Pro Poultry: Portsmouth's Chicken Challenges

In case you missed Rachel Forrest's article in the Portsmouth Herald about the Portsmouth Farmer's Market poultry ban, you'll want to check it out. A letter in response, with a response from Seacoast Eat Local, appears at the SEL blog<. And an additional story appeared in Foster's last week.

What a great example of a situation in which public policy is having an effect on consumers and farmers. Sometimes it's easy to overlook the ways laws and regulations create the world in which we live - and eat. In this case, the effect is a negative one for the future of our food, because it penalizes local, small-scale farmers, making it much harder for them to sell and develop markets for their products.

The poultry suppliers who sell at our local markets have been careful to comply with NH state law. They've been selling all along under that law, with no problems or health concerns of any kind. Until this season, a Saturday at the Portsmouth Farmer's market found people lining up to purchase chicken directly from growers like Kellie Brook Farm, located just a short skip down Route 33.

The state of New Hampshire doesn't require small-scale processors with under 1000 birds who sell within state borders to use USDA-inpected processing plants. And that has been a boon to small-scale producers, since they've been in a bind for a long time: even those who might want to use USDA-inspected facilities often don't have the option. New England as a region has a shortage of USDA poultry processing plants. For most of our small farmers, there is simply nowhere besides their own facilities to take their birds for processing.

Fortunately, the state sets clear standards for processing, handling, and cleanliness - standards which local producers readily meet.

Though we understand the city of Portsmouth has adopted FDA poultry guidelines out of a sense of protecting the public, many of us believe the concern is misplaced. Many people I talk to are a lot more concerned about the kinds of large-scale poultry operations that have easy access to their own USDA-inspected processing facilities -- farmers for whom 1,000 birds is an hour's production, as opposed to a year's steady labor.

Slow Food as an organization sees serious concerns with favoring large-scale farming operations over local, small-scale ones. Concentrating animals in large growing and feeding operations, processing them in heavy volume all at once, and then shipping them long distances to sit in grocery cases on styrofoam plates, are unsustainable practices that damage communities, the environment, the enjoyment of food, and people's lives. Though it is easy for such large-scale facilities to maintain an USDA-inspected facility, that is small comfort given the associated costs of producing food this way.

Many Slow Food Seacoast participants choose to support our local poultry farmers because of concerns about the effects of large-scale farming -- effects like these:

Environmental Impact: Large-scale poultry processing can create serious impacts on the environment, such as unhealthy levels of ammonia (which can cause tissue irritation in humans, water pollution, and crop damage), water pollution from the runoff of waste into rivers, high water usage and fossil fuel usage for heating large quantities of scalding water,and feed ingredients such as arsenic being spread through the use of manure for fertilizer.

Health and Safety: High-volume poultry processing plants must keep production moving at a rapid pace. Long shifts of repetitive work around sharp, hot, and heavy equipment create conditions that can cause frequent workplace injury. Concentrating large numbers of animals from widespread farms poses an increased level of risk for outbreaks of disease and illness such as Listeria and avian flu.

Labor: The poultry industry has undergone explosive growth over the past few decades, but the development of its participants as employers has been less than satisfactory. Large-scale meat processors have been frequent labor law violators, with a history of workers' compensation failures, suppressing the efforts of workers to advocate for better working conditions for themselves, and withholding overtime wages.

Quality, Variety, and Taste: Slow Food values biodiversity. Over the milennia, hundreds of poultry breeds have been carefully developed by humans. The birds vary greatly in size, appearance, egg-laying qualities, time to maturity and taste. Each has its own character and ideal niche, from the active, free-ranging Buckeye to the flavorful year-round layer Plymouth Rock to the docile Dominique. But this diversity, and the human heritage of stewardship and culture it represents, are not preserved by large commercial producers. For big poultry companies, the value of a bird lies in conformity. Each bird must eat the same foods, mature at the same rapid speed, have meat of the same color and texture, and be about the same size. That means raising chickens of only a few breeds, narrowly selected for consistency and ease of production. That doesn't always mean great taste, though! Meanwhile, small-scale farmers have much greater flexibility to raise a wide variety of breeds (Yellow House Farm alone is like a chicken U.N.!), allow their chickens to range outdoors and eat a more varied diet including grasses, grains, and insects; and let them grow to maturity at an unforced pace. Many people can taste the difference in the finished birds. And those farmers are preserving breeds of animals that would otherwise become extinct.

Not to mention, they're maintaining green space in our towns, paying local taxes, and getting involved in our communities as friends, volunteers, donors, shoppers, and civic leaders.

So it seems to me that this issue is much bigger than consumer protection. The poultry regulations for the Portsmouth Farmers' Market are a statement - a statement about what kind of world we want to help create. To discourage the purchase and enjoyment of local poultry is to say that we want large-scale operations, with all their risks and ills.

But to encourage it is to say: We want to continue a centuries-old heritage of farming on Seacoast land. We want fresh, ethically raised, flavorful and traditional meats. We want to know where our food comes from and get to know the people who grew it. We want to do more shopping at the market (and in town while we're there!) and less shopping at national chains. We want to support our local economy and help maintain the rural nature of the communities surrounding Portsmouth. We want to make sure that right here where we live, there are plenty of people who know how to raise food and bring it to our tables. For all these reasons and more, we want to make a place for small-scale, locally raised chicken at our markets. It's not just about consumer choice; it's about the future of food on the Seacoast.

I hope you'll agree, and I hope that we of Slow Food Seacoast can find ways to support the City of Portsmouth in arriving at a farmer-friendly solution that keeps our local food culture growing strong. In the meantime, don't forget to consult Seacoast Harvest, the Local Foods Guide, to find many great farms where you can still purchase your poultry directly.

--Michelle Moon, co-Leader, Slow Food Seacoast. *The opinions expressed in this entry are personal, not necessarily those of Slow Food Seacoast or Slow Food USA.