Sustainable Living - Include Supporting Local Farms

January 31, 2010 by Tracey
Filed under Sustainable Living

People around the globe are becoming aware of the health benefits of sustainable living and the ecological disaster and possible health problems that are related to purchasing meat and dairy from the supermarket and (almost without fail) a factory farm. With an ever increasing number of outbreaks of food-borne illness in both meats and vegetables, millions are seeking another way to purchase their food and strike a positive blow for public health, the environment and animal rights.

Consider the the impact of raising tens of thousands of hogs, as is common on factory farms compared with a few dozen free-range hogs on a family farm. The waste from a small number of animals can be controlled with managed grazing and plenty of organic matter to absorb it. On the other hand, lagoons of manure that are measured in acres, collecting waste from thousands of animals are an environmental time bomb waiting to go off, such as was the case in the 1995 North Carolina lagoon outbreak that was responsible for killing upwards of 8 million fish in the New River.

This has happened just about every single time a hurricane has gone through the confinement hog country of the Eastern seaboard, polluting ground water and estuaries. The excess nutrients runoff into the streams and feed opportunistic organisms such as Pfiesteria, the single-celled organism that has closed beaches all over North America. The link is very strong between factory farm practices and outbreaks of all manner of toxic concentrations of algae and rogue dynoflagellates.

Thankfully, there is a whole generation of new farmers and ranchers who are looking to reinvent – a way that takes animal welfare into account, not just for its own sake, but also because meat from a healthy animal simply tastes better. Indeed, it has become very fashionable in New York and Los Angeles for wealthy people to purchase shares of locally and humanely raised, heirloom breed animals.

Free-range eggs, meat and dairy have become a commodity of demand.

Factory farm practices have had a very significant impact on how agriculture and animal husbandry is practiced in North America. Since the 1970s, at the behest of then-Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, the economies of scale transformed farm animals from free-range herbivores into grain-consuming widgets kept in barns designed more for human comfort rather than animal welfare.

Even mainstream animal rights groups such as the Humane Society of the US have been speaking out against factory farming practices. As a result of their efforts and that of campaigners worldwide, some factory farming practices have been banned. For example, the practice of keeping egg-laying hens in the tiny battery cages that don’t even allow birds to spread their wings or stand up will be eliminated throughout the EU in 2012 (after a three-year extension).

Share The Costs

Choosing to seek out agricultural products from alternative sources can sometimes cost a bit more, as reflected in prices seen at farmers’ markets for single cuts of meat. However, when neighbors pool their resources to buy a share in an animal, such as splitting up a cow between several families, the savings can be substantial, even over factory produced meat found at discount stores.

Not only does this have the advantage of supporting family farms and local agriculture, but it is far easier on the environment, since most small farm owners use systems that have a far lower environmental impact in the near and far term. The carbon that is saved from the few thousand miles that most animal products travel from birth to the table are saved, too.

Perhaps even more importantly, these animals are fed grass instead of grains. Given the fertilizers, pesticides and fuel used to grow and transport the grains that are found in most animal feed, allowing an animal to graze instead represents a tremendous amount of saved energy that people might not even consider.

Moreover, animals that are fed grains, as is the case on feedlots, are able to support e. coli and other bacteria that are harmful to humans, whereas the grass-fed animals from family farms that are only “finished” for a few days on grains have a digestive chemistry that doesn’t allow such organisms to multiply, even if they do come into contact with it.

There are plenty of reasons not to support the factory farm model of agriculture.

From supporting animal rights and humane treatment, protecting vulnerable eco-systems from environment-damaging accidents, reducing pollution and pesticide usage, cutting carbon emissions and protecting the family farm that has all but disappeared from much of the American landscape; it’s worth more than just a better-tasting hamburger to support local agriculture and buy your meat, dairy and eggs with ethics in mind.