Thanks to tighter borders and declining numbers of Mexican immigrants, America does not have enough farmworkers to meet demand. Has anyone told the Republicans this???
For several days, the Los Angeles Times has been running an excellent series on the exploitation of farm workers in Mexico. Here is a bit of information on how the people who grow the produce you buy at Walmart are treated.
When you ask Americans what they look for in a tasty piece of USDA-certified chicken, they say, "Less government inspection of this chicken before I eat it." Today, the government has heard your voice, America.
What's that? You detected a sweeter, gentler, more luxurious flavor in your Folgers this morning? Why yes, its quality has improved. You liar.
Poor chickens. They don't get six million ways to die. They get, basically, two. Both of which are bad. And more chickens than you might think get the worst one: boiling alive.
The US Department of Agriculture is planning to introduce a new program for safety inspections at pork plants across the nation. How is the new program different? It offers more poop in your meat.
Where's the beef?
Unemployed? Enjoy apples, fresh air, and exercise? Then here's some good news: There are plenty of jobs to be had in America's apple orchards, at this very moment. Orchards in New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Virginia, and probably a few other states can't find enough laborers to help harvest their crops. They're looking for you!
Washington's War on Potatoes appears to be wrapping up, and... let's see here... potatoes are winning! White potatoes, those excessively salted and fried and embacon'd starch rocks that are now limited to two weekly cafeteria servings under new USDA regulations for federally subsidized school lunches, will soon be freed, as the Senate voted yesterday to "block the USDA from putting any limits on serving potatoes or other vegetables in school lunches."
Attention pig farmers! Thieves who may or may not be operating in "well-organized rings" have been stealing hundreds of pigs owned by your Minnesota and Iowa brethren—most likely to sell as emotional-support animals the pork chops and hams of the future. Your porcine pals could be next!
You just love eating bananas from the supermarket, right? Well, you better get your fill because a fungal infection is threatening to wipe out the yellow fruit that we all take for granted.
Mexican soldiers yesterday raided a 300-acre marijuana farm in Baja California — a find that authorities say is the biggest in the country's storied drug-growing history. General Alfonso Duarte told Reuters, "This is the biggest marijuana plantation we have found in the country," and guessed that it was staffed by as many as 60 people.
A rash of inexplicable watermelon explosions has stricken melon farmers in eastern China. Experts are baffled! Is this the start of the coming apocalypse?
If there's one issue related to factory farming that our nation's legislators need to address, it's the extreme perils of... people filming what's going on at factory farms, and showing the public. Iowa will put a stop to this!
