Feeling grateful yet? Teenage poultry farmer dishes straight talk Read more: Feeling

[cometman 35115]

http://www.denverpost.com/athome/ci_21967690/feeling-grateful-yet-teenage-poultry-farmer-dishes-straight

[JoyfulC 132299]

I read this about a week ago, and I'll admit to being a bit suspicious that she received some assistance. There's a lot of maturity in there for a 13-year-old. (The kid comes off sounded downright jaded.)

 

But I think there's a lot of truth in what she says. Consumer perceptions have been influenced by huge corporations that put a lot of money into marketing, while skimping out and selling us (often subsidized, in the US especially) food at rock bottom prices. People have come to have unrealistic expectations.

 

We probably should have been paying more for our food all along. Prices will probably rise in the near future, but for all the wrong reasons, things we should have been working to avoid, like the recent drought in the US and higher gas prices. More and more, it seems that farming is only profitable for big industrial operations. Family farms are getting squeezed out. What's the point of working your farm when one or more members of the family has to work full-time off the farm to pay the bills?

[cometman 35115]

Good points, Christine. The consumer is very demanding about their food supply. It has to be wholesome AND cheap.They do not like factory or industrial farms, but economy of scale is the only way to continue to make a living for farmers. Get bigger or get out is our mantra. However, if we get big to be profitable, they do not like our production practices. Direct sales to consumer rarely work on more than a limited scale. When you look at what it costs a family to live per year, imagine what a small farm's gross sales would have to be in order to support a family. It's a sign of the times. Very few families can live on one income any more in middle class North America. If the consumer can, they should try to buy directly from the producer and see what a difference fresh food makes for their children's palates....no additives or preservatives. Ever had fresh ground beef? Very few people have and they cannot believe the difference.

[JoyfulC 132299]

Cometman, we moved out of Ottawa in 2006 to a small town that has its own butcher/abattoir. They kill local pigs and cows one day a week. I think they get chicken from the next town over. We buy all our meat from them. I can't say that all the meat is 100% organic or grass fed or whatever. In talking with local farmers, it almost seems that they have a frustrated/disgusted attitude about consumers who ask such questions. I believe most use some antibiotics and probably finish feed beef with corn. So I can't claim that we're eating all this almighty organic, grass fed, free-range, whatever stuff that you read so much about. I do, however, know that there aren't any CAFOs around here and our meat doesn't come from some huge industrial meat processing plant.

 

Same thing with veggies. The few times I've asked local farmers about whether they used Round-up or Round-up ready seed, they sort of rolled their eyes and sighed. They don't seem to want to discuss it, so I don't push. But I don't understand. While I can see how it would increase their yield, it also seems like it vastly limits their export market. So ???

 

As for us, we don't fuss too much about organic or whatever, although we'd really prefer not to eat GMO products. My background is chemistry, and I have enough biology to know that the way GMO products are created is highly unnatural. That, combined with what seems like suspicious and highly inadequate testing, governments that seem bought out by GMO interests and, more than any other factor, the resistance to GMO labelling, has made us decide that we do not want GMO in our household. All we can do is try to avoid processed foods and foods with corn and soy ingredients, or lab made ingredients. Even still, I'm sure we're getting GMOs. What happened to all this free market talk? I thought the free market was about letting the market decide what it wanted? Turns out, it doesn't apply if there's a threat that the free market might reject what big business is selling. That stinks, and our elected Members of Parliament are directly responsible for this travesty. We should have labelling so we can make informed choices.

 

Around here, we make just about everything from scratch. We buy very little in the way of processed foods. We buy stuff like soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce processed. Everything else, we try to buy basic ingredients and make up our own. This takes a lot of man hours, which we're lucky to have. Most families don't.

 

I predict that, in the future, time will be the new currency of wealth and quality of life.

[cometman 35115]

I know the area you live in. Until my sister passed away, she lived there as well and I did a bit of running around there on my bike this summer. You didn't see me wave? LOL

I saw a lot of small-medium producers in your area and they should be great to deal with and trust. They live there and are your neighbors. Contrary to public opinion, farmers do not routinely use antibiotics. To save an animal, they must sometimes be treated,but there are drug withdrawal times to be followed.

GMO.....does anyone completely trust it? However, there is very little choice any more for corn and soybean seed selection. RR.......means less weed pressure for your crops and science says it is safe, so that's all we have to go on for now. It's all to do with making a living and following the rules. GMO and RR quite often means that fewer and safer pesticides are used, so that should be a good thing.However, seed prices (which farmers are captive to)are going through the roof- about $100/ acre for corn seed. It has helped yield and that hopefully means a profit per acre if Mother Nature cooperates.

I personally believe organic is over hyped, but dealing with a trustworthy producer will get you fresh, tasty, nutritious, reasonably priced food.

As far as free market and choices go, sadly, most consumers are forced by economics to buy strictly on price and that means that they do not always make the most informed choices.

[JoyfulC 132299]

Oh, was that you?? ;)

 

As for what either the science or government says is safe, it seems to me that Monsanto and other GMO companies are controlling the message. Look at the way this recent 2-year feeding study has been slammed. But we need real independent study. Otherwise, it's like having the fox manage henhouse security.

