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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] The looming food crisis

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] The looming food crisis
  • Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:53:51 -0600


Yes, there is a place for various animals in a sustainable society, both
food and work animals, and right and wrong ways to handle them. Where Lappe
hits hard is the factory farms where cattle and poultry are crammed into
tight quarters, force fed unnatural grains and antibiotics, and sent sick
to slaughter. We can do without the stinking, gargantuan feedlots of the
midwest, and feed millions more people. If the ethanol switch closes down
some of them and makes beef cost more, fine with me.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 8/31/2007 at 1:42 PM Harvey Ussery wrote:

>I agree with much of what you say, Liz. However, I always object to a
>straight Frances Moore Lappe type approach to this question: ten pounds
>of feed grains for one pound of flesh produced and all that. Lappe's was
>an eminently useful contribution, but unfortunately she assumed that
>feeding beef animals feed grains is the norm, whereas in historic (and
>evolutionary) terms it is anything but.
>
>I'm not sure that what we need to do is eat more *corn* directly--if
>you've read Pollan's latest and most important book OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA,
>you know that we're already eating a *mountain* of corn, usually hidden
>away in unsuspected but ubiquitous nooks of our diet. Eat more sweet
>corn?--yeah! But I think we should vastly decrease the amount of
>commodity corn we grow (for highly manipulated/extracted additives to
>the industrial food supply as well as for animal feeds), and re-learn
>the benefits of clothing much of our agricultural land with grass, and
>the ways we can use meat-producing ruminants in synergistic relationship
>with grasslands.
>
>This is not to say that I don't agree with Liz--eating lesser quantities
>of meat may well be essential for a more sane and sustainable food
>future. But of equal importance is re-learning *traditional* ways of
>using meat animals--whether beef or other ruminants like sheep and
>goats, or pigs, or poultry--so that they support best use of prime land,
>help stabilize marginal land (slopes, rocky ground) thru grass/grazing
>rather than plowing, and gleaning around the edges (hedgerows, food
>processing cast-offs). Eating meat in such paradigms is eminently
>wholesome, and healing.
>
>~Harvey
>






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