An Urban's Rural View

As the author of a blog titled "An Urban's Rural View," I can't resist sharing a quip I just saw on Facebook: "I want to grow my own food but I can't find any bacon seeds."

To analyze a joke risks killing it but it's worth noting that this one has two punch-line premises. To foodies the first will seem the funnier: We all love bacon so much it has become synonymous with "food." Like salt, it's present in every dish. Why, last year one fast-food chain even offered a bacon milkshake; another countered with a bacon sundae.

To farmers and ranchers, the second punch line will ring truer: Many urbanites don't know where their food comes from.

What many city-dwellers do know, however -- no joke -- is that in bringing us the bacon the hog farmer uses antibiotics. They know it because government agencies and non-governmental organizations have been sounding the alarm, warning that diseases are becoming resistant to antibiotics as a result.

I've discussed this issue in a series of posts. I've mentioned the new Food and Drug Administration guidelines on antibiotic use in animal agriculture (http://tiny.cc/…), the Danish experiences with having banned all except curative uses (http://tiny.cc/…) and a proposal by two economists to impose a "user fee" or tax on animal antibiotics (http://tiny.cc/…).

In response readers have offered a number of interesting observations, most of which you can read in the comments section at the bottom of the posts. I usually don't respond to comments -- I've had my say, let others have theirs -- but a couple of the themes in these comments seem worth a continuing conversation.

-- Higher meat prices. If producers are only allowed curative uses of antibiotics, a commenter noted, more animals will die, cutting supplies. He might have added that if producers adjust by changing farming methods, their costs will rise. If animal antibiotics are taxed, either more animals will die or costs will rise or both. In any of these scenarios, the public will pay more for pork chops and burgers.

To which I say, yes, most likely they will. My guess is the people pushing for a cutback in animal-antibiotic use know this. They accept it as a price society needs to pay to save antibiotics. It's better, in their view, to have costlier meat than to let antibiotic resistance spread. The consequences of that would be catastrophic, for both animal and human health.

-- Trojan horses. Why this push, one commenter asked in an email. What's the real agenda? "The anti-meat crowd is still very active (and) uses any means to advance its agenda," he wrote. "The other force is a further reach of big government by finding another way to control what and how we do things."

Call me naive, but I don't detect a hidden agenda. No doubt there are a few vegans among the proponents; no doubt some of them wish the government regulated more, not less. But what's motivating this campaign isn't promoting veganism or big government. It's defusing the antibiotic-resistance bomb. If that bomb detonates animal agriculture will be on page one of the list of casualties.

Note, please, that he FDA isn't just cracking down on animal agriculture. It is, as a commenter noted, taking on anti-bacterials in soap and toothpaste as well. If the FDA knew how to get doctors to prescribe fewer antibiotics and patients to finish their prescribed courses, I'm confident they'd be cracking down on those things, too.

"Livestock ag needs to do its part," one commenter said. It does. That doesn't mean we can't debate how big its part should be. What it means is that the debate is not about the agenda but about how to achieve it.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

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