Lack of abbatoirs strains local-food movement

The horse industry isn't the only agricultural sector suffering from a lack of slaughterhouses. Local food advocates say a shortage of abbatoirs is a huge obstacle to the emerging movement. "Independent farmers around the country say they are forced to make slaughter appointments before animals are born and to drive hundreds of miles to facilities, adding to their costs and causing stress to livestock," Katie Zezima of The New York Times reports. These farmers are consequently scaling back plans to expand production. (Times photo by Mattthew Cavanaugh: A slaughterhouse for goats and sheep in Athol, Mass.)

"It’s pretty clear there needs to be attention paid to this," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Zezima. "Particularly in the Northeast, where there is indeed a backlog and lengthy wait for slaughter facilities." Vilsack's Department of Agriculture reports the number of slaughterhouses nationwide dropped from 1,211 in 1992 to 809 in 2008 while the number of small farmers has increased by 108,000 in the past five years. Brian Moyer, director of the nonprofit farm advocacy group Rural Vermont, described the problem to Zezima as 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."

The Agriculture Department is encouraging farmers to band together to form local cooperatives or mobile slaughterhouses, and is financing some mobile units and helping build a regional facility near the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, Zezima reports. "The mobile units have been popular for poultry, and many farmers are trying to replicate the system with larger animals," Zezima writes. Some local opposition exists to the location of abbatoirs. "We’re not against slaughterhouses," Vince Galluccio, who helped organize successful opposition to a proposed slaughterhouse in Woodstock, Vt., told Zezima. "But you wouldn’t open up a discotheque next to a church." (Read more)