Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Re. Cattle and toxic fumes

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Fox, Dan" <foxd@sunyocc.edu>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Re. Cattle and toxic fumes
  • Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 10:51:51 -0400

Su Do,

 

That was a chilling report on the megadairies, thanks for posting it. I live in a neighboring county and have dairy farms all around me, both conventional and organic. The conventional folks are all adding space for confined operations, mostly in huge, flimsy looking pole-barn structures (hope the wind doesn’t blow too hard). The smaller guys around me are conventional, but they have my admiration for their work ethic and commitment to their families. We barter our maple syrup, honey and eggs for venison and baked goods with them. Although many of their practices are not what could be hoped, the scale is still small enough, for now. Our meat we get from an organic dairy and we get our milk raw from yet another organic dairy nearby (for our pets ;^)).  Unfortunately, organic prices have fallen while feed costs have risen, forcing some organic dairies back into conventional. In my opinion, a small-scale organic dairy farmer is a pillar of his or her community, as it is no small matter to make the switch and the benefits are enormous to the local ecology and human community. Maybe rising energy costs will neutralize the scale issue. The really big guys are bastards.

 

Wendell Berry said somewhere that “country life”, contrary to what many people think, is not  “getting away from it all” in some bucolic hideaway, but is in reality the “front lines” of the excesses of the industrial economy. With the factory farms, timber operations, and mines in this area, I can certainly attest to that.

 

Dan Fox



  • [Livingontheland] Re. Cattle and toxic fumes, Fox, Dan, 04/04/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page