380 Million Eggs Recalled for Salmonella Poisoning

Looks like we had more than a minor oversight in our regulatory oversight here. How does Wright County Eggs of Galt Iowa ship 380 million eggs before being caught violating health laws?  That’s over 31 million cartons of eggs.   The numbers highlight how our food supply sources have been consolidated down to a few centralized food factories- in this case a monopoly on eggs.  How can any small farmer compete with this operation owned by Jack DeCoster who hires illegal immigrants, houses them in rat infested trailers, pays them below minimum wages, harasses and intimates the workers, and repeatedly pays huge fines to the Federal Government while maintaining the status quo of his operations?

They can’t. And as long as consumers buy the lowest priced eggs, these factories will flourish and small farmers will continue to die off. Our locally produced cage free Nellie's Eggs are humanely raised from happy chickens. They are a dollar  more than factory eggs, but I’ll gladly pay the extra buck to keep a fellow NH farmer in business. And I get much better and healthier eggs for my money.

You would think that one benefit of a centralized factory farm ( and I use the term "benefit" loosely) would be a robust FDA presence. After all, rather than hop-scotching around the country checking up on hundreds or thousands of small farmers, strong oversight at one mega-egg factory would be easier and quite justified by the potential risk to our entire population. Something this big should even bring in Homeland Security. What a great epicenter to launch a bio-attack on the homeland.

As far back as 1997 Mr. DeCoster has been cited for numerous violations. Robert Reich, Labor Secretary under Clinton, called Mr. DeCoster’s operation an “agricultural sweatshop”. I can’t wait to hear all the fall out on this fiasco. Obama will be blamed for running a shabby FDA, turning a blind eye to flagrant and repeated employment of illegal aliens, allowing an unsafe product, and unhealthy work environment. While this deplorable company managed to operate under both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, maybe President Obama should take some heat on this one.  This is happening on his watch too.