Food, Inc

Ranchers produce for the MARKET. If there is limited market for goat and sheep there would be no point in producing it.

(If GM were in the farm business they would probably raise alpacas and then offer rebates when no one bought one)

__________________
Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

I didn't see the first thread, but I did see the movie just this week. OMG, I do believe it tells the truth, but I didn't know how bad the situation was. I don't eat fastfood myself and not much beef---oops, Oprah got sued over saying that, right? I knew people were upset with Mansanto, but didn't really know why. What an education that film is.

I know that there are two sides to everything but the modified food issue is being researched (too late?) by many NOT involved with the making of one movie.

Well, I did watch a couple of segments--thanks, PrettyPaisley for the link. One thing that may have slipped by without comment from any of us--because I think we were appropriately shocked by Big Bubba's statement that it smells like money to him....and the befrazzled lady too tired to clean up her own chicken poop.....ahem....of the one statement that the consumption of beef alone is 200 pounds per year for every man, woman, child, and baby in the US. Now, someone is getting a LOT of beef in his/her diet--not to mention pork, chicken, fish, and you name it. So, the question/challenge of the day is: for anyone who has posted to date--and especially those whose post has been that of indignation and shock at the large corporation takeover of the food supply--- HOW DO YOU STACK UP? Here is your OWN government's chart showing IT'S recommended daily amount of meat/bean requirements:http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/meat_counts_table.html Keep in mind that the MAX is 6 1/2 oz for young men.....

I gotta confess up front I don't muster up. I eat way more than my share. Seems like the first place to start is at home. Cut the consumption and eliminate those poor cows standing in their own manure out on that feedlot in ...... Anyone? Anyone?

geo

You are absolutely correct. Problem is, all the politicians, no matter which party, are addicted to the payola they get from the lobbyists and corporations, and will not vote for campaign finance reform, unless we as voters force it upon them. How long has it been since any of our politicians was really there to serve the best interest of the people, instead of the interests of the corporations?

I believe we are no longer a democracy (of the people, by the people, for the people), but we have now become a corporacracy. OF the corporations, BY the corporations, FOR the corporations.

Don't mean to derail the thread. I have a bumper sticker that says Monsanto Is Destroying Our Future on my truck, I'll probably get sued by them for defamation some day, since now they are legally a person.

And I also agree with SueMc - how is it that a company can produce a product that contaminates all your neighbors' crops, and yet the person being contaminated is the one that gets sued and crushed to financial dust??

Monsanto et al have managed to change the rules and their legal interpretations to suit their own very specific ambitious goals and will stop at nothing until they control the world's food. Period.

It is nice to think that we can move out to the country and produce our own food, and some of us can, but there is no way millions of people living in the cities can provide their nutritional requirements from a window box. Most people must rely on agribusiness to provide them with food to eat. And Monsanto wants it to stay that way, to protect their profits.

It has gone beyond profits..... long beyond.

No such malignant entity comes to world power without the benefit if the darkest forces influencing this earth.
The long-forecast famines of Biblical proportion have been long planned for and Monsanto shows every indication of being the culmination.

__________________
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Hey, geo,
I'll take the challenge. I too eat way more meat (and probably fewer veggies) than the suggestions. But I raise all my own, and I'm supplying non factory-farmed meat to others as well. I haven't bought meat from a store in a loong time.

Of course we do.
But the markets have sprung up to support the existing livestock, not the other way around.

Ogalalla (Neb.) Live, for example, is one of the biggest cattle markets in the country. It's not a coincidence that it's on the edge of the Sandhills, one of the biggest beef producing regions in the country.
Newell, SD's sale barn has had sheep sales probably since their inception. Why? Because northwest SD has been growing sheep for even longer...

Unless you're talking about direct marketing to consumers, in which case, that really hasn't happened in production ag. since probably sometime back in the 40s...

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

This video is long but Vandana Shiva does a fabulous job of explaining the background of what is, and has been going on with seeds and seed companies. It is well worth the time to listen to.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...0324043445440#

Even if some are not willing to vilify the seed company's technology, it is important to hear other opinions.

We eat meat daily. Usually beef.
Then again, we don't eat it out of a feedlot, either.

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

FWIW, every farmer that plants Monsanto RR seeds, agrees in writing, not to replant their harvested RR seeds. It's a breach of contract.

It's tough to re-neg on a deal with the "Devil".

