Items Tagged With Industrialization

Hereford Cattle Graze at Big Sur, California
Michael Pollan delved into what organic certification has wrought for the original idealistic movement born in the 1970s in his book the Omnivores Dilemma. Organic is now corporate, because the rules of organic have been set, it can be systematized in ways that can compromise the original purpose of organic food. Yet Pollan could not begrudge the corporate organic producers because their practices where treating the earth better than their non-organic peers.  Organic farming in California can take two forms: small farms and mega farms like Earthbound Farms Organic where millions of pounds of lettuce are grown annually the same is true of meat and dairy production. I have seen both with my own eyes: I have traveled the coast and seen bucolic farms where Hereford graze with a full few of the Pacific ocean and I have also seen mega dairies in central California with large factory like barns set up in arid lots with no pasture to be seen. I have seen migrant workers and farm stands.  California really represents America's agricultural extremes.  It is not surprising that California has some of our biggest and profitable feed lots and is also host to America's first slow food festival. I think there are lessons to be learned from California’s organic movement and the success of its industrial organic producers: certification can sometimes hurt, not help, a movement.

Like the organic movement of the 1970s, grass-fed farming is a movement too. We all know that, we are part of it. As this movement becomes more popular and more people start to eat grass-fed meats, cheeses and eggs, the more need there will be for government regulation.  A lot of grass-fed producers are actively trying to define what grass-fed farming means. We can all agree that grass-fed means: an animal should only eat grass, even the USDA has said that meat labeled grass-fed must only have eaten grass after it was weaned but this might not be as clear as it should be.  We all want to purchase grass-fed meats because it is natural for cattle so they do not require antibiotics or hormones and yet these guidelines mean that a meat that is labeled grass-fed can be fed antibiotics.  The American Grass-fed Association thinks the label is too vague and has set up its own certification program to help protect the grass-fed producers who practice grass-fed farming free of antibiotics and hormones.

Most people who purchase grass-fed meats do so with farmers they trust. However, as more people start to buy grass-fed products the USDA will want to regulate the market and the battle for what grass-fed means and represents will begin. A lot of farmers are not too happy about this. In my interview with Tom Warren of Stone and Thistle Farm he expressed reservations about standardized practices: “Unfortunately the USDA will have to implement practice standards for use of the term grass fed. This will probably turn out as badly as the NOP (National Organic Program). “  I agree with Tom, my hope is that this movement can stay true, but I also feel that if grass-fed farming becomes more popular we all benefit. What are your feelings on this?  Do you think that grass-fed should be defined? And how?

There is so much talk about our dependence on foreign oil right now. The debate on Tuesday really showed how Americans, regardless of party affiliation, are not comfortable with our dependence on oil. Being green is not about being trendy any longer; it is a matter of national security, not to mention preserving our planet. One statistic really speaks to me: the fact that we consume 25% of the world’s oil and we only make up 8% of the world’s population. Many nations aspire to be like us, and with developing nations like China and India nipping at our heels, we need to present better solutions, ones that use less oil and are more sustainable.

Grass-fed farming is such a solution. Meat production in the United States is a fuel- hungry enterprise, reliant on fossil fuel at every point in its industrial process. Granted there are many industries that use oil in our country, but our agricultural sector is one of the worst and accounts for 25% of our oil consumption.  We subsidize both oil and food, so it is difficult to see the real cost that goes into “growing” food in this country.  We have been immune to the real cost for decades, but with rising oil prices, we are starting to get a glimpse of how much oil goes into producing food, and particularly meat.  Mark Bitman really brought this point home with an article that asks us to rethink how we produce meat.

Why is grass-fed farming such a smart solution? Because grass-fed farming at its core is about converting the sun’s energy into food.  There is minimal need for fossil fuels because under the farmer’s stewardship his pastures or rangelands convert sun into grass, and the cow converts the grass into healthy, high quality protein. In this process, we all benefit: the pasture and rangeland eat up CO2’s and the cows do not require antibiotics, nor do the fields need fertilizers (which require alarming amounts of fossil fuels to make).  The system is just smart.  Another benefit of grass-fed farming is its frugality.  Because the grass-fed farmer uses the sun for energy, his cost is far less then a conventional farmer’s, whose whole process is dependent on fossil fuels.  Grass-fed farming translates into financial independence for farmers, and a chance to compete in our commodity- driven agricultural sector. 

