Oh, brother, here we go again – the second big beef recall in less than a year. The mainstream media is having a field day, and consumer and animal activist groups are piling on.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a group I have written about before in this column, is smiling smugly and saying, “I told you so.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the cattlemen, and the meat packing industry, are in crisis mode doing damage control.

While this crisis will pass, it will be just one more chip off the solid rock that had been consumer confidence in the safety of our food supply. It will provide just enough justification for a few more smug, sanctimonious, college students to go vegan.

Lost in the blaring headlines and the overdramatic television rhetoric is the fact that the meat recalled was not unsafe to eat. This was only a Class 2 recall which means that certain procedures were not followed, not that there is a health risk. The fact that much of the meat was sold to schools or food banks exacerbates the situation, but to my knowledge no one has gotten sick from the meat. I am not making light of the situation, however, and the USDA was justified in issuing the recall.

The real question that needs to be asked is why did this happen at all. Proverbial loudmouth Iowa Congressman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has called on the USDA to be stricter on food safety.

The problem here is not that there were not safeguards in place, but that unscrupulous businessmen deliberately circumvented the safeguards. More federal regulations will not make our food safer, just make it cost more.

What is needed is some better operators of our meat packing and processing facilities. The last two big national recalls have been caused by mismanagement of processing facilities.
While there are many well-run plants in this nation, the bad actors out there are causing serious problems for everyone up and down the food processing line. The often defensive meat-packing industry had better clean up its act or it will lose, not only the confidence of consumers, but of the support of farmers. The American Farm Bureau, in a statement, was adamant about their call for aggressive prosecution of those responsible for the abuses at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company.

Working on the kill floor is a dirty, nasty job that does not pay very well. So you don’t find too many valedictorians among the workforce. Yet, this is no excuse for what happened at the California plant. The packing industry must be held to a higher standard, not only by the government but by all of agriculture. American farmers and ranchers have worked too hard to build demand and confidence in their product to let these boneheads screw it up with bad management and unethical practices.

The best quote I have heard about this whole mess is, “I guess not all the cows in California are happy cows.” Well, not only are there some angry cows, there are also quite a few ticked off cowboys.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.