The modern agricultural feedlot is by all accounts an industrial marvel: a massive, organized, and energy-intensive machine that maximizes throughput in the most cost-efficient (or perhaps, cost-externalized) way possible. There really is no current or historic parallel for a hog farm in human society, but if there were, it’d probably lie somewhere between a 19th-century slave ship and a 20th-century shanty town. It certainly has no counterpart in nature, as very rarely does a biological system resemble a densely packed population of a single species fed one meal its whole life, mostly surrounded not by other life but by the massive accumulation of its own waste.
Observing the crowded, dirty and ultimately destitute conditions of swine habitat, the question is not so much why we’re dealing with a swine flu pandemic now, but rather why we’re not dealing with it more often. The Department of Agriculture is surprisingly good at keeping infection down in industrial livestock operations, mostly by lacing the food with antibiotics and antivirals (a practice which has the added bonus of proliferating resistance), slaughtering livestock at a young age, and isolating suspect populations. Loss of animals to disease can be incredibly costly, and in a densely-packed, malnourished and poorly sanitized environment, the potential for disease is incredibly high.
More rarely, these conditions manifest themselves into consequences for their predator population as well, afflicted with often problematic strains of salmonella, E. Coli, and yes, swine and avian flus. This has, of course, been a problem throughout the history of domesticated livestock agriculture, and these are not the only impacts of this livestock operation, as many of their most severe costs are environmental. Feedlots pollute water and degrade soil, and accumulations of the chemicals used to prevent infection and hasten animal growth can have serious long-term consequences to the surrounding environment and consumers. But perhaps the most interesting characteristic of the modern day meat-packing industry might be its disconnection with its consumers.
In mainstream culture, I’m not sure how many people think about their food’s source, and when they do, they might imagine something altogether different than what happens in real life. The branding of processed food products definitely advances this imagery, with depictions such as red-painted Midwestern barns alongside a silo or personified animals. But the real operations are more often than not more factory than farm – more machine than ecosystem.
The swine and avian flu panics of recent years suggest a need to revisit the source of the food we choose to eat and many of the plagues that have afflicted mankind throughout our history: our domesticated animals. It should humble us before the consequences of ignoring – and in some cases actively opposing – the highly evolved balance of natural systems that manages resources, maximizes efficiency, prevents disease and sustains future populations. At the very least, our agricultural operation would do well to better understand these systems, to appreciate their incredible ability to create so much life from so little energy, rather than brazenly asserting our superiority over them – a superiority financed by an incredibly inefficient use of excesses of energy stored in ancient biomasses (or “fossil fuels”).
Further, the prevention of environmentally-inspired crises of this sort through long-term planning (as opposed to denial and ignorance) is critical to freedom, as in times of irrational panic governments immediately move to expand their power over their citizens. This is already manifesting itself in the flu pandemic, with calls for the government to suspend air travel from Mexico and quarantine people it believes to be infected.
Planning for biodiversity and sustainability is more than an ethical imperative; it presents countless opportunities for innovations that help us to control, treat and ultimately prevent the instances of wildly out-of-control diseases. They provide a vast ecological library from which we may be able, provided an increased appreciation of its value, to derive answers that could dramatically improve our own lives.
While the flu pandemic will surely prove to be more hype than legitimate concern, it’s never unreasonable in a time of crisis to examine the question of how we got into it. More important than freaking out about a swine flu might be considering how we could prevent the issue ecologically, rather than being forced to react to it politically.
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