Reliance on meat plants keeps county down

Reliance on meat plants keeps county down
By KEN MIDKIFF
Published Friday, October 26, 2007 (http://www.showmenews.com/2007/Oct/20071026Comm002.asp)

Boone County and Columbia have significant problems. We are losing farmland, open and green spaces, and water quality - even the structural integrity of streams - to sprawling developments. As I have said before, take a brief trip in any direction and observe ticky-tacky suburban housing developments, strip malls catering to our gluttony for material possessions and miles and miles of concrete and asphalt. There’s hardly any place left for native species.

But there are many counties in this state where things are much worse. Occasionally, I venture outside of Boone County, if for no other reason than to partake in the company of other miserable folks.

Way down in the far southwestern area of Missouri, just south of Jasper County (Joplin), Newton County and Neosho, is McDonald County. There aren’t any towns of size there. Such places as Goodman, Noel, Anderson and Jane are hardly known outside of the area.

It is just about as far away from the state Capitol as you can get and still be in Missouri. There might be a few counties in the Bootheel that are as far away, but in terms of influence in Jefferson City, McDonald County is at the tail of the pack.

That might be changing. More and more, the eyes of state agencies are looking toward this remote part of the state.

The reasons for this new scrutiny aren’t good ones. A quick look at a few demographics and statistics pertaining to McDonald County reveals why this is so.

The county is well above the state average of people without any health insurance. The state average is about 13 percent; the county has folks without coverage of slightly more than 20 percent.
There is a "significant" difference from the state average in folks between the ages of 50 and 64 who have never had key diagnostic health studies (such as mammograms and colonoscopies)
Deaths from lung cancer, auto accidents, pneumonia and influenza, and "smoking attributable diseases" were much higher than the state average. Chances are those who live in McDonald County will die from one of these.
The county is overwhelmingly white (93 percent) with a Hispanic population of 2,226. Most of the Hispanics work in low-paying and dangerous jobs in meatpacking plants.
McDonald County ranks 113th (out of 115) in indicators related to children. About 25 percent of children are raised in poverty. Child abuse and neglect, teenage pregnancy, malnourishment (probably related to poverty) and low birth weights are all significantly higher than the state average.
It is apparently because of the presence of large corporations’ manufacturing and meatpacking plants, broiler houses and egg-laying facilities that wages in the county are very low. The median family income is $31,530. The state average is $46,044.
Every stream in McDonald County - including the Elk River - is on the state’s impaired waterbodies list because of years and years of application of poultry litter to the same fields. This continuous application results in runoff from even the most modest rainfall.

Even the upsides are downsides. Population has remained roughly the same over the past 10 years, with any increase attributable to more births than deaths. There was no significant out- or in-migration, or at least these balanced.

All in all, McDonald County isn’t doing very well, and the people of that county need to be speaking with county, regional and state officials about the sorry situation. For far too long, the county has depended upon the poultry industries. The results of that dependency are all too clear: low income, low rate of health insurance, high rates of health problems, many childhood problems and water pollution. This beautiful part of the state of Missouri deserves better.

It is all a matter of perspective. When it sometimes seems that all is lost in our fair city, all we need to do is look around. Rather than being greener on the other side of the fence, the woes of McDonald County are even gloomier and doomier than ours.

Ken Midkiff is Osage Group conservation chairman and author of "The Meat You Eat" and "Not a Drop to Drink." You can reach him via e-mail at editor@tribmail.com.