As well as your neighbors' deal with the devil!!
Or people who've never even been near the devil...

I think that's what the REAL concern is.

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Geo - I'll take you up on the challenge! We're a family of four with two young boys (who are eating increasingly more and more ... the teenage years are sure to bankrupt me!). We purchased a hog which translates into about 110 lbs or so of take home meat and will get a half a cow this year which will probably be a little over 200lbs. We do supplement with some chicken and occasionally buy speciality meats (uncured peperoni for pizza), but the meat I described will last us a year. We eat meat ~3 or 4 nights per week (and I eat leftovers at work). The other nights are vegetarian - not b/c I want to save the planet, just b/c we enjoy it, it's cost-effective, and it's good to be able to prepare tasty meals from very basic foods which are inexpensive and easily storeable (rice, beans, potatos, etc.)

Forerunner is right - the way those big companies act it's apparent that it's no longer strictly about money. Those guys are evil and power hungry. Having thugs roaming farmers' fields and threatening them? That's unacceptable. Shutting down the guy who has the seed separater when he's processing heirloom seed (not patented Monsanto seed)? Ridiculous. Then the courts rule in favor of Monsanto? The rule of law has apparently gone out the window.

All the more reason to try and produce your own and/or establish relationships with local farmers - not just a transactional relationship, but a genuine one based on appreciation and friendship.

I saw the movie a while back. I thought it was pretty good- it was supportive of smaller scale farming, didn't bash meat eaters, just the executives and middle men cutting corners to make a buck.

This topic can get depressing very fast, because we're all getting squeezed in the same vise, and the politicians and business execs are so corrupt. I'm not as dramatic as Forerunner, but companies like Monsanto seem just about as vile as anything I've seen. When decisions are made from a distance, and when $$$ is the bottom line, it's not long before inexcusable compromises are made.

I think the movie tried to encourage people to take some more control of their food supply, and that's a good thing. It was aimed a city people for the most part, and is actually a great piece of marketing for smaller producers. There is a huge population of pretty well off city dwellers in this country. It's not their fault that they don't know much about farming, but they don't want to feed their families garbage or encourage the destruction of farming communities. When they become educated about these issues they can do a lot to turn the market in a better direction. Will enough people make enough good decisions to have enough effect? I don't know, but every little bit of good will helps. I do know that this movie scared them. If it helps give these consumers some insight into why their bagged spinach is killing their neighbors, why their 10 year old children are 200 pound prozac zombies and why they can't drink their city water-great. The trick as a producer is to get access to that population, and to keep reminding them why they need to make informed purchases.

I'm vegan, but my mother taught me that 4oz is a serving of meat and that is what I prepare for my family. 3/4lb of meat from the local butcher makes dinner for my DH and 2 teenage boys. Breakfast and lunch are meat free for everyone and we have a couple of meatless dinners a week too.

A bit of a stretch?

Monsanto wants to create famine and therefore, put themselves out of business?

The world is now growing more crops than ever, with or without Monsanto. Their $11 billion annual revenue, hardly makes them a world power.

Well, when government becomes so small we can drown it in a bathtub, we won't need any watchdogs keeping an eye on the corporations, will we?

Seriously, though, this is a real Catch-22. Ideally the regulators should have some experience in the field they're regulating ... but how will they gain such without working in the field? I'm not sure we want PETA types running things, either. Hmmm.

__________________
"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

DH and I had the same conversation during the video.
I mean, I can understand the frustration with what is an obvious conflict of interests, but you really can't find someone who is both experienced in the field AND has no current or prior interests...

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

We "measure up" in the meat eating department since we very very little meat. One son vegetarian and the rest of us eat only tiny bits of meat now and then. Where we do fall short is growing our own and / or eating more local. We do have a garden and I have learned to freeze but we have not yet learned how to dry or can our food. This year we plan to learn the canning and next summer add a dehydrator. We do shop at our Farmers Market but sometimes I am not sure where some of it comes from. We have learned to seed save and buy only from Seed Savers Exchange to get the open-poll seeds.

It is hard but to use it is worth it to be more careful what we eat. But, as someone else pointed out, many people just do not care to grow their own food and don't care where it comes from.

That must be the show I caught part of the other evening. I saw the part about the chickens and I felt pretty sorry for them. I'm glad I'm a human cause I sure wouldn't want to be a chicken from what I saw.

Nomad