The shocking investigation into farm animal cruelty at a California meat packing plant that supplies the nation’s school lunch program continued to have ripple effects on Capitol Hill and around the country. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, called for quick action and asked the USDA to investigate fully.
“The allegations against Westland Meat Company are egregious,” Harkin said. “Actions like these committed by any meat company are cause for alarm, but the fact that Westland is a supplier to federal school nutrition programs is particularly concerning. It is troubling that cattle, hardly able to stand on their own, were being sent to slaughter in violation of USDA’s regulation prohibiting downed cattle from entering the food supply.”
In Harkin’s home state of Iowa, as well as in the states of California, Minnesota, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington, and Utah, public school officials scrambled to keep Westland beef out of their cafeterias. Thousands of pounds of ground beef was put on hold so the schools could determine whether it was safe for human consumption.
California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, commented on the cruelty at the California plant as well as the safety risks. “I am very saddened to hear about the allegations of animal abuse at Westland,” he said. “I want to assure every parent whose child is on the school lunch program that the California Department of Education will not tolerate anything that threatens the safety of food given to their children.”
The USDA launched an investigation and held a briefing yesterday for Congressional staff to update them on the matter. The federal government is the largest buyer of beef from Westland, and has put a halt to those purchases. But the corporate world, too, has responded to the crisis. In-N-Out Burger, the west coast chain, announced that it has immediately stopped doing business with the slaughter plant.
Action has been swift on all fronts, but more must be done. Congress should hold hearings on the allegations of cruelty and the flaws in USDA’s policy that allows sick and weak animals to enter the food supply. And we need new laws on the books, like the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act and the Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act, to stop this abuse from happening again.
