have been blocked; trains through Poland, Slovakia and Hungary have been banned at times, causing bottlenecks and wildly fluctuating grain prices in central Europe. Ports along the Black Sea have also been difficult to traverse, with the port in Mariupol under occupation, and others near Kherson and Donetsk closed. One of the only remaining ports is in Odesa, but shipments out have been slowed. A UN-backed deal, which allows ships hauling grain to pass through the port, has been under threat, though there are reports that Russia has extended it for 60 days. Without access to that grain, some of the most food-insecure countries, such as Somalia, move closer to famine.   

Andriy Dykun, head of the Ukrainian Agri Council, says that, ironically, farmers are now dealing with spoiled grain. “We can store it, but we cannot export it out due to the logistics. And, of course, some of the grain spoiled in the occupied territories because of the bombing on the warehouses and grain silos.” But there’s no way of knowing just how much grain spoiled or stolen.

So, the first two groups of farmers either have no land to farm or have nowhere to send their crops. But the third group is dealing with something far more dangerous: landmines—thousands of them. 

Oleksandr Schelokov with some of his goats. Photography submitted.

Oleksandr Schelokov, a dairy farmer near Kyiv, has come to know the landmines intimately. “Just yesterday, we found a mine in the forest. It’s the only place I can go with my goats, and there are a lot of mines still left,” Schelokov explains through a translator. “Bombs can go off anywhere in Kyiv, almost anytime. But I’m most afraid of the minefields and the forests.” 

On the night of the invasion in February, Schelokov didn’t hesitate. His farm is too close to Kyiv, and the bombing was immediate. He gathered his wife, three daughters and other family and neighbors and tried to take shelter in his house. However, they lost power and water quickly. Schelokov knew they had to flee. 

“As the bombing grew..my daughters were very afraid,” says Schelokov. “We first tried to go on the highway, but it was closed by Russians. Then we fled through the fields.” Schelokov made the difficult decision to split his family up. Half went up towards Kyiv and the other half south, towards Uman. But Schelokov turned around and went home. 

“I returned to the farm. I was responsible for all of these animals. And they were without food, without water. Those animals needed me. I saw some of my neighbors had just opened the gates of their farms and their animals were in the wild. Those animals died very early because of the bombs. At that time, I felt a heavy weight, a tightness.” 

Before the invasion, Schelokov had cows and goats in his dairy, spread out over three locations on the outskirts of Kyiv. Two of his farms were completely destroyed, including those animals. The guilt that he still feels about that is palpable. He says he has roughly 38 cows and two dozen goats remaining on the third site, where his family home stands. He hopes to grow his herds this year and restore his farms, replacing both animals and destroyed equipment. However, it will be a long project to take on, as his farm is surrounded by landmines. “There is no safety here at all,” he says. 

Schelokov now has to run his goats through nearby forests, which also have landmines. Photography submitted.

Outside help

One of the many difficulties that farmers like Schelokov face is that there’s no way of knowing how many landmines and explosives await them across the country. Humanitarian aid organizations have come into the country to start demining efforts, but there aren’t reliable estimates for the actual mines they face. They only know that the demining work will take years. 

One of those companies is FMC Corporation, a global ag-tech company headquartered in the US, but with offices worldwide. The company is working with The HALO Trust, a humanitarian agency that demines areas in former warzones. FMC will support the HALO team monetarily; 3% of the revenue they generate in Ukraine will go to demining efforts. President and CEO Mark Douglas says the entire FMC team understands that this is simply the beginning of the support it intends to offer. “I think we’ll learn a lot in 2023, in terms of how HALO works and what we need to fund. But as we go through 2024, 2025, 2026 and, hopefully, conditions improve and we get some form of resolution in Ukraine, that’s when the accelerated work will really begin.” 

Landmine Clearance by The HALO Trust team. Photography by Chris Strickland via The HALO Trust.

In addition to financially supporting the demining efforts, FMC shut down its entire operations team in Russia within two weeks of the invasion. Douglas says it was, in part, a humanitarian decision. The company gave all the assets of its plant to the general manager and left. But it was also, in part, a business decision, and it wasn’t an easy one. There were approximately 80 Russian employees that were left behind. There was the financial impact of leaving a market so abruptly—it cost the company roughly $25 million. 

“I’ve never had a discussion before with my president of the [European division] where we were buying satellite phones and bulletproof vests and other equipment for our employees. That’s not the normal course of business,” says Douglas. “When you’re in that discussion, something has to change. Does it feel good? It feels good that we’re doing the right thing for our people. And we’re doing the right thing for the people of Ukraine.”

