Just today James McWilliams published an interesting article in the New York Times that illuminates some of the problems with sustainable meat products. I've always been wary of the assumption grass fed beef is the answer to our problems so I was excited to read this article. This might upset some purist but I've put in bold what I believe to be the most important parts:
"Grass-grazing cows emit considerably more methane than grain-fed cows. Pastured organic chickens have a 20 percent greater impact on global warming. It requires 2 to 20 acres to raise a cow on grass. If we raised all the cows in the United States on grass (all 100 million of them), cattle would require (using the figure of 10 acres per cow) almost half the country’s land (and this figure excludes space needed for pastured chicken and pigs). A tract of land just larger than France has been carved out of the Brazilian rain forest and turned over to grazing cattle. Nothing about this is sustainable."
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"All this said, committed advocates of alternative systems make one undeniably important point about the practice called “rotational grazing” or “holistic farming”: the soil absorbs the nutrients from the animals’ manure, allowing grass and other crops to grow without the addition of synthetic fertilizer. As Michael Pollan writes, “It is doubtful you can build a genuinely sustainable agriculture without animals to cycle nutrients.” In other words, raising animals is not only sustainable, but required."
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"But rotational grazing works better in theory than in practice. Consider Joel Salatin*, the guru of nutrient cycling, who employs chickens to enrich his cows’ grazing lands with nutrients. His plan appears to be impressively eco-correct, until we learn that he feeds his chickens with tens of thousands of pounds a year of imported corn and soy feed. This common practice is an economic necessity. Still, if a farmer isn’t growing his own feed, the nutrients going into the soil have been purloined from another, most likely industrial, farm, thereby undermining the benefits of nutrient cycling."
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| *YerbaMateLover's note: this is that eccentric guy from Food Inc. |
Ok I hope you enjoyed that, and possibly learned something. Some of his points on small farms the FJH has come to realize first hand. For example, we learned Mr. Sprinkles imports his soy fertilizer from the Midwest. So if the fertilizer isn't local, is the food local? I'm a big proponent of living your life by achievable standards, so I'm not a nut job about being strictly local. However, it is something to think about.
Another point I found compelling were chicken breeds that had been selected for quick growth. As with anything in the world of FOOD JUSTICE I'm sure there are clean hands and dirty hands on both ends of the spectrum. For me however, it brings up some of the thoughts I've been having with GMOs lately (blog post to come!). But essentially, why do we care so much that we have altered our foods with GMOs? None of the food we eat on a regular basis ever existed in that form in nature. The idea that something we grow is natural completely ignores mankind's history. Human's ability to form sedentary populations is rooted in our ability to modify plants to suit our agriculture needs. Is it that much worse that we do it in vitro vs in vivo?
^I acknowledge that was a massive tangent.
Overall, I come away from this article where I started. There is not one solution, we just need to find a happy medium between all of these options. Corporations are not something to villainize, and local business realistically can't solve all our problems. Most importantly, its about reflecting on our own consumption and remaining informed about the unintended consequences of our purchases.
