It’s a funny thing about this country. Sometimes the most seemingly intractable rights and ethical dilemmas have a way of being trumped by economics.
It was actually a boycott by blacks in 1955 of the public bus system in Montgomery, AL, that accelerated the push for an end to racial segregation.
For many years, Nevada was the only place gambling was legal, until states began to see the possibilities for new revenues from state lotteries and casinos run by Native Americans. Suddenly gambling wasn’t nearly as morally reprehensible as it once was.
The gradual acceptance of medical marijuana in California is being moved forward by the lure of new tax revenues. Maybe officials can begin to believe that a long-illegal drug can ease the burden of chronic pain.
Might the same thing be happening to begin resolving the raw milk standoff? The disastrous market for conventional milk—driven by a combination of lower milk prices and reduced demand for organic pasteurized milk—seems to be stimulating new-found flexibility on raw milk in a number of states that had been ardent foes. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund put out a newsletter Wednesday about recent pro-raw-milk initiatives in New Jersey, Tennessee, Vermont, and Connecticut, and stated: “The decline in pay prices for conventional dairies and the forced cutback in organic milk production by cooperatives like Organic Valley and Hood have made State legislatures more receptive to the sale and distribution of raw milk.”
There have been a spate of reports, from California to Vermont, of dairy farms facing financial crisis. In some cases, the problems are so serious, farmers are committing suicide. One of the few beneficiaries seems to be Dean Foods, the nation’s largest seller of conventional milk, which doubled its profits during the first quarter of 2009.
I’ve suggested a number of times that state departments of agriculture and cattle associations could perform a real service by informing their dairies about the raw-milk and sell-direct options. Mark McAfee of Organic Dairy Pasture Co. at the National Conference for Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) meeting in April made a similar suggestion. The regulators and processors have opposed any such consideration, supposedly based on high-minded concerns about protecting children.
But now that many parts of the farm economy are collapsing, well, there are a few signs of, what shall we call it, pragmatism? I can rail all I want, as I did in the previous post, about how cool it would be if people with different views about food safety and food rights got together. But I have to say, in the final analysis, economics and finances will likely do more to force political changes than anyone’s good will. There’s nothing like the vision of hordes of angry voters to get legislators to re-think old thinking.
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Newsweek doesn’t seem to approve of the fact that Oprah Winfrey is open to hearing about bio-identical hormones and mothers’ concerns about vaccines producing autism. In a seemingly endless article (an unheard-of eight pages in the magazine), Newsweek can’t understand why “She believes doctors, scientists and the media are all in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry.” Where on earth could she get such crazy ideas? The only credible guest on health has been an M.D., if you believe Newsweek. Better watch out, Newsweek editors, the old thinking about political and medical correctness may be crumbling around you.
Since January, cows at 15 farms across Vermont have had their grain feed adjusted to include more plants like alfalfa and flaxseed substances that, unlike corn or soy, mimic the spring grasses that the animals evolved long ago to eat.
As of the last reading in mid-May, the methane output of Mr. Choinieres herd had dropped 18 percent. Meanwhile, milk production has held its own.
They are healthier, he said of his cows. Their coats are shinier, and the breath is sweet.
Corn and soy, the feed that, thanks to postwar government aid, became dominant in the dairy industry, has a completely different type of fatty acid structure.
Mr. Choiniere said that regardless of how the tests turned out, he planned to stick with the new feeding system.
Ms. Laurain maintains that even if the feed costs more, it yields cost savings because the production of milk jumps about 10 percent and animals will be healthier, live longer and produce milk for more years.
They are healthier and happier, he said of his cows, and thats what I really care about.
You hit the nail on the head with this post, David.
Would you estimate that the majority believe this is true?
"economics and finances will likely do more to force political changes than anyones good will."
This has been proven over and over. The economy here in Sacramento has been declining for a long time. The news last night said, I think it was, around 200 deputies, to include @ 50 firefighters to be laid off. Crime has been increasing over the last few years. How will these unemployed buy food? The homeless standing at the intersections have increased. I’ve no doubt there will be changes.