What are your thoughts?  Do you think that America is ready for grass-fed change?

From my personal experience as a farmer’s daughter and one who has seen family farms disappear in my beloved upstate New York, I say, YES, we are!  Farmers want to take their money back; they need to make a profit. They do not want to spend thousands on fertilizer and GMO corn patents. I really think this nation is RIPE for change. It is just a matter of getting our politicians on board and empowering farmers to make the change. 

World's Columbian Exposition: Chicago, United States, 1893

Thoughts from Ulla:

The Midwest is possibly the most fertile place on earth. Glacial deposits blessed the Midwest and particularly Iowa with prodigious amounts of highly productive top soil. Our ascendancy to becoming THE world power can be traced to the productive agricultural might of the Midwest, and the freedom it gave us to industrialize and no other town has been impacted more by the riches of our agricultural bounty than Chicago. Chicago was the center for commodity trading and the financial center of the Midwest where cattle and hogs were brought and fattened and slaughtered in an unprecedented factory-like manner. The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards processed more meat then any other place in the world from the Civil War until the 1920s reaching its peak in 1924. Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” chronicled the slaughterhouses to the horror of a newly industrialized America, in many ways Michael Pollen’s the Omnivores Dilemma has done the same for this generation; bringing the horrors of our modern day feedlots to the homes of suburban America. Our beef production is now controlled by four large packers who exercise control over the whole process of bringing beef to our plate, this was true back in our gilded age and policy makers where able to wrestle control back to help protect workers and customers. Sinclair’s book changed America he intended to shed light on industrial labor and working conditions, but food safety became a national obsession. Sinclair talked of workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard". Americans where aghast, coupled with the high death rate of slaughterhouse workers and the exploitation of children and women and the fact that foreign sales of American meat fell by one-half impelled governmental action. Does this sound familiar? Koreans refusing our beef, immigrant children being used in meat packing plants and Americans becoming obese on unhealthy fat? This is true today and I think we have a unique opportunity to take the power back from the consolidation that has happened, we did it back then, why not now?


Notes from Franny on the Union Stockyards:

The Union Yards were established in a purchase of 320 acres of swamp land in 1864 by 9 railroad companies that saw a great opportunity in a consolidated railway shipping center taking the bounty of the west to the east. Originally, live cattle were shipped from the Stockyards east to local markets and local slaughterhouses where cattle production was waning. Pigs, on the other hand, were slaughtered at the Stockyards from the beginning; their meat was shipped salted, smoked, and cured.  In the early 1880’s, the entire cattle industry changed when an engineer friend of the Swift company invented the refridgerated railway car. This was the key to creating the 1st vertically integrated business where could be bought live (on the hoof), slaughtered, and shipped to butchers in local markets. The Armour Company and the Swift Company were among the largest holders of this vertically integrated businesses centered at the Union Stockyards and their hold across the many stages of production and distribution gave birth to the still present tension between small processor and large processor, producer and packer, and nameless slaughterhouse worker and corporate giant.

People noted that the Stockyards were in the truest sense a human machine.  They employed human labor to disassemble the animal parts.  At the time, machines were not capable of dealing with such raw and non-uniform materials as animals, so humans became the working pieces of the machine, setting an example for the marvelous organization of machines to come, machines that would propel American Industry to it’s height of might.  With 2,000 workers and roughly 38,000 animals killed per day, the development of organizational efficiency was key in creating a sustained center of processing that would feed the growing and hardworking American populace. The division of labor saw it’s day in Chicago at the Stockyards at  the turn of the century, and this division of labor model has since trickled into factory systems across the world. 

Although it was called the Union Stockyards, any attempt at starting unions were oppressed by the big operators. There were two Unionizing attempts, one of which was lost in a strike.  It wasn’t until Congress passed the Wagner Act in 1935, which encouraged collective bargaining, that a union was formed by workers at the Union Stockyards.

