Green Machine Farm

I happened across this article the other day which details a report by the group Food & Water Watch on the connection between corporate money and Land-Grant University research.  I have at least some familiarity with this relationship, as I currently live less than 2 miles from both “Monsanto Place” and “Monsanto Auditorium” at the University of Missouri.  That’s about $3 million in corporate donations within walking distance.

As I’ve discussed before, some of the research coming out of land-grant universities these days is appalling, and they know it.  While I think it’s helpful to point these shenanigans out to the public, I don’t spend too much of my time or energy on them.

Sure conventional ag as we know it may be causing problems, but conventional ag is necessary to feed our growing population; and fortunately for us (sort of) the damage is largely self-limiting.

Don’t believe me?  Lets take a look at the current trends in fossil fuels, water use, antibiotics, animal welfare, and herbicides.

Fossil Fuels: We all realize that fossil fuel prices are going nowhere but up.  And anyone who’s heard of Hubbert’s Peak can tell you that the trend is unlikely to letup.  There is a reason that the big equipment manufacturers are all competing to make more fuel-efficient tractors.

Water Use: Some of the biggest produce growing regions of the US are in quite arid climate zones. The sames goes for a lot of the grain-producing plains states which draw from the Ogallala Aquifer which is being rapidly depleted. Farmers in these regions are rapidly switching to new water-saving technologies just to stay in business.

“Only the highly efficient water users will survive and those are the growers getting on the train and going to drip systems or center pivots.”

Antibiotics: So the big problem with routine sub-theraputic antibiotic use in farm animals is that we’re seeing increased antibiotic resistance both in the animals and in people. The UDSA admits that using antibiotics in animal agriculture is causing problems.

“I believe it is more helpful to acknowledge that antibiotic use in animals contributes to the problem and that prudent antibiotic use should be encouraged in all sectors. The agricultural community must accept part of the responsibility.”

Combine the increasing consumer pressure for antibiotic-free meat with the increasing cost of antibiotics as more bacteria evolve resistance to the cheap ones, and we’re all going to see fewer antibiotics on the farm in the future.

Animal Welfare: A 2003 Gallup Poll found that 96% of Americans say that animals deserve at least some protection from harm and exploitation.  A solid 62% majority support passing strict laws concerning the treatment of farm animals. Consumers are capable of living with a background-level of cognitive dissonance in their lives (eating factory-farmed meat, while thinking it’s unethical to do so) but as soon as something pops up in the news, and brings the issue to the forefront we see action like California’s Prop 2, or Missouri’s Prop B. We also get distribution-side changes, where big buyers like McDonald’s demand changes in their suppliers practices.  I think that 20 years down the road animal ag is going to look a lot “kinder and gentler” than it does today.

Herbicides:  Discriminate herbicides, and the genetic-engineering that allows them have, for all their faults, both reduced total herbicide usage, and increased productivity. Unfortunately, this effect will not be long-lived.  There are more and more multiple-herbicide-resistant “superweeds” sprouting in fields all over the world. Much like antibiotic-resistant bacteria, herbicide-resistant weeds will continue to to out-evolve our chemical defenses until the herbicides are either too expensive, or cause too much consumer concern; like Dow Chemicals’ new “Agent Orange Corn.”

“Most important, weed biotypes already exist that are resistant to these herbicides; Thus, it would be naive to expect any of these new weed-control tools to solve all of our current weed-resistance problems.”

Considering all of these factors, I think that the conventional farms of the future will look a heck of a lot more like what’s going on at the Rodale Institute, and the land-grant universities would be wise to get ahead of the curve by investing in similar research.

So I’ve started doing a bit of pig research.

Please note that I have absolutely no experience raising pigs, in fact, I’ve only been around real live pigs a few times in my life.

I’m not about to let a little thing like that stand between me and some good home-grown bacon. Mmmmmm….Bacon!

But I digress.

It seems that of all the domesticated livestock, pigs have it the worst. In “conventional” CAFO-style pig raising, the sows (the mamas) are locked up in tiny crates for their entire lives. Clearly this is tantamount to torture for any animal, much less an animal as intelligent as a pig.

