Vermont farming vista, courtesy of www.revealedpresence.com.What exactly does it mean to be farming sustainably? I’ve always assumed it means that you’re producing a number of products—say, milk, chickens, eggs, veggies—and some large percentage of waste is recycled back into new production. Many of the small dairies producing raw milk seem like perfect examples of sustainable farming: cows and chickens feed off pasture, and produce manure that helps re-grow the pasture, without use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides.
But I’ve obviously not filled in very many specifics, and it’s here that comments on the subject following my previous post are fascinating. Does it mean having animals pulling plows, as Gord Welch suggests? Or does it mean mainly raising bio-diverse products, as Mark McAfee suggests? Or must we account for all human activity, including such depleting activities as coal mining and natural gas production, as Dave Milano suggests? Does it mean that once you get beyond a certain size, perhaps 300 cows, that your dairy is unsustainable, as Milk Farmer argues?
Tim Wightman’s observation about the need to replenish soils depleted beyond the potential of normal sustainability practices prompts him to urge consumers to become involved in financially backing farms, to supply the capital necessary for replenishment. I sense we’re going to be hearing more stories like that of Michael Schmidt raising investment capital from his herdshare owners.
These comments aren’t, in my experience, just off-the-cuff ideas, but rather the result of a tremendous amount of innovation going on in the arena of small farming these days. The Joel Salatin model, articulated by him in books and in documentaries like Fresh! and Food Inc., has helped educate farmers about ways to be sustainable and profitable. Acres USA magazine is filled with stories about individual farmers’ techniques for sustainable practices and replenishing the soil. Growing numbers of farmers are using and refining such techniques.
There are even indications that the number of small farms is on the increase, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data—more than 300,000 new farms started from 2002 to 2007, accounting for nearly 2 million small farms.
Despite the divergence of opinions, I’m not sure there’s urgency to come to agreement on what it means to be doing truly sustainable farming. I say that because there are indications the government would like to give us a definition, and thereby push itself ever deeper into regulating farms beyond the damage it has wreaked by providing tax breaks and subsidies to encourage our current version of Big Ag.
I’ve just written an article for Grist about government intrusions into food production under the guise of “food safety,” and how one area of new regulation we need to be on the lookout for is something called “Good Agricultural Practices,” a label formulated by a United Nations farming committee. Right now, GAP, as it’s known in the field, is kind of nebulous, but it will likely become a much bigger deal once pending food safety legislation is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama sometime in the next couple months.
The Senate’s food safety bill requires within one year the development of “updated good agricultural practices”—a seemingly benign term that is used by the Farming and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations to describe its establishment of standards covering use of fertilizers, crop rotation, animal grazing practices, and other such fundamentals of farming.
It’s difficult for me to imagine that the UN’s version of good agricultural practices would be in serious alignment with anything being advocated on this blog, in Acres USA, and among America’s bubbling small farm movement.
But what especially bothers me about this move is that it plays into a larger desire by President Obama and his minions to establish world standards to deal with some of our most significant challenges–most notably, health care and farming. While a world approach might make sense for confronting climate change, I see only problems for local matters like developing approaches for sustainable farming.
Twenty years ago when I first started practicing pharmacy I would rarely dispense more than 1 bottle of insulin as a month’s supply to a patient. These patients were usually elderly. Now I routinely dispense as many as nine bottles for the month to people in their 30s and 40s.
Procedures such as gall-bladder removal were once common only in the "fair, fat and fifty" set. In my hospital pharmacy no less than 5 of my technicians have had this procedure. All were under 30.
So people are paying. They just aren’t aware of what they’re paying for. The FDA, USDA and other federal entities aren’t protecting the American public at all. They are helping Big Ag and Big Pharma get rich while both causing then treating chronic diseases – including diseases in children. When I saw the latest food pyramid I had to laugh to keep from crying.
"This battle about raw milk is a battle about FOOD FREEDOM and INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. This is not an ISOLATED BATTLE, this is a GLOBAL ISSUE BEYOND OUR IMAGINATION" Michael Schmidt
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists" J Edgar Hoover former long time director of the FBI
Perhaps Michael Schmidt being "a regulatory rule breaking raw milker" may be ignored but dare any of us ignore J Edgar Hoover that seems to be saying exactly the same thing?
Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America
A project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
IFAP can it really succeed or is it just to big to succeed? A long read 124 pages but very informative.
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/81082247.html
This Economy: What’s in a Bottle of Pa. Milk? INEQUITIES by Harold Brubaker
Could a REAL FREE market be any worse for the dairy farmer than these price controlls?
I really liked what you had to say. Your professional observation really hit the target.
I got a call from the Canadian Broadcast people in BC last week for a story on raw milk in BC Vancouver. Today I got a call from the cow share owner with 400 members. Wow!! They got a tiger by the tail and they are making serious progress in Canada.
The Canadian Radio investigor sent me the bacteria results and tests from seized embargoed raw milk for my opinion. I was impressed. Not bad stuff. Including no pathogens.
What I found alarming was the fact that they seized "old product" and then violated recognized dairy lab standards by temperature mistreatment and then "reported that the milk had living bacteria in it". In CA all raw milk samples are taken from the dairy and kept on ice just above freezing as it is immediately delivered to the lab for testing. If the samples are above 40 degrees they are rejected. The samples in Canada were above 40 degrees and they were not fresh…they were very old. Bad samples on two accounts.
