Green Living
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
New with some Questions
Hi,
I am new to this board and online conversing in general. I have a few questions about green living.
What do you consider local? Is it within your county, or state or 100 miles or some other definition?
When do you consider a farm or ranch to be agribusiness? Is it based on income, acres owned, number of employees, or something else?
How did you come to these decisions?
Thank you for your time and input.
Re: New with some Questions
So by that defintion I do not have any local food options. In fact I can not get a local MRI, or ob-gyn, or Whole Foods, or Home Depot or any clothing stores? Am I a bad person for going that 130 miles to get those services and goods?
As far as the second, from whom do you buy your local food? What type of operation do they have? Do they have employees? Is their food producing income their only source? What makes you consider makes a farm or ranch 'evil'?
How do you define factory farm or agribusiness?
for local, i'd consider our state because our metro area is quite large and the microclimate is very different than other parts of the state.
anyone selling food/animals they raise is agribusiness. i think there is a difference in big box agribusiness (CAFO, etc) and small family agribusiness, as well as shades in between.
as to how i came to these decisions, it comes from reading some books, seeing some documentaries and reading stories/information about our local farms. i think the best way to decide if you want to give someone your business is to try to visit them in person.
i don't eat 100% local or small family farm but i think it's something to work towards, and definitely easier in some areas rather than others.
Did you know CAFO's come in levels, and I am one level below the largest? That defintion includes some subtle differences. I guess despite my best and most honst intentions; the number of cattle I need to raise to cover my expenses(payroll, taxes, healthcare, profits) makes my operation evil.
My views and thoughts are based on making a living in this business, not reading whatever fad book comes along.
Try looking at your state Stockgrowers or Woolgrowers. They are not perfect, but mgith offer a balance to your views.
how many cows do you have? you walk in here with a lot of assumptions for a newbie. maybe you should make a post about your views and thoughts instead of trying to do random polls. you're not the only farmer on the nest.
How much money do you have? Asking how many head I run is pretty much the same question. So own up, I would love to know.
As an aside, can you answer my orginal questions? I really would like to know, hence the questions.
Our views will always clash until we can have civil conversations about our needs and wants. I admit I probably have started on the wrong foot. What can my business/neighbors do to encourage your business?
Lets start a productive conversation. There are positives for both parties.
Hi!
For us local is within our province.
I have no answer to your other questions.
We buy at the farmers market or the grocery store. They put a lot of advertising into local Ontario food so it is easy to find. At the farmers market we are getting the stuff within our city/township which is even nicer.
I don't know what type of operation they have. We know which vendors are organic and that is about it.
I will be honest here...I don't have to time to look at every farm that we get our food from to investigate their business. For the most part the farms at our farmers market are family run businesses. Those are the one's that we love going to.
Note to self...read the entire thread before posting.
This post took a weird turn.
What could you do to win over my business? Well hmmm chances are you aren't local to me so nothing. But lets say you are asking in the general sense....you could try MARKETING or something crazy like that. You know promote your processes and whatnot that are "fair" to the animals and the environment.
Bellee, you're starting on the offensive here and I don't think that's a good place to start. Did you come here to yell at people who buy local food because they're not buying your food? There's a huge segment of the population who buys the most inexpensive food they can from their grocery store, which is from a CAFO. You have by far the largest portion of the population buying from operations like yours (as far as I can tell by the limited information you've given, like you're "one level below the largests CAFO.")
However, that's not the people on this board. The majority of us shop at farmer's markets, are part of a CSA, or buy whole pigs or halves of cows from humane farmers to feed our families. The farmers at my Farmer's Market seem to be able to pay their expenses (payroll, taxes, healthcare, profits) with a small herd of cattle they're raising on grass. I think my local grass fed farmer has 50 or so. If you have hundreds and hundreds of heads of cattle you must be feeding them corn.
What is evil in my mind are factory farms or CAFOs. We don't want to support a major corporation whose has hundreds or thousands of animals confined in a very small area, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics because their corn feed makes them sick, and then slaughtered to the tune of several thousand animals an hour. That's a factory farm and I don't give them a cent of my hard earned money. I choose to support the local family farm who cares for their land and their animals. I know that farmer, I look him in the eye every Saturday morning.
