Daily Archive

Cows in a feedlot laying in manure by Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, on Flickr

Rockin' The Suburbs by Jeff Power, on Flickr

Brought to you from your friends at Cargill, a vaccination for e. Coli! Not a human vaccine, thankfully, but a bovine vaccine. Of course, there are a few hitches:

In their own tests, the Nebraska researchers have found greater than 90 percent efficacy against colonization, but not the 99.9 percent effectiveness federal regulators want.

The two existing vaccines that have won approvals to date require multiple vaccinations or re-vaccinations, which some see as problematic.

Cargill’s involvement in the tests is seen as important because only a “top-down” vaccine program will be effective, according to observers like Smith.  He says that if only a handful of producers use vaccines, the effectiveness will be lost by the time cattle are co-mingled at the slaughterhouse.

So, e. Coli is reduced some, but grass feeding reduces incidence of e. Coli even more. Great that some of the beef will have fewer pathogens, but unless all industrial beef producers use it, the end product still won’t be as safe as it needs to be. It’s great news for Cargill that multiple injections are required, because they need all the financial boost they can get out of this after that 59% profit drop last quarter. And with that hefty profit loss, you know they’ll be pushing multiple injections and asking for legislation making their vaccine required.

Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) were involved in this issue before jurisdiction was determined to be under the USDA.

The vaccine isn’t even viable yet, but there is already confusion over which regulatory agency is in charge.

Right now, our political process doesn’t really understand the ways in which small producers of grassfed beef differ from large CAFOs. When this vaccine is mandated for large, industrial feedlot operations, it’s a good bet that it will also be required of your local grass farmer’s beeves as well. Which would be a shame: for the farmer because of increased costs, and for the diner, since this vaccine will likely be rushed into production without “downstream” testing. What differences will there be in the composition of the meat and how will that affect your body? Your children’s bodies? Your grandchildren’s bodies?

Industry can usually manage to tweak a solution for the problems they create. But the best solutions are not always industrial. Taking the cow out of the CAFO and returning it to grass has many advantages for the environment, the food supply, the humane treatment of the animal, the quality and nutrition of the beef produced. Even TIME Magazine knows it.

It all comes down to “meet your meat” and “know your farmer” again.

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.