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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

Anytime, says I, a work goes up for sale, it will go to the highest bidder no 
matter what curious and unlikely definition it then carries.  Did you know, 
for example, that if you buy meat of fish in the supermarket labeled "fresh", 
it can be shipped frozen as solid as a rock for many days and thawed in the 
store and yet it is still, by USDA definition, "fresh".  That is now true of 
"organic" and it gets worse as it goes along:

"The USDA is now drafting a proposed rule that will likely come out this 
fall, and there will be another comment period, spokeswoman Joan Shaffer 
said.Horizon supports the key proposal, which would require that organic cows 
spend at 
least 120 days a year on pasture, Scalzo said.Aurora opposes that standard as 
unscientific and told the USDA eastern Colorado gets only about 45 to 60 days 
of significant edible grass per year."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13581446/


This is paredictable.  What got my attention in the article was that a dairy 
farm of 160 cows was dismissed as being a "Old MacDonald's" type of 
anachronistic operation.  Modern "organic" dairy farms often have in excess 
of 4000 
(count 'em) cows!

The day to day dairy farm of my youth had twenty cows.  Fifty was a huge farm 
since it grew its own corn and hay and maintained enough pasture for that 
many cows.

Yet, I would opine that such small diary farms fell victim to suburban sprawl 
more than competition from mega-dairies.