Thread by @ProfSecchi

I had not seen this article (thanks @LizMcClure1 for bringing it to my attention). Here's a 🧵on why I think it is incredibly problematic and biased in favor of the industry.
First off the sensationalist title makes it look like this is a sudden change. 1/
latimes.com/world-nation/s…

In reality the industry had 3 years to to prepare and respond to consumer demands but instead decided to litigate. 2/

porkbusiness.com/news/ag-policy…

Also note that the 4% of ready operations statistic comes from a private firm report that is not available for view to the public. We have a right to be skeptical about these numbers. 3/

research.rabobank.com/far/en/sectors…

Prof. Goodwin’s report was paid for by the National Pork Producer Ass’n (the article does NOT note that), so of course only looks at costs and omits the benefits (it does manage to trash consumers for wanting things that big ag finds inconvenient). 4/

nppc.org/wp-content/upl…

What are the benefits? Well for starters U.S. diets are out of balance w/ Federal recommendations and getting worse so lower meat consumption is a GOOD thing for our health. And living in Iowa, let me tell you, having less CAFOs would help w/ water quality & health too... 5/

There is also no discussion of climate change and how our diets HAVE to change and prices for meat increase to account for the externalized costs of our diets on the planet. 6/

nature.com/articles/d4158…

There is a discussion on the effect of pork price increases on Asian and Hispanic populations in the article and frankly I found that quite disturbing. The ag industry is notoriously racist, but they all of a sudden care about minorities? Give me a break. 7/

The affordability of healthy diets IS a real issue, and a global one. It deserves a real discussion linked to living wages and environmental conditions (locally and globally). It should not be used by the ag lobby to keep promoting an unsustainable industry. 8/8

And here is the thing - if the industry really cared about minority populations in ag, they for example could have been behaving differently during the pandemic, protecting meatpacking plant workers and giving them hazard pay. Again, give me a break.

iowapublicradio.org/health/2021-12…