14 Aug 2010
Another Disaster From Hormones in Milk Production

Maybe consumers will finally end factory farming when they have to buy training bras for their two year olds ... of course, given the current state of "the market", that may be tough, because you can't know what you're buying:

Have you ever wondered why dairy products made from cows injected with the hormone aren't labeled? It's because Monsanto, the original manufacturer of BGH, has aggressively and successfully lobbied state governments in the past to make sure that no legislation is passed that would require such labeling.

As if that wasn't enough, Monsanto has also insistently sought to make it illegal for dairy products that are BGH-free to say so on their labels, unless the labels also included wording exonerating BGH. How does Monsanto justify such a ban? They say that allowing retailers to tell consumers that a dairy product is BGH-free shouldn't be allowed, even if it's true, because it unfairly stigmatizes BGH.

This goes way beyond our children entering puberty before they enter school - our farmers are barred from even voluntarily testing for mad cow disease:

USDA and beef industry have decided to fight to ban Creekstone’s testing because the beef producers fear that Creekstone having such a competitive advantage might result in other beef producers having to implement similar 100% testing programs. Their position is that randomly testing less than 1% of the cattle in the US is adequate, and no producer should be able to do its own testing to superior standards.

There's another industrial complex at work here, and it's every bit as dangerous as the military one. A truly free market would protect us from such madness, but the Agricultural Industrial Complex has enlisted the power of the State to stifle and subvert the market. Let's just hope they haven't irreparably damaged the human species in the process.

People are very upset about this, and for good reason. Female infants in China who have been fed formula have been growing breasts.

(link) [Huffington Post]

06:21 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

12 Aug 2010
Farmers Lean to Truce on Animals’ Close Quarters

Not all farmers are factory farmers, and those of us who aren't are already doing things the right way. My concern here is twofold: first, HSUS is basically out to eliminate all animal agriculture. If you can pin down the animal rights folks, they'll admit it. And I wonder if the "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" principle might not be in operation here. On the other hand, Big Ag is very experienced politically, and can craft regulations and rules that can be bent and twisted to essentially void any good purpose.

Factory farming will only be finally eliminated when consumers demand it - and they'll only demand it if they're convinced it's better for them. That's why I give away a dozen eggs to new customers - one taste of a real egg and they'll never settle for factory eggs again.

Concessions by farmers in this state [Ohio] to sharply restrict the close confinement of hens, hogs and veal calves are the latest sign that so-called factory farming — a staple of modern agriculture that is seen by critics as inhumane and a threat to the environment and health — is on the verge of significant change.

(link) [New York Times]

22:11 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

10 Aug 2010
USDA Animal ID Meetings Redux

They're baaaaccckkk ...

The USDA failed to get support for their proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Last year they got a resounding “NO!!!!!” from the public and farmers both at the hearings and in Federal Registry comments. Yet, they keep trying to shove this dead horse down our throats…

(link) [NoNAIS]

22:08 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Jul 2010
Raw food raid raises questions

Yes.

Do you have the right to eat anything you want?

(link) [Los Angles Times]

22:44 /Agriculture | 2 comments | permanent link

11 Jul 2010
Organic Eggs: More Expensive, but No Healthier

Leaving aside the fact that this was a USDA survey that's cited, probably paid for by the egg "industry", this article completely misses the real reason people buy these kinds of eggs.

They taste better.

This year, like every year, has been a busy one for America's chickens. What the birds lack in smarts they make up for in work ethic, laying about 78 billion eggs annually (or 6.5 billion dozen), supplying a $7 billion industry. GM should be doing so well.

(link) [Time]

22:00 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link

09 Jun 2010
Amish Farming Draws Rare Government Scrutiny

I'm sorry, I don't believe that manure from these farms is a primary cause of pollution in the Chesapeake. Not unless they're doing things a lot differently than the Old Order Amish I know here in Indiana. Here, the dairies leave the cattle on pasture all day, and they don't go thru the fields and shovel the shit into piles, nor do they let it pile up in barns - they spread it over their pastures. It seems as though the government is trying to make these farms more like feedlots, with management plans and manure lagoons. Those are real polluters - just ask anybody living downwind from a feedlot.

One tidbit of real information from the article said that E. coli had been found in wells and streams in Lancaster County, with the implication that this is necessarily the result of Amish cow piles. But the E. coli problem in cow manure is demonstrably the result of feedlot practices - cattle on pasture don't have any of the harmful strains in their rumens and certainly don't dump it. And the Amish would never stuff their cattle with grain like that - they're too cheap!

The Amish are by no means perfect farmers nor are they necessarily environmentally friendly. But in this case, I'll reserve judgment until I have more information on exactly which Amish practices are causing the problem. That's assuming there is a problem. If there is a problem, I seriously doubt that it's caused by anything resembling natural farming methods.

[Amish farmers] like Mr. Stoltzfus are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay.

(link) [New York Times]

18:32 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

28 May 2010
The Fight to Save Small-Scale Slaughterhouses

It seems as though yet another attempt to destroy small farms is underway ...