To answer your original questions, since it seems to annoy you when people don't say exactly what you want them to:
What do you consider local? Is it within your county, or state or 100 miles or some other definition? I don't have a super strict definition. I'm a vegetarian so in the summer when produce is plentiful, I stick to our farmer's market. The farmer who comes the farthest to get to my market is about 90 miles. In the winter it's a lot harder to eat local. I try to stick with the states near mine, (VA, WV, PA, and NY) but I do eat food that's in season from CA (like Kale) rather than imported food like say asparagus from Argentina in January.
When do you consider a farm or ranch to be agribusiness? Is it based on income, acres owned, number of employees, or something else? The term "agribusiness" means different things to different people. On this board that term is generally used for large-scale operations owned by a major corporation that does such a volume of business that they grow their produce in monocultures and their meat in CAFOs.
How did you come to these decisions? I got tired of agribusinesses (see definition above) damaging the environment, raising animals inhumanely, and treating their workers poorly (no healthcare, paid very poorly, expose them to chemicals). So since I do live in a major city, not on a farm, I decided to buy my food differently. To me, that means having a personal relationship with the person who grew it or made it. I count many members of my Farmer's Market as my friends. I have them over for dinner and cook the food they grew that I bought. To me, there's no better way to ensure my local farmers prosper then to buy their food directly. If I buy it from the grocery store, the vast, vast majority of that money goes to the store, the marketers, and the packaging plants than to the farmer himself. I don't think that's right and I choose not to support it.
You haven't said where your farm is, so don't be upset with us who choose to buy local because you can't sell your food locally.
even if you lived next door to me and hand-delivered steaks to my door, i would not buy your beef because you are acting like a douchebag. hth!
You're coming across as really angry.
For the record, I get my beef from my parents, who live more than 100 miles away. I grew up on that farm, which is too far away from any major center to count as "local", and I do understand your frustration with feeling marginalized by all these rather arbitrary lines drawn by city people.
Most of my parent's cows end up in feedlots and then are slaughtered and sold the "evil" way. My brother worked on a feedlot, and learned a ton about large scale animal production and care. I can still see the value in consumers shaping the market to allow for more sustainably produced meat options.
I can also see the ridiculousness when I read about how producing meat is so much more energy intensive than producing soy beans or some other plant crops... the land we use to farm cows is not remotely suitable for plant food production. Attempting to do so would also ruin many acres of forest and wetland.
bellee - Stop using the boards to do research for school. Got to the library and do your own damn work.
Amen to that.
Thank you all for your responses I have tried to address or answer what each of you said. This has been a great learning experience for me.
SuperGreen
Most operators, and by that I mean anyone who sells meat, owes a set of corrals, are operating some level of CAFO. That acronym covers a huge segment of ranchers and farmers. It is frustrating to know you think your local family farm with 50 head is not a form of CAFO. Often it is the smaller operators who are the worst offenders, simply because the number of cattle they have allows them to ?slip under the radar?. It is possible you are supporting a rancher who cleans his corrals into the creek.
You do not have to feed your cattle corn if you have ?hundreds and hundreds of them?. In fact in our feedlot everything is self performing without corn, or raised (ground prep to harvest in house, on deeded land by us) we are not able to grow corn in our location.
How many people does your local farmer, with his 50 cows support, at your local farmers market? Do you know the conditions under which his animals are slaughtered and processed?
I am not upset none of you can buy local from my family. I am upset that so many producers such as me are not in a position to sell to anyone like you because the markets do not exist. Even though ?local? is an individual concept, the fact remains there will always be a huge disconnect between the suppliers and the consumers. Local is a good idea but, I feel, there needs to be room within that definition. Maybe there becomes a better transportation system to move my product to your area, such as rail.
Your hormone and antibiotic sediment is heard and appreciated. Every rancher I know (they only raise beef) vaccinates and only give antibiotics to animals as you would children: when they are sick. There are never-ever programs, in which animals receive no vaccines or antibiotics. I do not believe in these programs because I plan to protect my children with these measures. Why would I protect not my cattle?
