It has become frustratingly obvious that food safety, more than ever before, has taken a backseat to production efficiency and maximum profit. Blatant ignorance controls and justifies every aspect of a process that could very simply be regulated to adhere to strict quality control standards. While it seems that government has in place regulatory agencies overlooking issues of food safety, it has been made clear that profits are more important than public health. Although they claim to have the publics safety and best interest in mind, these agencies are under funded and under staffed, heavily influenced, lobbied and riddled with regulatory loopholes. When it comes to the food we eat, these government agencies have continually dropped the ball. At times with disastrous and fatal results. Through the hard work and research of food activists such as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, as well as, documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner, and Marion Nestle Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU, along with many other investigative news journalists and publications including Consumer Reports, the public has become more aware and better educated regarding the shady practices of food manufacturing and production. According to Ms. Nestle, the most authoritative estimate of the yearly number of cases of foodborne disease in the United States is 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths. Furthermore, although outbreaks of foodborne illness have become more dangerous over the years, food producers resist the attempts of government agencies to institute control measures, and major food industries oppose pathogen control measures by every means at their disposal. If it sounds like, or is assumed that, government agencies such as the FDA and the USDA would protect the consumer by every means at their disposal, fact could not be further from the truth. Ms. Nestle continues, because federal policies cannot ensure that food is safe before people bring it home, government agencies shift the burden of responsibility to consumers. Government oversight of food safety has long tended to provide far more protection to food producers than to the public. Today, an inventory of federal food safety activities reveals a system breathtaking in its irrationality: 35 separate laws administered by12 agencies housed in six cabinet-level departments. At best, a structure as fragmented as this one would require extraordinary efforts to achieve communication, let alone coordination, and more than 50 interagency agreements govern such efforts. This lack of proper regulation is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to food safety, and further investigation exposes alarming practices at the conventional farming level. According to Consumer Reports, life on today’s farm – often a 30,000-cow feedlot or a 60,000-chicken coop, and the need for huge quantities of high-protein rations as well as, the need for slaughterhouses to find a cheap, safe way to dispose of waste gave rise to a marriage of convenience between renderers and food producers, and to the inclusion of animal by-products in animal feed. Through this practice, food animals are now being fed processed feathers, floor wastes from coops, plastic pellets, as well as, meat and bone meal. These waste products, mixed with corn and soybean meal, make up 10-30% of the feed produced for these mega-farm feedlots. It does not take a food safety expert to see all that is wrong with such a practice. Although many of those who work in big business food production decline to be interviewed about their process, much of the ignorance involved in their decisions and practices have come to light. Blake Hurst, commercial farmer and president of the Missouri Farm Bureau has stated, plants and animals aren’t the least bit interested in the story the farmer has to tell. They don’t care about his sense of social justice, the size of his farm, or the business model that he has chosen. Plants don’t respond by growing better if the farmer is local, and pigs don’t care much about the methods used in the production of their daily rations. The absurdity of such statements is fundamental to the myriad of problems that have engulfed the commercial food industry. When farmers such as this, and the government agencies that oversee these practices believe the current methods of production best provide a plentiful and affordable food supply, it becomes painfully obvious that profits are the driving force behind this line of thinking. Attempts to give federal agencies the right to enforce food safety regulations have been blocked repeatedly by food producers and their supporters in congress, sometimes joined by the agencies themselves, and more recently by the courts. These facts have been substantiated and echoed by others also investigating the food industry. In his Documentary, Food Inc., award winning filmmaker Robert Kenner has brought to light many other disturbing facts related to food safety. According to interviews with Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, five companies control 80% of the meat production in this country. Of these companies, ALL have ties or close relations to members of congress or other judicial or political figures. At this alarming statistic, it is not difficult to see that conflict of interest is obviously ignored so as to benefit big business and their partners. From lack of proper food inspection and regulatory loopholes, to the antibiotics and inedible ingredients put into animal feed, to the ammonia and other chemicals mixed into ground beef and more, every step of the food manufacturing process is rife with unthinkable disregard. Farming is no longer farming. We are no longer eating food, and what we are eating is the idea of food. When the agencies trusted to oversee food safety have such unimaginable conflicts of interest, how can they be relied upon to give truthful and accurate information on the supposed organic foods also regulated under their authority. Although the FDA and the USDA certify certain foods as organic, claims such as no antibiotics administered, no hormones administered and no chemicals added are unverified. So are claims by some beef brands that their cattle are raised on an all-grain or all-grass diet.