This should be the slowest time of the year for butchering, but T&E Meats is booked months in advance, like the other small meat processing plants in my area. We're all working at almost full capacity to bring locally grown, pasture-raised, and humanely slaughtered quality meats to market. The local food movement and the bad economy have motivated people to return to their roots, but the infrastructure to support such a movement is threatened with extinction, and if we don't act now there's a chance the USDA will seal the deal.

(link) [The Atlantic]

via Overlawyered

21:35 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

22 May 2010
Organic beef from a feedlot?

"USDA Certified Organic" is bureau-speak - which means exactly what the issuing bureau says it means, and that's generally not whatever you (or any rational individual) thinks it means...

So if you buy pricey organic beef, it comes from cattle that spent their lives on pasture, rather than crowding into a feedlot, right? Not necessarily.

(link) [Chicago Tribune]

13:09 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

05 May 2010
Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

When Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy ...

Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

(link) [The Guardian]

07:03 /Agriculture | 2 comments | permanent link

17 Apr 2010
FFA volunteers to give aging Ind. barn a facelift

Well, Dull's Tree Farm won the contest and the work is well underway. We dropped by last week and watched some of the proceedings for a bit. The barn under renovation is the one that houses the petting zoo we supply each year. According to Tom and Kerry, when it's finished our critters will have a livestock Hilton to live in over their Yuletide vacation!

An aging central Indiana barn is getting a facelift thanks to hundreds of volunteers from the National FFA Organization and National FFA Alumni.

(link) [Fox59 News]

08:03 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

30 Mar 2010
Push to Eat Local Food Is Hampered by Shortage

I understand why my friend Walter from Sugar Mountain Farm is building a butcher shop. We faced a similar issue here a while back - though Indiana is far from a locavore's paradise. Thankfully it's more or less resolved here, for the time being, anyway.

Erica Zimmerman and her husband spent months pasture-raising pigs on their farm here, but when the time came to take them to slaughter, an overbooked facility canceled their appointment.

(link) [New York Times]

18:21 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link

07 Feb 2010
U.S.D.A. Plans to Drop Program to Trace Livestock

I don't know what to say: NAIS has been nixed! I never expected this, never. I'll read it as all good news, but Walter over at NoNais has a good write up and a caveat:

I hope that Vilsack is serious about taking input from ordinary people and not just government, industry and vets. Disease prevention programs will live and die by the hand of the many, not the few. It is education that fights disease as has been historically proven time and again. Heavy handed mandates and regulations will simply produce scoff-laws, rebellion and unenforceable systems. He does not have the money or man power to drive every back road of America.

Faced with stiff resistance from ranchers and farmers, the Obama administration has decided to scrap a national program intended to help authorities quickly identify and track livestock in the event of an animal disease outbreak

(link) [New York Times]

22:31 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

31 Jan 2010
Indiana budget cuts tap meat inspectors

Basically, the State of Indiana is going to eviscerate the state program for inspecting meat. There are roughly a hundred state inspected abattoirs in Indiana. There is only 1 USDA inspected slaughterhouse that's open to appointments (as in not owned by Cargill or ConAgra) in the state. If meat is not slaughtered in an inspected facility, it cannot be sold.

Other states that have closed or reduced their inspection programs have seen a reduction of better than two-thirds in the number of slaughter facilities operating in the state. That means that we can expect to see about 33 inspected facilities operating here after these cuts.

There is no way those slaughterhouses with reduced schedules for inspection can handle the number of animals currently processed for sale by family farms in Indiana. If you buy meat or poultry from a farmer, or at farmers markets, you will be impacted by this. Probably to the extent of having to settle for factory meat from the supermarket. It will simply be impossible for family farmers to get their animals inspected at slaughter, and illegal for them to sell their meat if it's not.

If you care about family farms at all, please contact the governor and your legislators and get this situation rectified.

While taking strategic measures to slash the state budget, Gov. Mitch Daniels turned his attention to the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) Meat and Poultry Inspection Program (MPIP) to cut its already fragile budget by 50 percent.

(link) [Farm World]

(link) [Pasture to Plate]

via Masson's Blog

Update: They're backing off.

19:38 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Jan 2010
US to lift 21-year ban on haggis

Just in time for this years Burn's Supper.

Smuggled and bootlegged, it has been the cause of transatlantic tensions for more than two decades. But after 21 years in exile, the haggis is to be allowed back into the United States.

(link) [The Guardian]

via Overlawyered

19:02 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Jan 2010
Organ Damage In Rats From Monsanto GMO Corn

I've often disparaged those who claim that GMO's represent a direct health risk to humans. I've never before seen a credible study that suggested such a thing. I've always believed that the greatest threats such engineered lifeforms present are the danger of market monopolization of food via patents, and the implicit possibility of their spreading to other organisms by cross pollination (also known as the superweed prognosis).

This study, which seems pretty stout as such things go, makes me think I might have been wrong about GMO's direct impact on human health.

A study published in December 2009 in the International Journal of Biological Sciences found that three varieties of Monsanto genetically-modified corn caused damage to the liver, kidneys, and other organs of rats. One of the corn varieties was designed to tolerate broad-spectrum herbicides, (so-called 'Roundup-ready' corn), while the other two contain bacteria-derived proteins that have insecticide properties. The study made use of Monsanto's own raw data.

(link) [Slashdot]

20:13 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

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