See this? It’s just another one of the countless industrial farming irrigation machines that have turned America’s farmland into a giant series of perfect circles.
Now take a look at what it was spraying when this picture was taken. That is way too dark to be water. It’s liquid manure. This is a big ol’ s***-spraying machine.
Mom-and-pop farms have long since given way in broad swathes of the country to giant corporate agribusinesses, and this is one of many reasons why. It is all about scale and efficiencies.
Grow grain on one farm, ship it to another, mix in chemicals and proteins, feed it to cows, sell the meat, ship the manure to another farm, and spray it on fruits and vegetables instead of paying to dispose of it.
There is no room to make a profit without minimizing costs and maximizing productivity.
When the cows are sent to slaughter, they can be processed at up to 400 per hour. There can be as little as 35 seconds to gut them and split them into sides, as two million pounds of different cuts are produced.
Chickens can go through even faster, with 200 killed per minute on some lines.
The need for speed and efficiency is creating all kinds of problems in our food supply chain that did not exist a generation ago, and it is tearing the FDA’s ability to even figure out what is going on in packing and processing plants apart.
The simple fact is this is a 21st century problem that the last major Dept. of Agriculture regulations overhaul back during Clinton’s second term simply can’t address. The system is hopelessly broken.
Completely Overwhelmed
“Our survey warns consumers that on a good day, their meat and poultry are inspected under an industry honor system, federal inspectors check paperwork, not food, and are prohibited from removing feces and other contaminants before products are stamped with the purple USDA seal of approval.”
That was Felicia Nestor, food safety project director with the Government Accountability Project, talking to ABC news several years after the current system in place was enacted.
Whatever combination of underfunding, bureaucratic waste, incompetence, or regulatory flaws are at work here, the simple fact is that the FDA has been hopelessly and completely overwhelmed for the past two decades. And it is only getting worse.
And truly useful microbial testing is all but nonexistent. A minimum of one chicken per 22,000 a week is tested for E. Coli; and inspectors only test a minimum of one of 300 beef carcasses per week.
Yet we haven’t even brought up the most common way food poisoning occurs, outside of the picture at the top.
Fruits and vegetables, leafy greens like lettuce and spinach in particular, are the leading sources of food poisoning from bacteria like E. Coli, Listeria, and Salmonella, according to the CDC.
Massive food recalls, like the spinach pulled from shelves several years ago across the nation, often result when contaminated produce makes it to conveyor belts and packing lines and smears bacteria across all the equipment.
All told, the FDA’s inability to fulfill its mandate to proactively protect Americans’ health is reflected in the one in six Americans who get food poisoning every year, or 48 million people. 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.
Instead, it has been reduced to a triage and documentation role. Its most effective way is to wait until people start dying, and scramble to track down the source.
Finally, after two decades of the problem only getting worse at the FDA, a key change from an unlikely source is about to completely change the situation.
Frontline Tech
A new major overhaul, called the Food Safety Modernization Act, is in the works for the FDA. Instead of an honor system for safety and limited liability for companies, they will now have to prove they are actively taking measures to prevent food poisoning.
This bill also includes three times more FDA inspections, required records for all testing results, and inspection of foreign food supplies.
The problem is, this would create a massive cost burden for companies under the old system and methods of inspection.
And that is where some new tech from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, better known for nuclear weapons and secret weapons research, comes in from left field to give the FDA and food companies the only truly cost-effective way to meet these new standards.
Its airborne detector, designed to rapidly detect airborne pathogens and bioweapons, is ideally suited for the job.
It’s accurate, simple to use, and takes less than an hour to get results. And now, the new FDA mandates mean they will be deployed in every restaurant supply chain in America.
That’s a $20 billion market opening up almost overnight. And due to a public-private deal with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one small company with a mere $26.5 million market capitalization will control all of the sales.
Check out Nick’s research report on the company, but don’t wait long. This company is going to see share prices soar, be bought out by a large-cap company, or both, once the herd catches on.