The stockyards did, however, offer employment to millions of immigrants over the years who dreamed the American dream. Chicago was a marvel as it grew more than any other city in the World in one generation, and this, as Ulla stated earlier was given to it’s place as an agricultural trading center sitting at the crossroads of a country’s farmland and newly industrialized cities.

Is grass-fed farming radical? In some ways it is but to those who practice grass-fed farming, is not radical just a smarter, better way to farm.  Our hope at this party is not to alienate but to include. I grew up surrounded by dairy farms that grew their own corn to supplement their hay during the winter months. I loved walking by the cornfields as a kid and I knew my neighbors where treating their cows well.  They all had names for goodness sake! But I also witnessed those same farms start to struggle, against an ever dwindling milk check and ever increasing costs for fertilizer, GM corn seed and fuel.  Most of the dairy farms of my childhood are now gone, their cows shipped and their barns silent. Some upstate New York dairy farms have been able to make the transition to grass-fed beef production: it is far more profitable because it does not compete with our industrial agricultural process.  It is a new process all together, one in which the farmer, and the custumer profits not just corporations. This might seem radical but I am not a radical.  I have just seen the family farm become almost extinct in my lifetime and this has a lot of implications that make me sad and alarmed.

This moooovement should be able to include the radical and the conservative because we both can agree that grass-fed farming is a better way to farm. It is about empowerment.  Empowering the rancher, the land and our health.  Grass-fed farming might seem radical to many, and it might even seem threatening to traditional farmers but I hope that traditional farmers who are struggling seriously consider what grass-fed farming has to offer. It is not easy for farmer’s to make the transition because there is not much support or policy initiative or even expertise to promote a grass-fed America but that is our hope here. We want to get everyone talking, asking, and getting together. Lets start a dialogue! One that is not exclusive but inclusive!

I had the chance to visit Stone and Thistle Farm last week and met Tom Warren who owns the farm along with his wife Denise.  It was a cold rainy day but nothing could take away from the beauty of the farm, where chickens, turkeys, beef cattle, sheep, pigs and goats dot the pastures. Tom was kind enough to answer a few questions for the Grass-fed Party.

Can you tell us a bit about your farm Stone and Thistle, and why you became a grass-fed farmer?

[Stone & Thistle Farm] We are a diversified livestock farm and certified organic goat dairy in the Catskill Mountains of central New York State.  We raise chickens, turkeys, beef cattle, sheep, hogs and dairy goats. We have a restaurant open on Saturday nights on our farm that serves only products produced on our farm and other small farms in our county.   We have been committed grazers for many years.  We did not set out to be “grass fed farmers”, but grew into the practice because we believe it is better for our animals, and the environment.

Do you think that America is ready to rely more on grass-fed farming? As there ben more support and/or demand for grass-fed farming?

[Stone & Thistle Farm] Yes and No.  We market most of our products in our rural region of central New York State.  We have seen a heightened awareness of the benefits of grass fed meat and eggs by consumers, but this does not necessarily translate into widespread committed consumer purchasing. We are a nation of soft believers.  Many consumers are interested in but confused by the many different labels that are currently being bandied about.  They want organic, local, small farm, cage free, grass-fed, pasture raised, family farm products; and which is what or what is which sometimes gets lost.  The demand comes largely from a more affluent better educated; I have read Michael Pollen and Barbara Kingsolver, type crowd. Our challenge as alternative agricultural producers is to   market products at a price that is fair to us, and accessible to a larger portion of the consuming population.  We are not doing that yet.

 What are the biggest obstacles that face grass-fed farmer's in America?

[Stone & Thistle Farm] Consumer education

Do you think grass-fed change will be driven by the consumer or does it also need changes in policy?

[Stone & Thistle Farm] Agricultural policy needs to change in this country.  I would prefer to see an end to subsidies, and more focus on conservation related initiatives that could support better use of our pasture resources.  Unfortunately the USDA will have to implement practice standards for use of the term grass fed. This will probably turn out as badly as the NOP.

Stone and Thistle Farm

Pastured Pig