PH - I don’t know why I am even responding, as you obviously have a skewed view that isn’t likely to change. But for others who may be a little more open to how the food industry really works, here goes.
I have been in food plants from 5 head a day shops to the largest facilities in the world. I have seen food produced first hand in over 25 countries. There is no doubt in my mind that my kids are safer eating a pound of hamburger bought at a local Walmart than any local grown artisan product and certainly safer than any product they could buy in china - and even safer than a ground venison burger shot with lead bullet and butchered by some clueless uncle. Yes, I feed my kids my wild game, but I don’t shoot high velocity lead, I don’t shoot through bone in shoulders, and I am OCD around microbial safety from kill to table. And in the end, biologically their bodies don’t know they are eating my elk vs. “big food” steak.
I am all in favor of consumers having fads and whims (variety is the spice of life) and smart business people, including small farmers, cashing in on those fads and whims, but the sustainability/health rationales are BS. A while back MN Dept. of health had a cool study that the single highest food safety risk for a MN consumer was shopping at a local “farmer’s market”. And local produce has a much higher carbon and water footprint than mainstream ag.
As for more govt regulation of meat production in China as compared to US, you simply have got to be kidding. I have first hand experience in both locales and you are way off. US companies are over regulated and over taxed, but are still great investments because they are high volume, highly efficient, super safe (and for meat that points to self life and customs access for profitable exports) and have access to high value, low cost, near proximity feed.
“Big Ag” over the last 50 years has fed an extra billion people. The greatest humanitarian accomplishment in history (unless you want to give that award to “Big Pharma” for vaccinations and antibiotics). Americans and Europeans with full stomachs and minimal actual understanding of food production, food chemistry and human biology can complain all they want, but a hungry world is glad to be fed by Big Ag. GMOs feed the world, large scale food production feeds the world, modern ag practices of the green revolution feed the world. The fact that I have hunting as a hobby so my kids get wild game, and that my wife and I are fortunate enough to afford the luxury of shopping at Whole Foods is a complete anomaly - less than a tenth of a percent of people in the world can afford our monthly food budget. Hundreds of millions will starve to death if the anti-ag folks have their way, but conveniently for them no-one they know will be on that list. I always suggest to the anti-ag folks that they first list the 20% of their immediate family and close friends they are happy to watch starve to death in order to pursue their vision for ag — interestingly they rarely do. This is not a game. Millions of people you don’t know and will never meet need us to get this right - and the various internet foodies aren’t the ones to do it.
