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Then it needs to be fixed.
I think you guys are doing great and making an important step toward a more sustainable system. As long as you are raising and selling your birds humanely and locally, that is a very important step in the right direction.
Here is how I see the big picture...
Sustainability is the only chance for the survival of our species. Either we live in such a way that our environment can be sustained, or we perish. If the commercial setting doesn't become sustainable, then the commercial setting will fail.
But there are degrees of sustainability. I see your system as much more sustainable than industrial agriculture. But assuming you only raise birds on your farm (I don't know if you do or not), then your system is not as sustainable as Polyface, Joel Salatin's farm, where full advantage is taken of the resources available on the farm by running multiple species over the same acreage. Like vacuums, nature abhors a monoculture. Over the long term they breed disease and parasites.
And on the road to sustainability, the aforementioned Nature's Harmony Farm is farther along than Polyface, since they do not import their birds every season and instead rely on heritage breeds of multiple species. They are the future of farming and the showcase of sustainability.
I still do not believe the CX or the system that makes it available is sustainable. But once again, sustainability isn't even my number one priority. Humane treatment of the animals in my care is. So, even if I thought the CX were sustainable, I still would not raise them because I don't believe it is humane for my personal code of ethicss (important that you note that phrase) for me to do so.
And lastly... no, I did not call you. That would likely be my good friend Al who lives very close to me, and who is working on a very similar project to your own and in fact once told you so when discussing it in a thread. I think he even said in that thread he was going to call you.
ETA
I say all of this fully realizing that my own life is one about degrees of sustainability. I consider a sustainable lifestyle, like a sustainable economy or agricultural system, to be more a journey than a destination. Just as I consider some farms and some livestock to be more sustainable than others, I fully confess there are many who live a lifestyle more sustainable than my own. I am working on it, getting a little bit closer every day, but I have by no means arrived.
After all, I own a computer.
Then it needs to be fixed.
I think you guys are doing great and making an important step toward a more sustainable system. As long as you are raising and selling your birds humanely and locally, that is a very important step in the right direction.
Here is how I see the big picture...
Sustainability is the only chance for the survival of our species. Either we live in such a way that our environment can be sustained, or we perish. If the commercial setting doesn't become sustainable, then the commercial setting will fail.
But there are degrees of sustainability. I see your system as much more sustainable than industrial agriculture. But assuming you only raise birds on your farm (I don't know if you do or not), then your system is not as sustainable as Polyface, Joel Salatin's farm, where full advantage is taken of the resources available on the farm by running multiple species over the same acreage. Like vacuums, nature abhors a monoculture. Over the long term they breed disease and parasites.
And on the road to sustainability, the aforementioned Nature's Harmony Farm is farther along than Polyface, since they do not import their birds every season and instead rely on heritage breeds of multiple species. They are the future of farming and the showcase of sustainability.
I still do not believe the CX or the system that makes it available is sustainable. But once again, sustainability isn't even my number one priority. Humane treatment of the animals in my care is. So, even if I thought the CX were sustainable, I still would not raise them because I don't believe it is humane for my personal code of ethicss (important that you note that phrase) for me to do so.
And lastly... no, I did not call you. That would likely be my good friend Al who lives very close to me, and who is working on a very similar project to your own and in fact once told you so when discussing it in a thread. I think he even said in that thread he was going to call you.
ETA
I say all of this fully realizing that my own life is one about degrees of sustainability. I consider a sustainable lifestyle, like a sustainable economy or agricultural system, to be more a journey than a destination. Just as I consider some farms and some livestock to be more sustainable than others, I fully confess there are many who live a lifestyle more sustainable than my own. I am working on it, getting a little bit closer every day, but I have by no means arrived.
After all, I own a computer.
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The only thing I'd like for you to consider is that we determined it was far more environmentally friendly to make one delivery per month to 75 people where they live in our CSA plan than to have 75 people drive 40-70 cars 2 1/2 hours to where we live. You don't have to agree of course, but we actually did make the decision that we thought was most environmentally responsible. The same concept applies if/when we participate in a farmers market in Athens or Atlanta...customers are already there, so we take the goods to them. End result, one vehicle makes the long journey, not many.
