What do factory farms have to do with superbugs? Look no further than your "grown big quick factory farm" bacon you had for breakfast.
The unintended consequences of the efforts by mega-farmers to grow the 'Big Pig' (and fast) may have created the antibiotic resistant staph infection doctors call MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) - affectionately referred to as flesh-eating bacteria by some. As scientists worked to discover the origin of this nasty disease, it appears according to most fingers pointing, the likely culprits are industrial factory farms.
A staph infection typically can be treated with antibiotics, but this particular strain has developed and appears to be unaffected. So how did it come to this, you may wonder. Well, the answer appears to be in the abuse of medically-important antibiotics, which emerged as agribusiness worked to unnaturally increase the rates in which pigs go from piglets to bacon (or chicks to nuggets) all on behalf of padding the bottom line.
Because factory farms lack the committed, caring eye of a farmer, who appreciates his or her animals and knows his herd to be a group of many individual animals, agribusiness has standardized animal production and sought to have science be the shepherd's eye. The large-scale production of animals has led to feeding sub-therapeutic antibiotics to prevent diseases, rather than treating an animal with antibiotics once it is sick.
This is an ugly cycle that repeats itself with some very harmful unintended consequences. Crowd the animals and let them stand in filthiest of conditions that would challenge even the strongest of immune system. Feed the animals the drugs to keep them alive and then send them off to slaughter. Sell the meat so that we can have our all American fast foods. Then send the profits to some corporate headquarters (probably located in Manhattan) so company shareholders and corporate CEOs can enjoy high-falutin vacations, at the expense of public health and the environment.
In a recent article, Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health, NY Times columnist (and Yamhill, Oregon native) Nicholas Kristof describes in detail how the people in one Indiana community, which has been inundated by corporate hog farms have been experiencing increased levels of antibiotic-resistant staph infections.
As Kristof points out in his article, our move as a nation toward fast, cheap, meats has left our communities and public health vulnerable to all sorts of threats including antibiotic-resistant superbugs, among others, many of which may be largely undiscovered (and possibly only discovered when it’s too late).
This is why it is more important than ever for us eaters to seek out a family farmer and buy directly from someone we know is acting as a steward of the land and his or her community, as much they are a steward of their own animals. (Need to find a farmer? Go to an Oregon farmers market or visit the Eatwell Guide for a farmer near you!)
Factory farming will likely go down in history as a very bleak period in America’s agri-history where profits and corporate greed over-shadowed common sense and with terrible consequence. But it’s not too late for change.
It is time that eaters and our elected officials alike realize that Mother Nature always gets the last word, so it is in our interest to work with nature instead of manipulating that nature work for us. Support family farmers to ensure that our food, our farms, our communities, our country and our planet remain healthy for generations to come.
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