North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark & Helen Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

Hi Rivka,

Rivka wrote:

"I don't think anyone is suggesting that we "go back to practices 50 years
old"; at least if that's taken to mean, "do everything the way we did it 50
years ago", rather than "select the best technique based on what we know
now", which may result in combining techniques used many years ago with
others developed only recently. Intensive rotational grazing, for instance,
was as I understand it very rarely if ever practiced 50 years ago, but I
believe does both increase production and decrease parasites, while
improving the pastures."

I agree we should "select the best technique based on what we know now."
The problem is some groups (specifically welfare groups) care very little
about the best technique or the industry even surviving.  As an example some
want to get rid of the farrowing crate, but it is specifically because the
sow is confined that she doesn't crush her piglets while laying down, it
forces her to lay down slowly (sows are bad about laying on their young,
especially on hot days).
I also like the idea of intentional rotational grazing.  My old farming
partner, whom I sold out to, started raising cattle with his dad.  They are
using intensive rotational grazing.  Obvioulsy it wouldn't work with hogs,
all you would get with hogs is an intensive mud hole, but I don't think
you're talking about hogs.  As an aside, I would offer a caution.  Sometimes
an idea sounds really great on paper, and maybe there are a few people
actually claiming they're doing it and it's working great, but when it comes
to actually implementing it, under your own personal circumstances, it
doesn't work.  I'm sure you've run across that with a lot of fruit ideas
that sounded good but didn't work (I know I have), it's the same thing with
hogs.  People come up with ideas that are supposed to work just as good, or
almost as good, but they don't.

Rivka wrote:

"However, if we're ever in a state of actual food scarcity in the USA (from
your "300 million people", I assume you mean the USA),"
Yes

Rivka wrote:
" I don't think we'll be able to afford confinement production. (Correct me,
please, on any of this if I'm wrong; I'm not really a livestock person, and
it's possible that I've got something wrong here.) Confined animals are
usually fed grains as a large part of the diet, aren't they?"
You're correct.

Rivka wrote:
"Humans can digest grains directly; if people are starving, running the
grains through livestock first isn't the best way to go. There's a lot of
land in this country that can grow quite good pasture, but that, because of
steep slope and/or rocky or shallow soil, isn't suited to grain or vegetable
production. (If the pastures are managed to do so, they can also sustain
quite a lot of wild species, which doesn't happen in a feedlot; and the
manure becomes a benefit rather than a problem.)"

Much, or most, of the marginal land you speak of is already used for pasture
for cattle, or is used for hay production which is fed to cattle.  There is
little land in the U.S. that's idle.  I agree there is some land currently
being dirt farmed that has no business being used for rowcrops, but I think,
at least in the midwest, it's minimal.

A valid point about it's more efficient for humans to eat corn and beans
rather than allowing the livestock.  But a caveate:  Livestock production
has grown very efficient to close that gap.  You can grow a pound of pork on
3 lbs of feed, a pound of chicken on 2 lbs of feed, and for commerical
fisheries, you can grow a pound of fish on less than a pound of feed (this
is because feed is measured as dry matter and animal tissue has a lot of
water weight, hence feed efficiencies of less than one for fish).  Obviously
we don't eat all parts of the animal (although our forefathers nearly did)
so the efficiencies aren't as good for the amount we do eat, but it is also
worth mentioning that meats are more nutrient dense than grain, so we get
more out of them (although it still probably doesn't make up of for not
eating the whole animal from an effieciency standpoint).

 Rivka wrote:
"Livestock can also be grazed on fields in cover crop as part of a rotation,
giving additional yield from those fields while fertilizing them for the
next crop and (at proper stocking rates) improving the health of the soil;
helping make it possible to raise vegetables and row crops on soils not
suited to doing so in continuous production. Cattle and chickens, at least,
can digest quite a lot of stuff that humans can't, and turn it into meat
that humans can benefit from. While as I understand it the digestive system
of pigs is a lot like that of humans, I think they can also eat things, such
as acorns, that humans can't eat, at least without a lot of processing. Can
they also digest, for instance, clover?"

Yes they can digest clover.  On the chickens however, I would be surprised
of being able to grow chickens range style with any kind of scale.  There
may be someone doing it, but I'd be skeptical.  It seems to me broiler
houses are a necessity with anything more than a handful of chickens.

Rivka wrote:
"Confinement-raised meat isn't cheaper because the feed source is cheaper;
it's cheaper because it requires less human labor. Under our current
economic setup, in the US human labor is priced higher than natural
resources. Corn-fed meat is really a luxury item; available to us
specifically because we're producing more corn than the humans can eat
directly. Of course, if we start burning the corn all up in our cars
instead, that's likely to change."

Again I agree, it's largely driven by labor, but ultimately isn't that what
we pay for when we buy anything?  I don't want to try to switch the
argument, but at a personal level, I like to be able to buy cheap food.  Not
so, as a family, we can waste money on other material goods, but because we
don't have as much income as some other folks. We live frugally compared to
most Americans, except I spend a lot on our backyard orchard, and probably a
lot less efficiently than a real orchardist can produce it.  But since I
don't do it for a living, I don't do it for efficiency, but for perhaps a
bit better quality, and for fun.

Mark
Kansas