A New York Times article, Push to Eat Local Food Is Hampered by Shortage, points out the shortage of slaughterhouses (more tastefully described as abattoirs). With the demand for local food and the decline of slaughterhouses (nationally, we had 1,211 in 1992 and 809 in 2008), chefs and foodies are feeling the pain.
Brian Moyer, director of Rural Vermont, a nonprofit farm advocacy group, uses the image of an hourglass. “At the top of the hourglass we’ve got the farmers,” he said, “the bottom part is consumers and in the middle, what’s straining those grains of sand, is the infrastructure that’s lacking.”
Given that there’s a demand for product, even in (and particularly because of) the bad economy AND there is plent of it to go around, there seems to be a pretty obvious solution here: build more slaughterhouses.
This isn’t a new idea. People have ideas and desires. What’s the hold-up?
on Mar 28th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Did I see something in the news about how CT has zero slaughterhouses? And someone was thinking of a “portable” abattoir, like in a van? And this idea was already in practice, maybe in the Portland, OR area?
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Zoe: There’s one or two USDA certified slaughterhouses, but effectively, there’s zero. See this.
There’s been talk and meetings since before 2007 about getting a mobile thing going. I’d say it’s time to escalate the issue.