Open Letter

9224 218st
Queens Village, NY 11428

26 May 2011
Secretary of Agriculture
Tom Vilsack
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC 20250

Dear Tom Vilsack,

I am writing to urge you to embark a policy review/change. I’ve come to learn that most of the USDA budget is focused on food and nutrition programs. I would like to propose a change in your policy. Less than 25% of your budget goes to farmers. I feel as if your priorities are conflicted. There are two areas that I think needs more money so they will be able to perform efficiently. If the majority of the budget would go towards farmers and slaughter house, I think it would have a great impact on our health. If you allocate the funds into these areas there wouldn’t be any need to come up with programs to rid bacteria or toxins from our food. You wouldn’t have to spend most the money on nutrition and food.


I think you should start gradually and allocate 50% of the funds towards the farmers and slaughterhouses. Farmers would use the money to purchase product that are organic to grow their crops. They wouldn’t use soil that contains ammonia or use chemicals to grow their crops. These farmers can’t depend on their farm to support their families; they have to find jobs that are off the farm to keep afloat. Farmers who graze cattle would use the money to be able to have a much cleaner environment for the cows. I’m not sure if you’ve seen this documentary Food Inc., if you haven’t, it’s something worth watching. I was horrified of how the cows sit in their own feces and they end up all covered in it. When the cattle is all covered in their own feces this has a huge factor on the consumers’ health. In Fast Food Nation (another great book you should read if you have not as yet), I read about many children and adults getting the E. coli O157:H7 bacteria.


There was this one story in particular that really touch my heart. There was a young girl just about six years old, who “Suffered terrible pain, had three heart attacks, and died in her mother’s arm” (199). All of this can be avoided if we allocate the fund to the right places. If these cattle we fed grass instead of corn some of the E. coli O157:H7 bacteria would die, Did you know that? It would have not spread as fast as it did, but we all know why cattle are fed corn. It’s because it so cheap and farmers don’t have the money to feed the cattle grass. So with all this said, I think giving the farmers more money would benefit loyal consumers’ health if we rid the bacteria before it enters the slaughter houses.


The slaughter house should use the money to make the environment safer to work in. They need to set more regulations and the USDA needs to appoint more workers to inspect the slaughter houses more often to see if they are up to par with the standards.

Sincerely,
A highly concerned consumer
Saudia Khan