Response to "Change."

Response #12

In Sarah's blog, she talks about the big multinational corporations that control the meat industry today and how they also have the power to change the state of factory farming. Profits would be lost but there would be many supporters of the change which could make up for some of the loses. According to Food Inc, there are only a handful of meat companies that hold 80% of the power in the United States; Tyson, Swift, Cargill, and National Beef. They do not want the public to know the truth about what people are eating. Over the past one hundred years, the industry has changed the entire way meat is processed. Chickens have been redesigned to have larger breasts because there is such a demand for white meat. Animals are fed growth hormones and antibiotics so they grow in half the amount of time that they use to. Today, meat industries do not care about the animals nor the people. They care about the profit and the power only.

I don't think the large corporations are afraid of changing; they just don't want to change. They control everyone; the farmers, the assembly line workers, the public, and the animals. Industries do not care how the animals are treated as long as the assembly line is always moving. Conditions are unbearable and workers' lives are always in jeopardy. The large companies recruit illegal immigrants because they can pay them extremely low wages and put their jobs on the line if they speak out to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and other regulators.

Consumers think they have thousands of product choices in supermarkets but really only a few companies are involved in producing goods. Healthy and organic foods are much more expensive because meat producers feed their animals cheap corn which drives down the prices. The lower class can not afford to eat well so they find themselves at fast food restaurants because it is all they can afford. The average person eats 200 pounds of meat a year and this is made possible because of the overproduction and meat being more affordable. The result is unsafe food which can lead to E. coli breakouts. Even though big companies do have the ability to change their ways, they don't want to. They have everyone eating out of the palm of their hands. They have finally developed a new way of 'farming' where animals grow twice as fast as they should and the assebly line never stops. They would never sacrifice their profits.

My question to you is: Since big corporations do not seem to want to change their ways, the only hope is with the people. If more and more consumers banded together and refused to support the meat industry, would companies finally listen? Why or why not?