And then in the countryside all around that, you had this network of giant factory farms that were really sophisticated, like I’ve talked about high tech.

You had this giant giant complex that was the Tyson Foods slaughterhouse that killed about a million chickens a week. And, you know, it felt like I was in a feudal society in the middle of town. And what really blew me away, frankly, was the societal organizational structure in a town like this, in a town like Waldron. And these contract farmers who own these big factory farms were getting deliveries of sick birds.Īnd I went down to figure out what was going on and spent a few days down there. But in 2004, I kind of almost by accident went down to this really remote little town in Arkansas called Waldron, because I’d heard that there were reports that there were some mysterious sickness right. And to walk through the mechanized slaughterhouses, just kind of overwhelming. So it’s hundreds of millions a month, hundreds of millions a month.Īnd as a business reporter, you know, when I first started in this system and just blew my mind to walk into these giant warehouse like barns that were the length of a couple school busses. I mean, it’s saying the numbers are insane. Was it week nine? Nine billion a year? Nine billion a year? Yeah. And, you know, it kind of struck me when you were talking about the billions of chickens eaten every day. So, you know, back in 2004, I was a business reporter and I started covering Tyson Foods in the big industrial meat companies. That’s a great place to start because that was really for me where the inquiry started that turned into this book ultimately. So let’s just begin where your book begins with the story of the animals, these farmers whose whose baby chickens began to die. Thanks for being here.Ĭhris, thanks a lot for having me. So in honor of National Chicken Month, I thought we’d have him on the show. His book is The Meat Racket The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business. He’s a former national agri business reporter for the Associated Press. Is this the behavior of a rational society? Is the industrialization of our food system scientific in anything but the narrowest possible sense? What would a perfectly rational alien think if he came to Earth and looked at how we produce our meat? This week’s guest is investigative reporter Christopher Leonard, who’s a fellow at the New America Foundation. Now, 40 years ago, half the chicken that Americans eat was produced by more than 36 companies. That’s 90 percent of all the animals eaten by humans. September is National Chicken Month.Įvery year, nine billion chickens, that’s with a B are raised for meat in the US. I’m Josh Zepps, host of Huff Post Live, and this is the podcast of the Center for Inquiry. This is point of inquiry for Wednesday, September 17th, 2014.

The meat racket