Industry Panics: New Diseases, Labor Exploitation, and Cattle Market Collapse | Rising Anxieties

Uh, don't forget, we're a podcast and we're on YouTube. Please subscribe and hit like wherever you listen. That really helps us out as you know, 'cause everybody says that. Uh, and and yeah, let's get into some of these articles. My first one for today is really interesting. It's from Watt Poultry, and, and this is by Elizabeth Doman. And she is actually specifically addressing what the poultry industry is worried about.

Five poultry health welfare areas in need of innovation. And notice, she actually mentions the word welfare, which they don't always do. And these are the things they're worried about. They're worried about disease, that's not surprising, and they're worried about labor.

Uh, and I think there was one other thing. All right, the first one, avian metapneumovirus. I never heard of it, apparently it is now the number one health concern for turkey and broiler producers. For some reasons, it's not very widespread among egg laying hens yet. Uh, yeah, so they got a new disease between 2023 and 2025 AMPV, as they call it, jumped from 38th place to the number one concern in turkey veterinary surveys.

Similar concerns about AMPV exist for the broiler industry as well. I looked it up since I had never heard of it, to see if people can get it. Apparently, people can't get it. However, they can get human, uh, metapneumovirus, which is, you know, it's like this whole... like we all, we all become experts in viruses, uh, of late, past few years.

And, you know, it's one of those things that the a, there's a worry that the avian pneumovirus, metapneumovirus could easily, uh, adapt and, and start, start infecting humans. So, yay. Yeah. Good. Uh, and then they're also still worried about bird flu, uh, even though that's not their main concern anymore.

Uh, AMPV dominates current concerns, but, um, HPAI, uh, highly pathogenic avian influenza, remains quote unquote devastating. And this is really hitting egg laying hens hard, uh, and where depopulation requirements can mean losing millions of birds for a single positive test. Never like a bit of worry about the birds, I guess. You know, I guess they're happy to be out of it after their miserable, horrible death.

Um, the experts agreed that wild bird control represents the most critical biosecurity challenge. Ominous, right, ominous. What are they gonna do? Start doing to wild birds in order to save the chickens who they've infected. Unbelievable.

Um, alright then labor. Automating welfare monitoring to reduce human subjectivity. In this, they're not talking about being worried that they don't have enough people to work for them, but of course they're... I mean, there's a lot of things going on about labor and, um, immigration. So that's a huge overriding concern. But here they're specifically just talking about making, uh, welfare monitoring better, which, you know, could use some work, I'm sure, uh, decision support tools that assist rather than replace human judgment.

Um, automated foot pad scoring at processing plants. Processing plants, of course, is their word for slaughterhouses. With feedback loops to farm. So they, they're look, gonna look at the foot pads of chickens at the slaughterhouse and tell the farm that they did something bad. Remote auditing capabilities through camera systems.

Well, you know, that's gotta be a good idea. Who's who, who gets to see what's going on on the cameras, that's the big question. Who do you think? Um, but you know, I guess there's always a worry that if they take these films, we'll get a hold of them. Um, addressing the labor... this is fourth, addressing the labor crisis through automation.

So more about an automation. This time they're specifically talking about how they don't have enough people to work for them. The greatest, uh, opportunities are in hatcheries and processing plants, again, slaughterhouses. Uh, so all of these, um, you know, things that they can, they can do.

One of the things, um, on farms is they wanna have automated catching systems for broilers, broilers are the chickens, that minimizes wing damage while reducing reliance on contract labor. Uh, 'cause you know, you don't want wing damage. Uh, and why don't you want wing damage? Well, there's this guy, uh, quoted here, Young McComb, um, that they do have automatic catching technology, but it needs improvement.

Quote, there's some good ones out there, but there's all, there also needs to be definitely some improvement as far as wing breakage and things like that. It sounds like they're really worried about the chickens, right? Or are they worried about the wings? These chickens are having their wings broken.

Uh, the last thing, this is a new term. Uh, it's probably not new to them, but it's new to me. Improving livability. That's what they call, that's what they call it when too many animals die, that they need to improve livability. Uh, livability within their industry. IE, that all of their animals don't die. Um, weight and... this, uh, quote at the beginning, weight and feed conversion don't matter if they're dead.