Photography by Chris Strickland via The HALO Trust

The Ukrainian Agri Council’s Dykun says mines are the major impediment for farmers across the country at this point, followed by a lack of transportation—namely pickup trucks. Lightweight vehicles such as pickups are easy for farmers to operate and transport their grain in, and the Council is now looking for vehicles from Europe or even through the US and Canada that they can transport to Ukraine to aid. 

“For us to leave Ukraine and live somewhere else, it is not our choice,” says Dykun. “It’s very difficult, but it’s not a matter of earning money, it’s a matter of survival. So we are one year in, and we cannot just leave.”  

Even farmers like Schelokov, who are back on their farms, aren’t able to produce much or make money. “There is no profit. I do not make money on the farm. Friends and relatives actually helped me financially, and charitable foundations keep me going. They helped me buy ten more goats and feed.” But between the cost of running his dairy and staying safe (Schelokov’s eldest daughters are in other countries for school, and much of his family is still scattered), there’s no profit to speak of yet. 

Still, he’s back on his farm. For farmers like Mistiuk, there’s not much to do but wait. He estimates that it could take ten or 15 years to get his operation back up and running. His equipment was destroyed, and his fields are full of landmines. “I have acquaintances from Kherson, which was liberated in the autumn, and they told me that they had to pay $200 or $300 for one hectare [of demining]. Imagine paying for my [500] hectares?”

Until then, Mistiuk and his wife and toddler wait in Lviv. Mistiuk takes on odd jobs and has worked at a friend’s farm for now, until he can get back to his own home. And he waits. “I feel that the war has kind of frozen us,” says Mistiuk. “The topic of the war in Ukraine gets less and less attention from the public, and, eventually, the world can forget about us. That is a pity, but still people continue to live. They do not have any choice but to live.”

The post ‘There Is No Safety At All.’ Living and Farming in a War Zone appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But those who raise horses for human consumption wonder how many of those seasons are left. 

Jane, who asked that Modern Farmer not share her real name over fear of harassment from animal rights activists, has been breeding and raising Belgians and Percherons for nearly two decades in northern Alberta. About 25 percent of her animals get sent to an exporter at five to 10 months. There, they are raised for another 18 to 24 months before being shipped overseas for processing.

“We treat every horse with love and care, but the meat business is essential and complementary to our family’s entire operation and preserving cultural traditions as a Métis person. It would be hard to imagine life without it,” says Jane. Horses have important cultural significance and jobs in many Indigenous communities, including sleigh and wagon rallies. For Jane, those rallies are a way to preserve community and commune with nature, and she’ll typically attend a rally four times a year. But, she says, she’s not able to own and train horses and maintain their upkeep simply for these rallies. 

Political Tug of War

Exporting horses for slaughter has become a thorny social and political issue in Canada. The country is the eighth largest exporter of horse meat in the world. In 2022, the industry brought in nearly $19 million to the country’s economy. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government committed to banning the live exporting of the animals upon re-election in 2021. 

Calls from animal rights advocates for the federal government to follow through on those promises have grown louder in recent months. Most notably, Canadian singer-songwriter Jann Arden drafted a petition in February, asking the federal government to ban live export of horses for slaughter. Around the same time, a non-profit group called Animal Justice filed a legal complaint with the government after a December 2022 shipment of live horses to Japan exceeded the legal 28-hour limit where horses are allowed to be in crates without food or water. But the central concern among groups is that the horses are treated inhumanely, including when they are transported by airplane overseas, says Kaitlyn Mitchell, Animal Justice’s director of legal advocacy.

“The fact is that Canada has some of the weakest animal transport laws in the western world, and horses can be legally transported for up to 28 hours without food, water, and rest,” Mitchell wrote in an emailed response. “As the December 2022 shipment of horses from Winnipeg shows, those in the industry do not always comply with these incredibly weak standards… three horses collapsed during their grueling trip overseas, which was well over the 28-hour limit. Since the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has refused to take any enforcement action in relation to that shipment, we are now considering our own legal options to ensure the law is upheld.”

Meanwhile, those in the horse meat industry say opposing parties are misinformed. And many sources told Modern Farmer they have been afraid to present their side publicly over the possibility that animal activists might find their operation, trespass on their property and issue threats. Their belief is that an export ban would result in negative implications from an economic, social and animal welfare standpoint. 

A Sensitive Issue

Jane, who is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, says the policy change would impact her family’s ability to sustain its business. But more than that, she feels the decision is unpleasantly familiar to a past policy that sought to discriminate against Indigenous people looking to produce and harvest their own food. 

The measure, called the Peasant Farm Policy, was implemented in the late 1800s by the federal government, and it set limits on Indigenous agriculture in the prairie provinces. It restricted the types of tools First Nations farmers could use on reserve lands, along with how much they grew and what they could sell, and reduced their ability to compete with settlers on the open market. 

