Local slaughterhouse would boost economy, facilitate more ethical meat processing

Aplan to develop a dedicated USDA-certified slaughterhouse near the Taos Landfill was bound to become the latest source of contention among Taos County residents. Beyond the usual pushback new land development of nearly any kind receives in this part of Northern New Mexico, this one carries an age-old debate over the ethics of humans killing and consuming animals, plus the more modern dispute of whether eating meat poses avoidable health and environmental problems — which are all important questions to consider.

Queries the Taos News asked last week of the planners behind the new public-private facility, set to open sometime this year, assuaged some concerns readers (and My Turn writers) raised in recent weeks regarding the scale of the operation and the potential problems it might pose for nearby businesses and residents. So far it doesn’t seem the slaughterhouse will become the type of large-scale commercial operation some critics have envisioned. However, safeguards should be in place from the start to keep it within limits appropriate for Taos County, much like the Taos Regional Airport down the road from where it will be built.

Since Taos County is a community filled with people from cultures whose cuisines, livelihoods and even religious traditions are predicated, in part, on the raising and consuming of meat, a small-scale, local slaughterhouse is a positive venture for the area, adding an important economic asset to Taos County’s local food production system, and even making the process of slaughtering local animals more humane.

Locally processed meat carries much of the same benefits we described in an editorial last month that looked at the nutritional and environmental advantages of local versus corporate produce. In this case, the benefits of closer proximity also extend to livestock, who otherwise would suffer longer trips to slaughter at remote facilities.

A local slaughterhouse with a public stake also allows residents to ensure production aligns with the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and even becomes a model of humane livestock handling by emphasizing a less-stressful treatment of animals before and during slaughter.

Beyond the benefits the facility would create for ranchers, more local meat adds to local food security efforts and provides Taos County grocers and restaurants with another locally produced product to sell — one that is likely to be raised with fewer preservatives, antibiotics and hormones.