 

There's plenty of evidence lately that RR use is spawning RR resistant weeds, in addition to other damage it does to the environment and our health. I was reading somewhere recently that when GMO canola was introduced to Canada, it drastically reduced the canola export market because so many countries don't want GMO foods. Looking at things season by season, I can see where maybe RR would make sense, but it doesn't look the same in the long view.

 

My point is, without adequate labelling, how can consumers possibly make "informed" choices? You need information to be informed. They say it will increase costs, but that's tough to believe. There's certainly all kinds of money to splash stuff like "Heart Healthy!" and "Low in Fat" all over stuff in a deceptive fashion, but it's somehow going to dramatically increase our prices to tell us what's really in what we're buying?

[cometman 35115]

You knew it was me and you purposely ignored me the 10th time I drove by! LOL

Education is power and people do need to educate themselves more. Grow your own or know the grower is a great policy. Progress is not always a reassuring thought.

If improved labeling were required, it couldn't add much to costs, i wouldn't think.

If we were ever to meet face-face, I think we'd have a heluva conversation....not a bad thing.

[JoyfulC 132299]

You knew it was me and you purposely ignored me the 10th time I drove by! LOL

Education is power and people do need to educate themselves more. Grow your own or know the grower is a great policy. Progress is not always a reassuring thought.

If improved labeling were required, it couldn't add much to costs, i wouldn't think.

If we were ever to meet face-face, I think we'd have a heluva conversation....not a bad thing.

 

I think the big concern is that it would change the market for GMO seeds. End consumers aren't Monsanto's customers. Farmers are Monsanto's customers. Grain processors are farmers' customers. Food processors and distributors are grain processors' customers. And we're the customers of food processors and distributors. To give us the ability to choose not to consume GMOs, food processors and distributors would have to be able to choose not to buy GMO grain products. And in order for them to do that, grain processors would have to be able to choose not to purchase GMO grain from farmers. And that gets back to farmers not choosing to use GMO seed.

 

They claim they're safe, but really, how can they know that? It's the stuff horror films are made of, injecting genetic material from one form of life into an entirely different one. It cannot possibly happen in nature, except once it's released in the wild, where it can contaminate at will. It's unbelievable to me that such a specimen would ever have been allowed out of the controlled conditions of the lab.

 

I read something funny recently! Apparently, back in the 60s or 70s, they came up with (through natural hybridization methods) a tomato with a much better shelf life than the kind you can grow in your garden, and this is what people have been buying in grocery stores ever since. It's beautiful, firm, durable... but it has no flavour. All my life, this is what I thought tomatoes were because store-bought tomatoes were the only raw tomatoes I ever had. So when my husband wanted to grow tomatoes in our garden, I was lukewarm on the idea. Then I tasted my first vine-ripened garden tomato and fell in love! So anyway, I was reading that they recently identified some genes that the aforementioned breeding process turned off while making tomatoes more produce section friendly, and if they can get turn these genes back on, store-bought tomatoes may once again have flavour.

 

I'm all for that kind of genetic tinkering, as long as the genes pretty much belong in the plant. This adding genes from insects or microbes to crops is horrifying. Nature might not be perfect (or maybe it is and we just don't realize it), but it's hubris to think we can do better.

 

Hopefully we would prefer to talk in email or online or something. There are all kinds of communication possible in person that can't be done any other way. ;)

[mikey76 438]

if you live in the okanagan area bc just last summer farmers would let there fruit or veg go to wast because they couldn't get the prices they want. its sad to see it passing there orchid full with fruit and its sitting there roting. if you went to farmers market its exspensive. i understand the cost and how hard it is to work there but there is no reason to wast food. thats my opion any way

[JoyfulC 132299]

if you live in the okanagan area bc just last summer farmers would let there fruit or veg go to wast because they couldn't get the prices they want. its sad to see it passing there orchid full with fruit and its sitting there roting. if you went to farmers market its exspensive. i understand the cost and how hard it is to work there but there is no reason to wast food. thats my opion any way

 

That's odd. Were their costs of harvest too high?

 

I agree. It's a terrible thing to waste food. And generally we do waste a lot in North America. Another thing I love about a freezer: reduces waste.

[mikey76 438]

nope this year it was cherries the store got filled by use producks so they couldn't make a living to even both picking them. i've seen it just fall to the ground. i would have picked my own at a fair price but some of them want store prices

[JoyfulC 132299]

nope this year it was cherries the store got filled by use producks so they couldn't make a living to even both picking them. i've seen it just fall to the ground. i would have picked my own at a fair price but some of them want store prices

 

My MIL used to make these little pickled corns. They were like little baby corn cobs. I loved them, but I could never figure out where you'd buy such things. I finally asked her, and she said she didn't buy them, but would sneak out into the corn fields, and fill her apron with them. !!!!

 

So now I live around some farms that grow corn, and I'm very tempted. But I can just see it now. Mug shot. Fingerprinted. My first criminal record at the age of 55.

 

For cherries, though, I might be willing to risk a moonless midnight harvest. ;)

[Carrie Moon 68826]

I highly recommend watching genetic roulette. It really opened my eyes.. I will no longer touch GMO food or any food (meat) that has been fed GMO. Here are a couple of free links to the movie

http://vimeo.com/49565886

http://rclvideolibrary.com/2012/10/29/genetic-roulette-the-gamble-of-our-lives/