Taming Nature, Taming Workers: Constructing the Separation Between Meat Consumption and Meat Production in the U.S.

In this article we examine corporate and state actions implicated in manufacturing the extension, and precipitating the collapse, of the fictional distance separating production from consumption in contemporary agro–food systems. We investigate this phenomena via the case of the U.S. beef industry. Specifically, we examine regulatory initiatives and corporate responses aimed at addressing the two most important issues confronting the industry today: bacteriological meat contamination and an over–reliance on Latino immigrant labour. The collapse of this precarious architecture can expose the most hidden, and often problematic, linkages between meat consumption and meat production practices.