Grist - Poultry industry smothers immigrant farmers and abuses antibiotics

By Tom Philpott
March 15, 2011

"The U.S. meat industry offers some of the biggest bargains you can find: stuff like 'boneless skinless chicken breasts' for just two bucks a pound; or a 'Crispy Chicken Sandwich' for a dollar. But when you dig beneath the marketing jargon and the coupon fliers, you start to see that all that cheap bird flesh has a much heftier price tag than meets the naked eye. In all my writing about the meat industry, the main theme is the destructive power of consolidation in a market geared to cheapness. If you have three or four big players competing not to see who can deliver the highest-quality product, but rather the cheapest product, you're inviting all manner of abuses..."

http://www.grist.org/factory-farms/2011-03-15-poultry-industry-smothers-immigrant-farmers-abuses-antibiotics