The Canadian dairy inspectors must be from outspace…..of course raw milk has living bacteria in it….that is why people buy it!!! The Canadian dairy inspectors are in the political market battle of their lives and have now resorted to telling stories and testing old raw milk samples. This is low ball gutter politics and it is corrupt and improper science.
It is like saying…..did you see that cop….he had a gun……when of course cops have guns.
I have been asked to come present to this group in the next few weeks. The Canadian media has become a friend of raw milk drinkers….. they can see the lack of objectivity…they can smell the agenda and it stinks.
Just thought you all might want to know what is happening North of the Border. With Mike on the east and our friends in BC…..Canada seems to be getting a national raw milk squeeze.
Mark
Mark are the negative test results in the linked article the ones you are pointing to that the samples were improperly handled? At first the BC officials warned that the milk was contaiminated then the shareholders obtained the test results showing no problem with the milk now they say the milk is highly contaminated. It is not easy for those of us standing on the sidelines to determine where the truth lies. As for me I will TRUST my farmer first.
Take your time to read the dialogue on the Bovine between me and the BC Health Inspector
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/a-lie-is-halfway-around-the-world-before-the-truth-gets-its-boots-on/
I like to remind again and again that we need to continuously reach out , educate and discuss in a respectful manner the issue. This is in the long run our strength. We need to remember that a trapped animal is highly aggressive. This is a similar situation. If this world of "control through fear" is in danger of collapsing every bureaucrat is fighting for survival.
So lets not forget that we have a moral duty to stay on the high road of this increasingly more exciting battle for food rights. Any form of aggression will prolong the chance to find common ground. We are at the threshold of major changes, we are challenged over and over again in the public about our credibility. Can we win this battle?. Absolutely, because we do not fight about philosophy,we do not fight over religion and we do not fight over one women. The consumer demands and as Mark pointed out in previous posts, we have a moral obligation to provide the food that heals. Farmers and consumers will bring about change. Court rooms are only Shakespearean dramas highlighting the despair of those opposed to individual rights and those who get dragged into it without having a choice,see Max Kane.
I have to admit II thoroughly enjoyed the stage and the players of the raw milk drama or better comedy.
Gosh I learned a lot from these friends of the other side. That’s why I also enjoy Bill Marlers contribution once and a while in this debate. We always learn.
Yes Mark things begin to unfold in miraculous ways here in the white north, called Canada
Thats the one.
The Canadian dairy authority that states that the milk is contaminated is not using the correct langauge to describe the product and its bacteria levels.
Is a product not contaminated if it has ten coliforms but contaminated if it has 16. The answer to that question is no.
Contaminated in my language means that milk contains something that it should not contain….like a identified human pathogen ( and even this is arguable ). Milk should contain the bacteria that were found in the Canadian samples. The question is a matter of amount.
Science lesson #1….raw milk is alive with beneficial bacteria and the numbers get bigger and bigger and this is normal ( just like yogurt ). It is a living food!!
Science lesson #2….living bacteria grow when they get a chance ( any chance or break in the cold chain…at body temperature, raw milk bacteria if they have plenty of food will double their count every 20 minutes ) and this does not mean that it is contaminated it means that it is beginning to ferment …it is not contaminated. Contaminated is a pastuerization term. The goal of pastuerization is total or near total death and anything alive is a contamination.
Contaminated is a political word used to scare people and describe life in a dead food.
Michael…is so right. We need to educate the regulators ( they have become stupid as a necessary step to keep their jobs ) and continue to extend our hand and turn the other cheek. They may have the guns, the money ( less and less of it ) and the power…but we have the raw milk, the truth and the moms. Over time….we will win. We win as our countrymen sicken and die and go bankrupt.
What a sad Darwinistic de-evolution.
Mark
If your farm depends on the continual and repeated use of fossil fuels or mined fertilizers than you are not sustainable and will in the very near future find your operating costs going through the roof. If your farm decreases fertility and looses topsoil instead of increasing fertility and creating topsoil, you’re not sustainable and your land will be a desert within a generation or two.
You do not understand the tests or how to interpret them. Please step aside, take a deep silent breath, and give the scientists a chance to work with the regulators and raw dairy industry to solve a problem.
Yes Mark, this may be what you do for a living – all that you live and breath – but you know nothing about this subject. Let the paid scientists, who have served us so well with antibiotics and profit promoting schemes, work this issue with the regulators, who are also paid off by big agriculture interests. That way we can all benefit and the issue can be closed – literaly – close the farm. Besides unless you have a PhD in how to read these tests, there is no way that you can understand them. That is too much to even think that the average person might understand something this complicated.
I like the comments from "John" on the bovine blog – in regards to the proof that the raw milk was the cause = "The ill child who started this whole thing off had evidence of infection with Campylobacter and E.coli and his or her only risk factor for these infecitons was consuming raw milk. I consider this conclusive enough." I can imagine that conversation "So what have you had to eat?" It seems that as soon as they hear raw milk, case closed – no more looking – we found the problem. I love how conclusive all of this is. I don’t know much about this case, but I definately fall in the sceptical crowd – I don’t trust what the "health agencies" tell me.
Who is the raw dairy industry anyways? Mark isn’t a part of the raw dairy industry? What qualifies a person to be in that industry?
Brandon