A cheap and reliable food supply

Originally Posted by ladycat

Why do people equate organic with farming methods of old?

Not to mention I think people confuse the terms "organic" with "sustainable".

NOBODY is suggesting we return to the way things used to be done. That's just plain silly.

And ya know what? 100 years, 200 years ago, the farming that was done wasn't what we now call organic. Read the real old farming publications and you'll see the chemicals they used on crops LONG before modern pesticides and fertilizers.

They also used to use all sorts of harmful substances indoors, like painting the bedroom walls with mercury to keep the bedbugs away.

Let's stop this nonsense of thinking that organic proponents want to return to the ways of our grandfathers. Our grandfathers didn't know squat about a lot of things that could have made life easier.

Let's instead talk about sustainablility- the MODERN way.

Originally Posted by sgl42

first, it's possible for organic and conventional to coexist side by side, just like it's doing now. (altho i fear if GMO crops pollinate non-GMO crops, then coexisting systems may not be possible.)

second, statements such as "people don't want to cook" may be true for the US, but when you're talking about "feeding the world" in the same sentence, i doubt that statement is true for the entire world.

third, there's also been a conscious strategy for several decades within the US to encourage "get big or get out" in domestic farming. and today, there are very few farmers that can fully support themselves entirely from farming; as i understand it, most either have an off-farm job themselves, or a spouse with an off-farm job. so saying "you can't support yourself with an organic farm" may be true, but it's mostly true for conventional farmer also, and hence not much of a revelation.

fourth, i think there has been a conscious US strategy to use subsidies, ag products and the IMF to co-opt developing countries from being food-independent, and make them dependent on selling a few cash crops on the world market and using that to pay for food imports for the population. if those cash crops fail one year, or world prices drop, then they go hungry. and many crop prices can be manipulated by speculators in the commodity markets.

the US uses subsidies for US farmers to export, encourages in various ways for countries to lower tariffs to allow US ag products in the country. this then wipes out the local producers. the US and IMF then gives loans to get them focused on a single commodity, eg coffee, and use the income from coffee to pay for food imports that they use to have local farmers producing for their own country.

then, if the coffee crop fails, or if worldwide coffee production is high and the price drops, then they don't have sufficient income to pay back the IMF loans, or to import enough food to feed their populous. (i'll leave it to you to decide how much influence you think goldman sachs has on world commodity prices, and how benevolent they are.)

so now, after a few decades of this policy, saying "we have to do it this way because it's the only way to feed the world" is a bit of a misunderstanding of how and why we've arrived at the current global ag system, and how the "old" system, had it not been disassembled over the last few decades, might have worked.

--sgl

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

All right. Then at the very, very least, lets do better tests on GMOs and pesticides, by labs NOT paid off by big companies.
EDIT: It is the Christian thing to grow food in a way that is abusive to the land? I'm sorry, but that's backwards.

Now, we seem to have been talking about factory-farmed grains. Let's go to the meats. Factory farmed animals are even worse on the land than produce. They are kept in areas too small to actually live, and are pumped full of antibiotics to force them to stay alive. Chickens for eggs are kept in small cages, and they often are missing a large amount of their feathers. They also are pumped full of antibiotics. Salmonella? If the cookies dough has our eggs in it, I'll eat. Store eggs - no way. Store meat is packaged in plastic, which is bad, and with CO, and nitrites, which are highly carcinogenic. Who knows where the meat itself came from? MO? KS? OR? Maybe 2 cuts in the same package from OR and MO? Maybe I'm buying a cut from a cow raised a mile away, maybe a thousand. The factory-farmed meat industry is cruel, unsustainable and highly unnecessary. And these are not words coming from a hippie - I've done a lot of research of factory farmed meat, and it thoroughly scares me, WAY more, WAY more than any giant cornfield.

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

NowThey are kept in areas too small to actually live, and are pumped full of antibiotics to force them to stay alive.

Originally Posted by haypoint

I find all these comments entertaining. They contain several unfounded fears and end with a claim of research. No proof plastic is bad. Most animals used for food do not have antibiotics as an ingredient in their food. False assertion that factory farming increases salmonella. Fear that meat might come from a cow from a different state is irrational. We may be able to debate un inspected Aisian farmed fish, but meat in this country is the safest in the world. Factory farms being cruel is debatable, gestation crates that limit a sow's freedom to squash her young or free range chickens that have acess to a large outdoor pen,but never leave the feed, water and heat light are topics for a different thread, but clearly not cut and dried.