I guess that's true. Um, alright, so this guy, Young McComb, uh, pointed out that broiler mortality was already trending upward before AMPV and HPAI, which I spoke about before, returned, likely due to rapid genetic changes, antibiotic free production requirements, and immunosuppressive factors creating a perfect storm.

IE their industry is built to kill the animals. Uh, the only hope is that they can slaughter them soon enough before they, before they die. That's really what we're talking about here. Um, and as he points out, when you have a hen in production and she dies, there's a lot of money that's gone into that bird. You know, fuck you.

Unbelievable. I'm sorry, now that everybody's cursing, I'm trying to stop, but you know, sometimes I don't succeed.

Alright. Um, from Sentient Media, Dairy and meat industries push for access to H2A farm workers while the Trump administration slashes their pay.

This is about the H-2A Visa program, obviously. This is, this program for what has always been seasonal. IE our crops have to be picked, and of course we can't get Americans to do it, so it's only a temporary job, so we should be able to ship people in from Mexico to do it, uh, because it's just temporary work.

And, um, no, that was always the idea behind the H two A Visa and, uh. But the, the meat industry wants in. But you know, of course they, uh, they are not seasonal. Uh, you know, they torture those animals year round. And as this article points out, which is of course from Sentient Media, it's by Gray Moran, uh, you know, and, and is coming from the same perspective that we are, uh, and points out that it's been likened to indentured servitude.

Well, yeah, it's really like indentured servitude, uh, and the dairy and meat industries want in. That's a good way of putting it. Uh, it's, it, the, the, the seasonal workers now can work for up to 10 months a year, but they can't be here permanently.

So, um, they wanna, the meat industry is pushing to grant year-round visas, which I guess they would be here permanently. I mean, why not? And, um, this is both in factory farms and in in slaughterhouses. And uh, also probably related to this, there has, there has been a push in recent years to keep the wages of these H two A workers high.

And, uh, so that because they're competing with, uh, American workers and, and, and we don't want them to be able to compete at a much lower wage, or American workers wouldn't be able to get the jobs. Um, and they're getting rid of that. Uh, 2025 saw severe cuts to H two A workers' wages. Uh, there's an excellent article.

I am barely scratching the surface here. Please go read it. Um, and there are these other visas, H two B visas, but they're, they're very limited. And, and the, some, some players in the meat industry do get those, but they really want in on H two A, which are the really good ones because, um, they've been compared to indentured servitude. And uh, it grants employers a high level of control over workers. The visa are tied to a single employer who also provides their housing, transportation, and livelihood. If an H two A worker is fired, they don't just lose their job, they're out of the country. And, uh, so, you know, indentured servitude. And, and if they, so I'll just quote this because this is exactly right, The expansion of this model to a year round workforce would effectively establish a new class of permanent low wage workers with few rights and no economic mobility.

And I would even add to that and also a complete inability to speak out, uh, because, because they can't tell anybody what's happening or they'll be outta the country. Um, this guy Daniel Costa, who's the Director of Immigration Law & Policy at Economic Policy Institute, points out, It's a really horrible idea and a little dystopian to bring in people on a temporary visa to make them permanently temporary. This is just... it's so outrageous it's unbelievable. I mean, these workers are incredibly vulnerable... they wanna create this underclass that that is like, basically it's like going back to slavery. I mean, not literally, but you know, many of the implications there.

And also it, you know, these workers can't leave. So you can imagine how well they're treated. There's been a lot of instances of wage theft. They get charged for their, if they can't, like, lower their wages, then they charge them for their meals. Um, they charge overcharge them for their meals, charge 'em really a lot of money. And the conditions are bad. Or, um, they have to pay recruitment fees because these people are desperate. And, uh, uh... a million different ways to exploit these people.

Um. And they can be charge, they can charge them for housing, which I'm sure is really charming. Every, all the reports I've ever seen on it has been just scandalous. And, uh, this has to be stopped. And I don't know whether it's going to be, because apparently our, our Noble Secretary of Agriculture is hell bent on making this work. Highly recommend the article. Um, something we should all know about.

