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  • From: hans brinkmann <hans-brinkmann@t-online.de>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] You Think You Got Pest Problems? OFF-TOPIC
  • Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:10:28 +0200

Hallo Mark and hallo Rivka,

I like it very much, reading your very interesting comments!
I like it also to hear about other culture/countries.

My father was plowing his fields only with horses - as he has been a young man.
Those days each house in our villages has had one or more porks.
As I have been young each farmer has had at least few or many porks.
Now-a-days not a single farmer in the whole area has a single pork, but the pork consumption is increased drastically...

But maybe because of the close contact with farm animals, my father taught me:
Never kill an animal just for fun!
Never hurt an animal for fun, because they feel the pain like human beings!
Never throw food away! (at least feed it to the porks, dogs or cats)!
Just to add, to avoid critics, he did not forgot the human beings:
He also taught me also - as a German with too much war experience: Never ever join the German Army!

I found a very interesting and informative American page - not only for younger people -
*http://www.youthxchange.net/main/b223_food-supply_meat-m.asp*
"If each American reduced his or her meat consumption by only 5%, roughly equivalent to eating one less dish of meat each weak, 7.5 million tons of grain would be saved, enough to feed 25 million people-roughly the number estimated to go hungry in the United States each day."

*http://www.youthxchange.net/main/b223_food-supply_meat-d.asp
*"The world’s richest countries make up only 1/5 of global population, but account for 45% of all meat consumption…" With a very informative table!
"The typical American prepared meal contains, on average, ingredients from at least *5 countries* outside the United States;"
" For each hamburger passed up, as much water is saved as taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle. In other words, save massive amounts of water - 3000 to 5000 gallons (about 11,350-19,000 litres) of water for every pound of beef you avoid;"

/"I think you're right about that; much of the population of the US has had no real hunger in their family history for several generations, and can't imagine that this could ever happen to them. I strongly suspect that part of my interest in food and in the production of it comes from the fact that my father nearly starved to death as a child (in Poland in the 1920's)."

/I have the same sad experience: Almost every German does not know or understand the real meaning of hunger. Many old ones just forgot or died and the other ones can not imagine or do not have any empathy or just do not want to think/to imagine!
I was working for some time in different African countries (Sudan, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe ...) never ever I can forget to see hunger! To see people just dieing because of less food or water. Simultaneously I was able to see our wonderful German G-3 machine gun at Sudan, where it is officially never sold...
America is the largest weapon seller at the world! Tiny Germany is No. 3! But both countries are surprised about the increasing No of wars and terrorism...
At Ethiopia, I asked by chance my cook: "how often do you eat meat at home?" Answer: "Once a year at a special celebration day".
I stopped eating meat from that day on. But this is my very personal decision/history only for me!
Also really shocking has been one fact later on: Back home in food-wasting-Germany: Not even my German friends have been able to understand hunger, if I tried to explain... No way, but some few very old Germans understood well. Especially some old Germans do not accept the EU-food-wasting-programs to waste thousands of tons of foodstuff... Most others have "logical explanations to continue with this custom" for that crime...
Since those days I really "hate" Fast-food-culture in Germany! Many young people love Mc Donalds. Junk food, too much nonsense packing, after leaving they often just throw it out of the car and many young Germans do not say: e.g. Let's eat some food... They just say e.g.: "Let's rankle some shit".
The small "Slow-Food" fashion is a very good direction, but very personally for me (with my African experience) it is also a bit overdone (the meals).
Anyhow, they spread a very good knowledge, which is last not least very useful for the producers.

ciao
Hans Germany


Rivka: "No idea why this happened; but have noticed that posts to this list do sometimes come througn delayed and/or out of order."
Sometimes also my posts are fast, sometimes they need one day... I think it's just a weak server...


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Mark & Helen Angermayer schrieb:

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



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