To decide that all research on GMO is negative or fake, produced by Monsanto's university stooges, keeps you from accepting the reality of modern agriculture. Abusive to the earth? Hardly. Soil saving methods abound in modern agriculture over methods employed for the past 2000 years.
Just the part of agriculture that deals with weed removal pits organic mechanical cultivation against modern agriculture's practice of retaining plant residue and chemical suppresion of competitive plant specis. I vote to save soil, you cling to fears.

Originally Posted by Patt

Same for cattle in feedlots, they get antibiotics as part of their feed. Heck most of the ration type feed you can buy at Tractor supply has antibiotics in it. Chick, hog, sheep, goat all come standard with antibiotics.

Originally Posted by Lazy J

BULLDUNG!!!!!!!!!!

It is obvious you are ignorant of commercial livestock production practices. it is simply NOT a fact that livestock are crammed full of antibiotics every day of their lives. The sales of feed grade antibiotics just do not justify that assessment.

Tractor Supply has NOTHING to do with Commercial Livestock feeding, the feeds there are for hobbyists and backyard feeders. Using that feed as a Bellweather for Comemrcial Livestock feeding is laughable.

Jim

Originally Posted by haypoint

I find all these comments entertaining. They contain several unfounded fears and end with a claim of research. No proof plastic is bad. Most animals used for food do not have antibiotics as an ingredient in their food. False assertion that factory farming increases salmonella. Fear that meat might come from a cow from a different state is irrational. We may be able to debate un inspected Aisian farmed fish, but meat in this country is the safest in the world. Factory farms being cruel is debatable, gestation crates that limit a sow's freedom to squash her young or free range chickens that have acess to a large outdoor pen,but never leave the feed, water and heat light are topics for a different thread, but clearly not cut and dried.

To decide that all research on GMO is negative or fake, produced by Monsanto's university stooges, keeps you from accepting the reality of modern agriculture. Abusive to the earth? Hardly. Soil saving methods abound in modern agriculture over methods employed for the past 2000 years.
Just the part of agriculture that deals with weed removal pits organic mechanical cultivation against modern agriculture's practice of retaining plant residue and chemical suppresion of competitive plant specis. I vote to save soil, you cling to fears.

Originally Posted by Lazy J

BULLDUNG!!!!!!!!!!

It is obvious you are ignorant of commercial livestock production practices. it is simply NOT a fact that livestock are crammed full of antibiotics every day of their lives. The sales of feed grade antibiotics just do not justify that assessment.

Tractor Supply has NOTHING to do with Commercial Livestock feeding, the feeds there are for hobbyists and backyard feeders. Using that feed as a Bellweather for Comemrcial Livestock feeding is laughable.

Jim

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

Not commercial - factory farmed.

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

That the meat may have come from another state is irrational? What does that mean? Apparently you need to do more research on where you food comes from, because what I said about meat from several different states on one shelf is true.

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

Feedlots are indeed that.
http://www.vido.org/beefinfonet/anim...ntibiotics.pdf
Why is it bulldung? Please back up your dung.
EDIT: In reply to LJ.

Originally Posted by oneokie

I would be more concerned about what country the meat came from. Or if it came from an injured animal. Know what a cancer eyed cow is and looks like?

I wasn't concerned about where it came from, just stating that it is.

Give us some information on the factory farm buildings that you personally have toured.


An even greater threat to everyone's health is the indiscriminate use of the supposedly latest and greatest miracle drug to treat human illnesses. You are aware of the new strain of Staph that is virtually untreatabe, don't you? As to your comment about cancer, you are aware that many of the cancers are genetically transferred. Some people are genetically predisposed to cancer. Also people living longer increases the odds of anyone having some kind of cancer. And lifestyle has a large influence on specific cancers.

Originally Posted by oneokie

Give us some information on the factory farm buildings that you personally have toured.

Originally Posted by oneokie

An even greater threat to everyone's health is the indiscriminate use of the supposedly latest and greatest miracle drug to treat human illnesses. You are aware of the new strain of Staph that is virtually untreatabe, don't you? As to your comment about cancer, you are aware that many of the cancers are genetically transferred. Some people are genetically predisposed to cancer. Also people living longer increases the odds of anyone having some kind of cancer. And lifestyle has a large influence on specific cancers.

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

I have not personally toured one. Do I need to? Show me a CAFO that is not Concentrated and I will show you a rock that is not a rock.

I hate putting these images on, makes me feel like some PETA freak.

Originally Posted by Lazy J

It is obvious you are ignorant of commercial livestock production practices. it is simply NOT a fact that livestock are crammed full of antibiotics every day of their lives.