Before a sow gives birth, she is moved to a gestation crate, and these are common even in small-scale “sustainable” and “humane” farms.  Gestation crates are a small crate that allows the sow to lay down, but not enough room for her to move around too much and crush her newborn piglets. While I laud the noble goals of gestation crates (keeping piglets from being killed) I can’t help but think they are the result of we humans not letting pigs act-out their innate behaviors.

It is in the sows best interest (genetically speaking) to have all of her piglets survive.  She doesn’t want to lay down on any of them, as that eliminates her own genetic material from the gene pool.  So as with many of these questions, I ask myself: “What would the pig do without us?”

It would appear that without us, pigs prefer a bit more space to give birth, and they apparently like to nest. Enter the farrowing hut.  Farrowing huts are small structures that are out in the field, in which the pigs give birth.  Farrowing huts are commonly filled with hay, so that the sow can get in there and make a comfortable nest for her piglets.
Farrowing huts are definately the method I will be trying for my first sow.  If I consistently have problems losing piglets, then we’ll think about taking more extreme measures.

Once the piglets are a few days old they are typically vaccinated, castrated and have their needle teeth clipped.

Vaccination is no big deal, a little needle-prick is nothing to sweat.  If I can to do it, the pigs can do it.

Castration, well, there might be no way around that one. Boars allegedly don’t taste good, and you only need so many to do the breeding. Perhaps if they can be turned into bacon before they hit sexual maturity, then the whole concern over “boar taint” would be rendered moot.  Time, and more research, will tell.

Needle teeth. Now here’s where I have no idea what I’m talking about. But it’s time for some good-ol’ wild speculation.  Needle teeth are clipped to prevent the piglets from causing injury to the sow’s teats.  So, “What would the pig do without us?”

Well, it’s not in the piglets best interest to injure their mother, to “bite the (teat) that feeds.” So I wonder if teat injuries are prevalent enough in a more natural, low-stress environment to worry about going through that extra step, and subjecting the piglets to one more intervention and it’s attendant chances for complications.

Well, it looks like I’m in for a wild ride here in a year or two when I can finally start raising pigs.  I’m going to shoot for using the fewest interventions possible.  If things start going horribly wrong, we’ll start incorporating interventions as neccessary.

What part of this sounds like a good idea?  Answer: none.

But here it is, from my Alma-mater the University of Missouri-Columbia: How to feed your cows chicken poop for fun and profit.  

Some would say that I shouldn’t expect much from the same university that is home to “Monsanto Auditorium.”  Or the university that renamed Reactor field “Monsanto Place.”

They tried to sneak in my favorite part there at the end: “Keep in mind that feeding poultry litter to beef cattle, while a sound nutritional management option, carries with it certain stigmas that may cause beef consumers to become alarmed.”

Gosh, so you think that we might be alarmed that people are feeding one herbivores excrement to another herbivore? That’s probably because we are just not smart enough to understand the complexities of modern beef production.  Why, to our untrained ears, it sounds almost unnatural.

It’s almost as if animal husbandry has become a game to these people.  “What can we get them to eat next?” They’ll ask.  Play-doh?  Obsolete computer circuit boards? The homeless?

I’ve got an idea for you:  Grass.

It’s cheap, readily available, and cattle love to eat it.  Sure it takes a bit more management, and it doesn’t grow during the winter, but it sure beats the heck out of eating poop.

After all, we are what we eat.
And if the same holds true for cows, we’re all in deep….well, you know.

It’s nice to be right every once in a while.  Unfortunately, I’d rather not be right about this:  “MRSA appears to have originated in humans, but acquired antibiotic resistance in animals”

Yep, turns out that if 60% or so of the antibiotics in this country are used for animals (mostly in feed) that’s where you’re going to find the antibiotic-resitant bacteria.

So with the BBC, 60 Minutes, Time magazine, and a plethora of scientific and medical journals claiming that we’re in an “Antibiotic Crisis” Why are we still giving so many antibiotics of it to farm animals?

The big agri-businesses would tell you that they need the antibiotics to keep their animals healthy.  The real truth is that they need them to keep their businesses profitable.  Regular antibiotic use allows producers to get away with keeping their animals in unnatural and unsanitary conditions, which are more profitable.