Earth Day has once again come and gone, We can’t say we did much of anything to celebrate, because, frankly, we didn’t, But Chad did manage to strike up an interesting discussion on his sister’s Facebook wall (much to her behest, we might add) regarding large scale farming, agriculture conglomorates, and the consumer. After watching Food, Inc the other night, Chad (maybe stupidly) responded to his sister’s status update:
Megan Tyler Happy Earth Day!! Thank you to all our farmers out there who keep our country running!!
Thu at 8:57am · Comment ·
Chad posted a comment about his displeasure with the current state of food production and the corporate takeover of the american farmer, calling out Monsanto, Cargill and Tyson, three of the Multinational Corporations targeted in Robert Kenner’s documentary. While this promptly sparked a tounge lashing from his little sister, resulting in the deletion of the original comment, it did manage to provoke the thoughtful response of Ryan Gilbert. See below:
First and foremost the American farmer is being presented with a daunting task. We are being asked to feed a growing world population efficiently and fairly. The problem is various special interest groups also feel that they know exactly what those farmers should be doing. For example, there is a big push towards organics for several reasons, two of them being food safety and sustainability. Since it is the day after earth day I will touch on both.
First there is the argument that food safety is at an all time low. After watching the video I know that the statement was made that for once in two generations our life expectancy is going to be lower then our parents. I find that confusing since the numbers that were released 4 – 6 weeks ago have our life expectancy greater than our parents. But what about everyone dying of heart disease and cancer? Those numbers are included in that calculation.
Second is sustainability. The American farmer uses chemicals to fertilize crops and control pests, and on top of that we are using genetically modified organisms to control the unknown. “We should go back to organic.” Well what is organic? No chemical anything, mechanical pest control, and intensive “small farmer” practices. Have you looked where the organic foods in stores come from? Larger organic operations. Are they corporate farms? Some are some are not. The fact is organic farms actually increase the rate of soil erosion and land degradation because the preferred method of weed control is tillage causing our topsoil to be washed down stream. Yields are often lower then that of conventional agricultural practices. Many say we should fertilize our crops with nothing but manure. Problem is to maintain the current yields that we have manure could only sustain 1/3 of those acres, and there would still be the nitrogen runoff that we currently have. That is not including the amount of food borne illnesses related to E. coli o157:H7 because of fresh organic crops that have been fertilized with manure. Organic is wonderful for many producers, but not all organic producers are small family farms, which is the same situation that conventional farming has found itself in.
Animal agriculture is currently undergoing many changes to adapt with current conditions. In the US you are starting to see more turn around crates used in swine production. On top of that if you look at dairy and beef producers they are spending more time then ever researching and finding ways to produce a quality, healthy product which is raised in an environment that has the animal comfortable and happy…. See More
It is easy to look at a video and feel that what is currently being said is the truth and the whole truth. The fact of the matter is if EVERYONE would do exactly what the video says the world would be a different place. The world population is 6.6 billion people. The current American agriculture system produces enough food, combined with the world food supply, to feed the world with a surplus left over. Monsanto has produced a product, which it has given to 3rd world countries, called “golden rice.” This product gives vitamin A, which is an important vitamin and is often deficient in these people causing blindness. Monsanto has done this with the realization that there will never be a profit from this item. As easy as it is for a movie like “Food, Inc” to criticize, please look further into the situation before making decisions. Movies like this are important to raise questions, but not to answer questions. That takes more research.
Followed by a comment by another of Chad’s sisters:
We, one hundred percent, agree with Ryan’s last paragraph, not to say, we disagree with anything else he has shared, how can we, we are relatively uninformed consumers, like most consumers. Until we do enough research we can really only draw on our experiences, observations, and offer our personal preference/opinion based on these. We can probably, nay, easily, consider ourselves something of a pair of conscious consumers. Out of curiousity, we read the labels of pretty much any product we buy at the grocery store and, intrinsically, want to know more about where our food comes from and try to be conscious of where it goes (not talking about defecation here, rather composting food waste and recycling anything and everything we can).
Ninety percent of the problem is that it is very difficult, nowadays, to know where our food comes from and what goes into the production of the food.
All throughout the journey documented in this blog, we had so many opportunities to gather food directly from the source. Granted we constantly on the move and we were largely exposed to elements making it easier to find the source, but it seems In every country we visited, we saw so much variety in the crop rotation even right up to the border of massive cities like Vienna where we were able to collect some onions from a field directly outside of its borders. For the first time, we got to see up close the harvest of a carrot field; pumpkins harvested for the seeds and oil. Cabbage and lettuce; leeks, beets, and tangerines galore. Products that we eat on a regular basis but never see grown.
We were inspired by how many people’s gardens we encountered along the way were used in as productive a way as possible. More often than naught, any tree or shrub planted was a fruit bearing variety. Personal vegetable gardens were status quo, bee hives, too. Even for large apartment blocks in urban areas, there is often provided garden plots a few blocks away or on the out skirts of town.
We spent last week house sitting for Chad’s parents in rural Ogle County. We got the bicycles out and went for some long rides on the country roads. The whole time we kept thinking of Czech Republic and all of the apple trees lining the roads. They were everywhere and good apples too! Anybody can come and pick the apples, doesn’t matter. As we pedaled along we dreamt of being modern day Johnny Appleseeds and planting up Big Mound Rd. with apple trees all along it, but surely the county would mow over it, no?
We see so many new houses and old houses sitting on fertile land, and yet the land is draped in its entirety with turf grass. One could rather easily plant some raspberry bushes, an apple tree, and till the soil and plant some onions, tomatos, lettuce, all sorts of vegetables that can be eaten while in season or canned for later use, just like many of our grandparents used to do.
This ties directly into something that We have been trying hard to stick with, and really enjoy; Cooking! We love to cook, Jowita actually just pulled a loaf of bread from the oven and unveiled her latest homemade yogurt flavor – mint!! Topped it with homemade granola and there you go, a great homemade breakfast. By preparing our own foods we can have more control over the ingredients and helps us create healthier meals that meet out caloric and gustatory needs/desires.
In short, we are not fond of the idea that so much of the food we eat today is filtered through the hand of only a few Mulit-national Corporations, that nature is seemingly being perversed to produce more, faster, and more resistant. But we also do not know all the facts, can’t possibly spend the time to known all the facts, to balance the scales evenly, but what we can do is, like Ryan says, Raise the Questions, and do some research to help try and answer some of these questions. Perhaps this will be the focus of BirdonBike for a little while.
