Want local meat? Go open a slaughterhouse.

A recent New York Times article discusses a pressing issue with the increasing interest in eating locally: the shortage of slaughterhouses. While the number of small farmers producing local, free range, grass-fed, organic, blissfully happy meats has increased by over 100,000 in the last five years, the number of slaughterhouses has decreased (to 809 in 2008). This means that many small-scale farmers have to travel further to get their animals slaughtered, and in many cases are producing less than consumer demand because they can’t get their animals slaughtered at all.

This is an important missing link in the growing local foods movement, and in my mind an exciting chance to make a real difference in the creation of a sustainable foods system. Everyone from Upton Sinclair to Gail Eisnitz to Michael Pollan has commented on the tragedy of our industrial meat system, and yet most people turn to the first part of that equation — the raising of the animals (I guess it’s just more fun to raise well-cared for animals than to slaughter them). Yet the slaughterhouse is an essential part of the equation, often wracked with problems of animal cruelty and environmental hazards. Seems like a great opportunity for someone to take advantage of a growing demand — getting well raised, sustainable meats to market in a humane and environmentally sensitive way.