Forget About Logic in Government's Approach to Illness on the Farm

One of the things that has hit Doug Kirkpatrick hardest about the bovine TB outbreak that has nearly destroyed his farm is the absence of logic in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) practices.

“It can drive you mad if you think about it too much,” he told me. “There is no logic.”

One of the things that doesn’t make sense is the idea that if a few animals are sick, the entire herd, and even non-herd animals, need to be destroyed. “If one of your kids gets sick, you don’t kill the entire family,” he says.

He especially mourns the 16 purebred hogs he had to destroy, even though it was cattle that tested positive for bovine TB. (“The biggest waste of prime pork I’ve ever seen.”) What would make much more sense would be to destroy the sick animals, and then regularly monitor the others to see how they do. Restrict their movements until it can be confirmed they aren’t becoming ill. Doug says that is how some European countries do it, though I haven’t been able to confirm that.

I’m intrigued as well with Miguel’s question as to whether the factory farms are treated the same, with their cattle being regularly tested for TB, and the farms shut down if a positive result occurs. I assumed the quarantining approach was a factory-farm practice inappropriately applied to small farms. But maybe it’s a factory-farm approach applied unequally to small farms. Anyone know more?

The most frustrating part of the government's approach is the difficulty of getting back to farming. It's understandable that the government wants to prevent another disease outbreak, but the issue Kirkpatrick has confronted is that the government seems most preoccupied with ensuring it doesn't have to pay any additional compensation for sick animals. Thus, the USDA tries to impose impossibly strict rules on the farmer resuming operations.

Another disconcerting practice associated with condemning a herd is allowing some of the meat to be sold commercially—without warning to consumers. Seems to me that if the animals are considered so potentially dangerous that they must be destroyed, then consumers should at least be made aware of the event, even if the animals are safe enough to eat.

This is exactly what happened to Doug Kirkpatrick’s herd. As I described in a BusinessWeek.com article, some 35 of his 55 animals made it into the food supply, including two animals that were diagnosed after their slaughter with bovine TB. Bon Appetit!

Comments

[Steve Bemis]

It's not about risk, and it's hypocritical to the extreme. In order to mitigate the government's cost to replace the animals destroyed, they deduct the sale proceeds from the amount they pay for the loss. In other words, in the name of health, they destroy animals which supposedly pose a risk, and then sell the meat with no warning concerning the supposed risk. Conclusion: there is no risk. Hence the whole charade is not about health. What other logical conclusion? Oops, I forgot, it's not about logic either.

[Lisa Imerman]

This is the exact issue with food safety I have brought up in front of the MI Agriculture Commission. It is the same with recalled meat (such as hamburger) that is found to be contaminated. There is a lag in time before a recall takes place, which means less of the meat is subject to the recall. The meat is not then thrown away, the processor then is allowed to cook it and it enters the food supply as a cooked product (in canned goods, frozen, boxed or restaurant meals). There is no true concern about food safety. The MDA claims that NAIS will allow it to trace contaminated food back to it's source all the way to the farm. That is not possible. Even when the food is traced (which is unlikely) it cannot be traced back to the farm. If the source of contaminated meat is found the best we can hope for is it being recalled and then resold as cooked. To me that is not logical or appetizing.

When I brought these points up to the MI Agriculture Commission they sat there and shook their heads in disagreement. It is funny, while they disagree that contaminated meat can be resold as cooked, they must not realize what the MDA is doing with confiscated cattle.