“The policy was trying to set us back because we were becoming too competitive… People still haven’t forgotten about that,” says Jane. “Is the pressure coming from rich, white women, like Jann Arden? These are outsiders who don’t know the industry.” 

Jennifer Woods, director of the Animal Transportation Association and a veterinarian by trade, has been conducting independent audits throughout Canada’s animal agriculture supply chain since 2007. This involves going to see breeders and exporters and meeting CFIA officials at the airport to see the animals off. In the case of horse exports, she says she has been to countries such as Japan, to monitor how the animals are tended to on foreign soil. As a result, she echoed Jane’s sentiment about opponents being misinformed.

“There are a lot of other animal welfare issues that people are not paying attention to right now. Horses not being used for export are being mistreated and abandoned at feedlots,” Woods says. “I think the opposition is less about how humane it is to export and more about people’s sensitivities around eating horse meat.”

Japan, which has relied on Canada for the past 30 years, considers the raw meat of horses as a delicacy called “basashi.” In the country’s restaurants, customers will pay as much as 8,000 yen or about $100 a serving, comparable to what Canadians might pay for a top of-the-line steak. Recent statistics say Japan accounts for the largest portion of exports at an annual value of $14.7 million.

Woods says the December 2022 incident was a rare case, but that every proper protocol was followed under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s regulations.

“As anyone who travels knows, you are at the mercy of airlines and weather when traveling—by air, land, train or boat. That is why CFIA requires that all transporters have contingency plans in place to make sure you have a plan when your trip is going to exceed the allowed time,” she says. “Does it happen often with the Japanese horses? No. This is the first one in a long time.” 

Canadian government statistics state the mortality rate of horses at all stages of export transport since 2013 is 0.012 percent. 

Under CFIA regulations, horses are loaded into crates with the agency’s veterinary staff. Transporters are required to use foam pool noodles and flexible poles with rags on the end to start horses down a ramp into the crates. This is followed by a visual inspection to verify horses can stand in their preferred position and do not come into contact with the container cover. Inspectors are also required to verify at the airport that no horses are down or showing signs of distress that would make them unfit for transport. 

Woods says her concern is that an export ban would have the opposite effect from what animal rights activists are intending.  The 2006 Horse Slaughter Prevention Act in the US has increased the number of abandoned horses, Woods says, as people don’t have the financial means to care for them or a market to send them. 

Prior to the legislation being passed, a study conducted by the Animal Welfare Council Inc., said the ban would likely result in a large number of abandoned or unwanted horses flooding public animal rescue facilities that are already overwhelmed. The report found that in 2005, the cost to maintain an unwanted horse until its natural death was on average $2,340 per year per horse, amounting to as much as $25,740. This figure does not include veterinary costs incurred if the horse is sick or injured.

An Uncertain Future

Kevin, an exporter from eastern Ontario, has seen the impact of the US legislation first hand. He has also asked that his full name not be shared for this story. He regularly attends market auctions where owners in the US are having trouble finding a buyer and as a result will abandon the animals on site. 

“We’ll sometimes pick up horses that aren’t in the best condition and give them a good life,” he says.

Roughly 60 percent of Kevin’s horses are raised for meat. The remainder are sold as work or competition horses. He also maintains that opponents of the industry don’t understand the details, stating that those who are in the market for horse meat, especially Japan, are very particular about quality. He’s had buyers travel to Canada to inspect the animals before purchase.

“This is a product and we want our product to arrive at its destination in the best shape it can possibly be. Would you want to go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of grapes that were smashed?” he said. “People think that we’re evil and we don’t care. We do our best day in and day out to ensure these animals are kept in good health.”

Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Marie-Claude Bibeau, did not respond to a request for comment on the issue, but has publicly acknowledged the opposition to the ban and Arden’s recent petition. In her written reply, she re-affirmed the government’s commitment to implement a ban on the live export of horses for slaughter, while stating that the government is “performing its due diligence to minimize potential unintended consequences” around legal obligations, international trade commitments and relations, as well as acts and regulations involving animals more broadly. “Prior to the ban of the live export of horses for slaughter, the CFIA continues, in the meantime, to inspect all live horse shipments before export by air to verify that the horses are fit to travel and are transported in accordance with the Health of Animals Act.

Jane and Kevin, and others like them in the agriculture world who have relied on the horse meat market to support their families, hope governing officials take a moment to hear the voices of those who spend day in and day out with the animals. At present, it’s not clear to either breeders or exporters what the federal government’s plan or timeline is going forward.

The post Animal Advocates Push for an End to Canadian Horse Meat Market appeared first on Modern Farmer.