This is a response to the egg recall on behalf of Terre Foods Cooperative Market:
If you’ve been watching the news, you are already aware of the national egg recall currently under way. While we are lucky that the list does not currently include any eggs shipped to Indiana, the scope is huge, and the recall list is expected to grow. When I saw the magnitude of the egg recall, I’ll admit I was completely boggled, and that was before the number rose to it’s now-current resting place of 500 million recalled eggs (as of Aug. 23, 2010).
Setting aside any environmental or ethical issues that one might have with our egg production system, I still must ask the question, how did we get here? How did we end up with a system where it is not only possible, but actually necessary, to recall half a billion eggs? Anything done on a scale of this size can and will go wrong sooner or later, and the implications of those problems become national issues and health disasters.
For the past two years, citizens of Terre Haute have been working on forming a local foods co-op. Terre Foods Cooperative Market will be a community-owned, full-service grocery store, open seven days a week, specializing in local and organic produce, eggs, dairy, meats, and bulk dry goods. Our membership, now totaling over 370, has a huge variety of reasons for supporting this store, from easy access to allergen-sensitive foods, to bulk buying, to strengthening our local economy. But if there is one reason that could not be made clearer than by the massive egg recall, it is that smaller-scale, localized food production systems are safer for us all.
We want a store where our eggs, meats, dairy, and produce come from nearby farms, with a more humane, cleaner, and healthier overall production system. Rather than only buying pasteurized eggs, which is in effect cleaning up the mess after it has happened, we want to purchase eggs from chickens that were raised properly in the first place.
I should be careful here, and make clear that eggs from small farms are not immune to salmonella or other contaminants. However, there are at least three salient differences between large-scale and small-scale contamination issues. First, when a small-scale producer finds a contamination problem (and all small-scale egg sellers are required to do the same testing that the large producers do), the recall numbers are in the tens or hundreds of eggs, not in the hundreds of millions of eggs. This means far fewer sicknesses will occur, and much smaller regions will be affected.
Second, while small-scale eggs can become contaminated, smaller operations are less prone to contamination due to the way the animals are kept. Smaller facilities are easier to keep clean, and the chickens themselves have more space to live in, which helps prevent the spread of disease. As nutritionist Marion Nestle said in a recent interview about large-scale industrial egg production methods: “It’s hard to explain unless you actually see one of these places. Try to imagine an enormous warehouse, as long as two or more city blocks, packed with hundreds of thousands of chickens. And that’s ‘free range.’ Otherwise they are caged six to nine in a cage. If one gets sick, they all get sick.”
Third, as a local producer, the farmer is more likely to recall eggs quickly and efficiently if contamination is suspected, rather than waiting until the cost of the damages exceed the cost of the recall. There are many reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that this farmer lives in the same community in which her eggs are being marketed. She may know many of her customers personally. And those customers know exactly what farm the eggs come from — can any of us say the same about supermarket eggs?
Local farmers know it is in their best interests, for the health of their community and for the health of their business, to keep things as clean and safe as possible. Massive, national-level egg producers have no such ties to communities, and keep their eyes firmly fixed on the bottom line.
As soon as I arrived at the Farmers Market on Saturday morning, I saw no fewer than 10 people leaving with bags full of eggs, even in the midst of a national-level egg recall. We are being reintroduced to the idea that having a connection with the people who produce our food helps make our food safer. I confidently bought two dozen eggs myself, like I do every Saturday, as well as various meats and vegetables, and all without any fear of there being a recall on it. I know the farmers from whom I was purchasing, and I trust them. I’ve spoken with them; their children have played with my children.
We encourage others in the community to come to the Farmers Market on Saturday mornings at the corner of Ninth and Cherry from 8 a.m. until noon, and find out what it’s like to buy your food from the people who grow it. And when you discover what a wonderful experience it is to have this connection with your food, join the Terre Foods Cooperative Market and make this sort of experience available to everyone, every day of the week, every week of the year.
— Robyn Morton, president
On behalf of the Terre Foods
Board of Directors
www.terrefoods.org
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