As for marketing and going to a farmers market, it is honestly not something we have considered much. There are very strict rules about selling meat, such as being USDA inspected and such. This is slightly an aside to illustrate the dangers of buying meat or milk from certain sources: you can get rabies from unpasteurized milk. Selling it is illegal in many states. This is not to scare you, just to say there are reasons it can to be hard to buy things from farmers markets. Most states control these laws
As a rancher, my family has done tremendous things for the environment. We have ranched in the same area for over 100 years. During that time we have increased diversity by creating better habitat for ground nesting birds, increased range health which leads for more productive rangelands therefore increasing the number and type of large game range animals(pronghorn, white tail, mule deer, elk) and small range animals, developed wetlands therefore benefiting waterfowl, moose and other similar animals. This increase in prey species has led to a natural increase in predator species, such as fox, coyotes, bobcat, lynx, mountain lion and wolves. Making the lands healthier benefits everything, not just cattle.
To Speedrace?
You too are a douchebag??Thanks for playing??tell me how your ?local ?clothing, electricity, plastics, furniture, cookware, electronics, and building supplies are going? If it is not grown, it is mined.
Uncannycan?.
Part of me is really angry. I feel like there is a fundamental disconnect between the food producers and the food consumers, even the local and organic consumers.
From reading what you have written, I think we see things similarly. Not all lands are created equal. To say I should be growing soybeans on land that can barely support 0.8 AUM just expresses stupidity, but no one wants to learn enough to address that issue.
MontereyBr and Jen&Joe06
I was actually asking to further my personal education. Our backgrounds and opinions give us differing points of view.
I wanted to learn more about how people feel and educate themselves on food, specifically beef, issues.
I have finished college and graduate school, and have no idea why you would insinuate I would be doing research on an internet chat site? That does not seem to a creditable source.
PS I think you meant GO not GOT?..thanks
::yawns::
You are completely missing the point.
Bellee,
I know that you are a troll. However, I am bored so I'll write you back for my own amusement.
Here's the EPA general definition for a CAFO and their Regulatory Definition. Do you met this? If so, I will never buy anything from you. There's your "disconnect between the supplier and consumer."
As for how many people my local farmer supports, I'm not exactly sure. He attends more markets than just mine, I think 2 or 3 more. His line at my market in the summer is a dozen people deep, so I imagine he provides several hundred people with humane, grass-fed beef. I know you'll respond that "you can't feed 300 million Americans on that scale" however we could if that type of farm could prosper, and then there would be more of them. Plus, I think the demand for beef should decrease from current levels because it's the most energy intensive of all the meat types, and uses by far the most land. Meaning everyone should eat less beef.
I've seen my rancher's farm, as all our county's local producers run a Farm Tour twice a year. He has his cows in large multi-acre paddocks, some of them go up the hillside out of my field of vision. I dont' see him "cleaning his corrals into the creek," it looks to me like the cow paddies just break down in the grass, which is why it's green and lush.
I am not upset none of you can buy local from my family. I am upset that so many producers such as me are not in a position to sell to anyone like you because the markets do not exist.
Why do you feel the need to explain why I should buy from you? As I said in my previous post, you have the largest segment of the population buying from farms like yours. Why do you come on this board and try to explain why local isn't the way to go? You're not going to convince anyone here. I don't want to buy food from far away on a "better transportation system, like rail," I don't want ANY large scale transportation involved. The trailer attached to my farmer's farm truck is just the scale I'm looking for. You ship your food all over the country, damaging the environment and using fossil fuels, and you get such a small portion of the money from selling that meat. That must be a hard life but I'm not going to help support you in it. I support my local economy as best I can. Like your retort to Speedracer, I don't buy everything local, nobody living in a city really can, but I do it for food which is a huge step.
Obviously you're not selling at the market, and good riddance. I don't want you there. You're not the type of food, or person, I'm interested in associating with. Awesome scare tactics BTW. "Don't eat local food b/c it could kill you!" Good grief. It's food from major corporations, like tainted Peanut Butter and bagged spinach that make people sick. I have never, ever gotten sick from food at the market because I look my food producer every Saturday straight in the eye. There's no better source of accountability than that.
Yeah, sure I totally believe you. CAFOs mix antibiotics into the cow's feed to keep them well, because eating corn (not their natural diet) makes them sick. If you have thousands of cattle as you suggest, what are you feeding them? Answer me that question! If you start them on grass then I guarantee you sending them to a feedlot to be fattened on corn before they're slaughtered.
