Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> "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/

Musing on my belief that food is best produced locally, I must 
contemplate that far northern locales must then refrain from drinking 
milk in its fresh form unless a procedure is developed by which milk 
for human consumption may be taken from polar bears.

The modern dairy operation is repugnant. The cows are a nuisance 
tolerated because they are essential. Food in this end, crap out the 
other end, milk from the middle. More, more, more of each. Keeping 
the three products isolated is a constant challenge. If consumers 
could see the conditions they might refrain from drinking. Reminds me 
of the interview of Michael Pollan I posted yesterday wherein he 
talks of the slaughterhouse strain to keep feces-full outsides of 
beef animals from contacting the juicy insides that will soon gleam 
red under meat counter plastic. The red color, of course, due to 
carbon monoxide.