Brace yourselves, feed prices are going to rise!!!!

[jhill1440]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

Quote:
Omnivore's Dilemma is a Left-Wing, touchy feely book to make one feel better about bashing "Commercial Agriculture" and spending more than needed on food. The author ignores the economic and Captialistic truths of food production and the world we live in. His attempts to lace commercial food and feed production with the nostalgia for the way things were and an attempt to makes one's conscience clear do not apply to the current state of supplying the world with safe, wholesome fooods.

The author does stimulate one to think about what they eat and the ramifications of those decisions, but I am NOT going to stop eating grapes in winter or California Asparagus in September.

Jim

At least you know where those winter grapes come from (chile, peru) and that your september asparagus comes from cali. I think that was also the point of "dilemma". Make one aware of where our food comes from. I liked the book, very informative. It would have taken me a long time to find Joel Salatin on my own, but Pollan makes him a centerpiece.

I think most people just assume they can get anything they want anytime of year. All that changes is the price. To make an informed decision about what to eat is important.

peace
josh​

 

[ninjapoodles]

Exactly my take, Josh. Education is never a mistake. Reading those books is what led me to FINALLY take steps toward raising my own food! My first book purchases after reading Pollan's? Storey's guide to chickens and the "Square-Foot Gardening" and "Lasagna" gardening books. If that makes me "left-wing, touchy-feely?" (I don't agree with Jim, but the labels certainly don't bother me--you can call me whatever you want.) I am TOTALLY FINE with that! Pollan is a gifted writer, who is bringing an important message to people who may honestly have never considered the idea of how much energy is squandered to deliver much LESS energy to our bodies.

I want what I want, but I'm not willing to be totally mercenary about it--especially since having a child, I AM invested in the outcome of my decisions. I'm far from perfect in that regard, though--I still drive an SUV for its towing capacity (and the fact that it's PAID FOR), and yeah, I buy produce that comes from all over the place. I ride 4-wheelers and Sea-Doos. I don't carry canvas bags shopping with me. For me, with certain produce (the stuff that's highest on the list for absorbed toxins), organic trumps local. Am I going to give up strawberries and blueberries in the fall and winter? Well, NO. But what I AM going to do, is to buy as many as I possibly can locally, RIGHT NOW, and preserve and freeze them (and when those run out, I'll probably be down at Wal-Mart buying that big bag of frozen berries from South America). But that's one small step, and it's something I can do. Maybe a little further along in my journey, I'll be able to grow my own.

At the very least, with my chickens and (soon) turkeys and silly little vegetable/herb garden, I'm teaching my child where food comes from, and how what we put into it is what we get out. I hardly think that's a controversial, or in ANY way political, message. I don't agree with Jim that Pollan "ignores the economic and Capitalistic truths of food production and the world we live in." I mean, I just finished re-reading it, and, well, that pretty well describes what the book is ABOUT. Capitalism is what brought modern agri-business to where it is today, and Capitalism can, if we the consumer drive it, also take us in a more sustainable, responsible direction--which would ultimately be easier on our pocketbooks as well.

In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the other non-fiction book I mentioned, in which Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from an arid, barren place to an Appalachian homestead and document a year of living more sustainably (including raising poultry for meat and eggs), there was one factoid in a siebar in the beginning that really stuck with me:

"If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences."

That bit caught my attention for the simple reason that it felt hopeful. There are small things I can do that can actually make things better. Baby steps. That, I can handle. I stand by my recommendation of both books as fact-based, thoroughly researched, and exhaustively sourced (facts and numbers are not just thrown in--they're all backed up by solid source material, which is credited). In Kingsolver's book, you get plenty of her opinion, but she openly identifies it as such, and explains her reasoning. And honestly, I don't really get how a desire for a more sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle is either "left-wing" or "right-wing." It's just personal. And on this forum, it appears to me that people are concerned with both wings, and that those wings are attached to homegrown, healthy, happy chickens.

And for every one of those homegrown chickens or their eggs that we eat instead of purchasing their industrial battery-farmed cousins...well, just maybe we're helping to save the world, one egg at a time!

 

[seedcorn]

A term that I disagree with is sustainable. Modern farming is sustainable........regardless of what others say. What isn't is 1960 and early farming techniques--think soil erosion, ground water contamination, etc.

Today at meeting, we're looking at 90% of the corn acres we had last year with 50% of them planted 4 weeks later than last year........get ready if we have any weather scares for skyrocketing corn prices...... Hang on

Most in Ag would welcome true "free range" animals IF the consumer would pay for it........ The problem is not American Ag, it's the American consumer....

 

[ninjapoodles]

Oh, I absolutely agree with that (although I don't think all blame can be placed on one or the other), which is why I said that an ag-revolution is not only possible but could (and should) be consumer-driven! That's the deal with capitalism--we get what we're willing to buy. I really believe that it COULD be a beautiful cycle, too, and that if we really put our money where our mouths are as consumers, the kind of production we're looking for could be done at greater volume, costs could eventually lower, which would increase consumption, and so on, and so on for a bit.

When I used the term "sustainable," I was using it in the context of Barbara Kingsolver's book. She and her family left an area where even the water they used was non-renewable (annual rainfall far short of the amount of water consumed), and most of their food was trucked in from afar, and moved to the Appalachians and became part of a farming community.

 

[seedcorn]

Quote:
1) since over all volume of product would be down (think corn in general) prices would skyrocket.

2) If there isn't enuf rainfall, they should move out of area since their life style is non-renewable or sustainable w/out outside interference thus upsetting the natural ecosystem.

Lazy, the discussion you started is very good advice for all.

 

[kstaven]

Quote:
There are some things better than 1960's practices. Like less deep tilling. Herbicide/pesticide application needs a lot more work though. Guys spraying fields and choking you at a mile away tells me a good percentage of what they are spraying isn't going where it should and thus the amounts used are extreme.

Look at it this way. If feed prices keep rising free ranging will become an even cheaper option than intensive feeding. In our experience rotating pasture and even counting the maintenance it is already cheaper than raising beef any other way. The build up to it wasn't cheap but having it established now pays off well. Glad we did it!

 

[ninjapoodles]

That's exactly what she did--moved out of the area so that her family was no longer contributing to the problem. Didn't solve the problem, obviously, but it's one less family. Baby steps.

As for corn prices going up, I'm not even going to touch that, because I'm sure you're WAY more informed than I'll ever be about market pressures, subsidies, etc. Also, I don't disagree with you about crops like corn and soybeans. I also don't think it would be a terrible thing if those two ingredients were a bit less...pervasive in our lives.

Thanks for the perspective.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
That's what I was trying to get at when I spoke of a new kind of consumer "cycle," but you said it much more eloquently and accurately. Thanks.

 

[seedcorn]

Quote:
1) In USA smelling herbicides 1/8 of a mile away they would be breaking so many laws. They'd be in jail and sued to bankruptcy.

2) My neighbor rotates pastures on his dairy. Production down some but feed costs and manure hauling are also down. On eggs, production would be down, almost non-existant in winter months, but egg prices would set all time highs as availability would be much less--that's not a bad thing.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
I think that's one area where we as Americans are really spoiled. Everything doesn't have to be so gosh-darned AVAILABLE. We just expect it, even feel entitled to having whatever we want...and we want it healthy, we want it low-impact, we want it safe, we want it made in America, and we want it CHEAP. We don't want much, do we?