Big Meat is absolutely apoplectic over new standards approved by a non-governmental organization you most probably have never heard of that could cost some concentrated animal feeding operations millions of dollars.
At its annual meeting this summer, the National Fire Protection Association adopted revisions to NFPA 150, its fire and life safety in animal housing facilities code, over the heated objections of Big Meat and its allies.
So what has Big Meat so up in arms? The NFPA fire code standard calls for newly constructed medium-sized and larger concentrated animal feeding operations — or CAFOS — as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency to have sprinklers in barns housing all those tens of thousands of animals.
The standard covers a menagerie of meat – cattle, veal calves, swine, sheep or lambs, turkeys, laying hens and broilers, and ducks. Horses also fall under the standard.
The Animal Welfare Institute reports that 6.8 million farm animals have died in barn fires in the last 10 years. That number will spike in the next report due to a massive barn fire this summer in Illinois. In June, barns at Farina Farms Inc. in Marion County caught fire, sending flames as high as 15,000 feet and killing 1.2 million chickens.
Remarkably, there are no federal laws designed to protect farm animals from barn fires leaving it to states to do what they see fit.
Big Meat fought to kill the update to NFPA 150 in June, despite that it carries no legal weight until an individual state chooses to adopt it into law.
It’s an advisory standard. At the moment, sprinklers are voluntary everywhere. And sprinklers remain optional until a state chooses to adopt it into state law. Then any CAFO in said state will need to buy some pipes.
NFPA readily admits that “only a few states have adopted NFPA 150.”
But Big Meat can’t abide the possibility of a state, however unlikely, considering requiring CAFOs to install fire safety systems.
At the NFPA annual meeting, Big Meat was blunt in its opposition.
National Pork Producers Council chief legal strategist Michael Formica suggested:
“The provision itself was drafted by animal rights groups whose real goal here isn’t to add sprinklers to barns, but to put farmers out of business. This, of course, isn’t surprising. If you go to their web page, AWIonline.org, and click on about, their mission statement states, and I quote, ‘abolish factory farms.’ ”
Risk control consultant Jack LaRose, from Arthur J. Gallagher & Company, was equally impassioned:
“The proposed requirement for sprinklers would create a burden on the U.S. food supply and provide no clear benefits. Recommendations like this should be made only after doing proper impact studies and test implementations. Some on this committee are animal rights activists. They have their hearts in the right place, but they aren’t using science, data, and common sense.”
However, ranting against the AWI proved to be a losing strategy.
The National Pork Producers Council has wasted little time in appealing the vote to the NFPA Standards Council, expressing a lengthy list of complaints including:
- a lack of research on the root causes of farm fires,
- uncertainty about the effectiveness of sprinklers in reducing fire risks,
- insufficient rural water supplies for sprinkler systems
- and significant biosecurity risks posed by sprinkler inspectors — many of which were made during the NFPA annual meeting.
Historically, NFPA hasn’t affirmed very many appeals. I suspect it won’t do so for this one. But there is a bigger discussion that absolutely needs to take place. To what degree should CAFO operations be responsible for the humane care of their animals? Are barn fires that kill millions of farm animals just the price of doing Big Meat business, or can that number be mitigated by sound incremental steps to lower risk of fire?
I know animal rights folk would love to have face-to-face conversations with Big Meat to see if there is any middle ground. I’m not sure Big Meat would want to be at the table. I’m also not sure animal advocates can be pragmatic over the issue. Nonetheless meetings should happen.
Lacking that, perhaps it is time for the federal government to begin the process of drafting legislation to protect farm animals from fires. Because what we got ain’t working.
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