We Reap What We Sow

Since then, I have more heavily relied on poultry as a protein source. That is, until my spouse casually asked me a few weeks ago if I had been following the coverage on the bird flu epidemic on US poultry farms. Dreading the implication of this information, and being a bit embarrassed that I was out of the loop, I investigated.

I soon realized that there was a reason why I'd missed the bird flu story. With the exception of the last month or so, the story has received little reporting by the mainstream media outlets, despite its unprecedented impact on industrial farms and backyard flocks in 16 US states.

The North American outbreaks of avian flu began in December 2014 and have resulted in the death and discarding of 40 million birds (turkeys and chickens) in the US and Canada. Furthermore, John Clifford, the US Chief Veterinarian estimates that the epidemic will not end before July, Reuters reports.

But how could the destruction of such a staggering amount of poultry have such little obvious impact on America's food supply or command so little of our attention? More research revealed the answer. On the scale of food waste in this country, the poultry purging of recent months caused by this bird flu epidemic is comparatively small in relation to habitual food waste in the US.

According to a 2008 report on ScienceDirect.com, the US wastes or destroys $165.6 billion worth of food at the commercial level annually, and 41 percent of this wasted food is fish and poultry.

While grocery stores and restaurants are responsible for a significant portion, American households discard a considerable amount of food as well. The report also estimates that Americans waste 50 percent more food than we did in the 1970s.

In this country, if income permits, we eat what we want, with little regard for the reality of what practices facilitate food supply or destruction. Discarded food that ends up in landfills produces the menacing greenhouse gas, methane.

Our culinary choice, and disconnect from the sources of production, and methods of destruction, is what local food movements and environmental advocates have argued present long-term threats to our foodways.

Here's the Thing: How does it serve us as consumers to look the other way at the implications of large-scale food production, and destruction, which so obviously threatens our health, our food networks and our planetary legacy?

In addition to the questionable and arguably inhumane production practices that industrial-scale farming and agribusiness demand (which some experts claim are the root of viral outbreaks such as avian flu, salmonella, etc.), waste seems a senseless and unacknowledged byproduct of the agricultural prerogatives we must correct.

I recognize it is nearly impossible to completely sidestep the freight train that is large-scale agribusiness, especially here in New Mexico, where the bulk of what we eat actually arrives by trucks and trains, but we can ask for accountability to minimize both exploitation and waste of our food-ways. Please contact the feds and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture and ask why reducing waste is not an important part of our agricultural agenda.

And then, ask yourself about the agenda on your own kitchen table.

Santa Fe Reporter