I love to rattle on like you do, but the point of the story is, nothing you can say will make me buy food from you because your operation is not sustainable. If corn or other produce won't grow there, you must be using tremendous amounts of water for your cattle, and petroleum to ship your beef everywhere. You keep right on feeding that stuff to 99.9% of the population, but leave the little 0.1% who want a more sustainable source of food, like the people on this board, alone.
That it did! I thought "what great discussion topics"...oh.... okay... never mind.
Well for the record, I'm not sure how to define agribusiness, and local exactly. Local may vary. I buy what I can from my most local areas, but I also enjoy supporting local business. I like local produce, but when I want an avocado from California, I'm okay with that because its the closest its grown. And I even eat Florida grapefruit, but I buy them from a local business.
As far as local goes, its not really about how far it has to come, at least environmentally, so much as what sort of food system we are building. Food miles really aren't a major impact so much as the petrochemicals used in farming, and waste of animals. So rather than just buy local, I try to support my local economy, and producers doing things in better ways for the environment.
And no Bellee, no one wants you at their farmer's market, and needing to do things as you do to make ends meet is just an excuse. And actually going organic has helped a lot of small family farms stay in business. I doubt you'll read it, but this is a really interesting story about how a local ranch switched over to more EF measures http://www.thunderinghooves.net/about/our_story.htm
I'm not Bellee, but I enjoyed that read
Just to throw my two cents in.
I grew up on a dairy farm that was almost organic, but the process to become certified organic was too expensive, so we didn't certify. My dad sold his milk to the Milk Marketing Board in Ontario, like 99% of dairy farmers in the province. The cows were shipped off to slaughter at a local, humane butcher at the end of their normal life cycle.
A few years ago, there was a HUGE crackdown on abbatoirs (butchers) that weren't meeting certain criteria that was almost impossible (not to mention financially impossible) to meet unless you were a large corporation. So we have slowly been losing all of the small-scale, local slaughterhouses. Ironically, the independent slaughterhouses that have been closing have never had issues with salmonella, ecoli, listeria, etc. The large-scale corps that are apparently safer have had tons of issues. Its becoming increasingly more difficult to find/source local, organic meat and its very frustrating. My parents still have a few cows for us to butcher on our own. We don't trust corporate meat - and we have been part of the cycle for years.
I think it says a LOT about big-scale agribusiness when the farmers who are part of it don't trust it environmentally, humanely, etc.
That makes such a point IMO about local, you can know your producers better. When I know the producers, I don't care as much about being certified organic. I know there's one local farm that isn't certified, but goes above and beyond organic regulations. I know the couple that runs it, and they are extremely passionate about what they do, and clean food. They just haven't managed the fees.
This is the beef sold at my local butcher, which is housed inside a local produce mart by my house (I love this shop!). http://www.paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com/ Its not certified organic, or even organic, but I think its a good example of better producers, and supporting local farms.
I think this problem also really makes a point for groups like Organic Valley, which helps farmers with the difficulties of gaining organic certification, while maintaining small local farms.
So true! Have you read Joel Salatin's Everything I Want to Do is Illegal? Its entirely on this point.
I completely agree. I'd rather buy local than certified organic from across the country, and most of my local farmers do farm organically, they just can't afford the certification. They put up adorable little signs that say "we're ecoganic" or whatever cute term they can up with, and explain to their customer what they're doing. The local grass-fed beef farmer I've mentioned several times isn't organic either. He does give his cows antibiotics if they're sick. But it's not a continuous flow like in a feedlot, and he watches them closely to make sure they recover, rather than giving them more antibiotics than they need.
LaurierGirl, our local producers are having the same problem with small slaughterhouses shutting down. The chicken farmer at my market was telling me last week that the slaughterhouse he uses shreds up to 30% of his birds, so he can't sell those whole (which is apparently how everyone wants to buy them), he has to pay more to have them cut into parts and packaged. When I asked why he didn't switch to another slaughterhouse, he said the next one that fits his needs is several hundred miles away in NC. He said he can make that trip for his turkeys, and does to preserve whole birds for Thanksgiving, but it's not cost effective to do that for his chickens. His small, local place went out of business.
It's been the USDA's practice for several decades now to "Get Big or Get Out" which is exactly what's happening. Which is why shopping from small, local producers is so important to me and people like Bellee who just.don't.get.it make me so mad!