All right. Uh, from Drovers, Cattle collapsed early Friday. Uh, don't worry, the cattle did not collapse, they're talking about the price, um, and based on, um, new World's screw worm, uh, you thought it was just, uh, what was the other one? Avian meta pneumonia or something.

Uh, this is beef though, not chickens. And, um. And the feeder cattle futures collapsed on a rumor of new world screw worm case being reported in New Mexico. That may not be true, but it is, it is rapidly moving up in Mexico itself, and it's just a matter of time until it gets here, if it isn't here already.

Um, Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, is urging heightened vigilance from livestock producers along the Texas Mexico border. Um, 'cause Mexico confirmed eight additional cases of new world's Screwworm in Tamaulipas. My apologies for probably mispronouncing that. This is from AG Daley. Um. And uh, yeah, this is something that they're really worried about.

And, you know, guess whose tax money is, is paying for trying to prevent it. Yours. And if you live in Texas, an extra big amount of yours, 'cause it's both the Texas Department of Agriculture and the USDA are working on trying to keep this from happening. And, you know, we've been hearing a lot about all the stuff they're doing.

Breeding these sterile flies and whatever. Apparently, it's not working. Alright. I just wanted to add, um, for, this is an article from World Animal Protection. I report on the stuff that's been going on in the EU about changing the names that they can call, um, you know, like burgers or plant-based substitutes for... plant-based meat analogs.

And, uh, recently it's been very bad news. And, and, and they decided that, that they're going to have these strict limits on, on plant-based food labels. I don't know... understand the EU government at all. I admit it. Like I don't, I don't have the will to learn it. I don't. I have enough trouble with the United States.

Um. But apparently, I thought it was done. I thought it was finally done, and we had finally lost. But now, according to World Animal Protection, the EU postpones the decision on plant-based food labels amid growing concern. So, you know, people have been fighting back and apparently they've gotten somewhere and, um, you know, you wouldn't be able to call things a burger or a sausage, like even if you call it, make clear it's plant-based, that sort of thing. And so apparently discussions are going to continue. I feel like I've been talking about this for 10 years, which I think is not an exaggeration.

Um, alright. Finally, before I leave you, I will just add one, uh, one, one article. This doesn't have anything to do with rising anxieties, I don't think, but I wanted to mention it from Plant-based News, our friends at Plant-based News, Plant-based food labels that highlight protein could increase uptake by over a hundred percent says study. I was just talking about this last week, I think with Jasmin on The Hen Report and I was just so happy to see this, that, uh, that, that I think everybody's on the same page here.

We have to make clear to people that there's protein in plants and I, I don't know whether it would make a difference, but it just seems like we could also make clear that the protein in plants is accompanied by fiber, which also, I think it's getting, you know, starting to get a little recognition as vitally necessary to human health.

And the protein in animal-based foods is accompanied by saturated fat, which has a, still has a pretty bad reputation in spite of many efforts to rehabilitate it. So, uh, I, I totally agree. Uh, protein, protein, protein, if that's what they wanna hear, that's what we wanna say.

I have no idea how much protein you need, you know, I, I, I'm not gonna opine on that. I know most people in our movement thinks it's a hell of a lot less than they're currently saying, but I don't care. We got protein. I don't care if you need it. We got protein. We got loads of protein. And I think, you know, everybody's starting to talk about that, which is a good thing. I think that's it for this week's Rising anxieties.

Um, don't forget to listen to our other shows. Last week we had this great interview with Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka about their book from, from Oxford University Press, Animals and the Right to Politics. Fascinating discussion. Alot about the view of the minimal animal, which so much ag reform depends on. You know, that, that they need something, but they just need like not to be put in hideous pain. And they need more than that, sadly.

And they're not getting it. And, uh, tune into the Hen Report on Thursday and Friday we'll have Laura Lee Cascada on the Aquaculture Accountability Project, which is seeking quote to expose the myth of sustainable seafood. We cannot have too many people working on that. It's unbelievable how people think it's totally fine to eat shrimp.

Ridiculous. So don't forget to tune into them. And thanks so much for tuning in today. And don't forget to subscribe, either where you're listening or where you're watching.

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