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Joe Arnold
After spending almost 30 years working with technology in K12 education I have shifted to sustainable food systems. My focus is on producing as complete a local system as I can and getting people out of their cars and onto their bicycles. Using my business and marketing skills I am helping producers create sustainable farms where the need to go to the industrial agribusiness firms is reduced to a minimum. In setting up markets for locally produced food I am trying to move diets to more grains and vegetable and using ample and healthy pastures to produce stress free livestock is better for everybody involved. As far as the bikes - my non-profit, community bike shop should be open Oct. 2009.
Recent Activity
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Joe commented on the article |Anything you purchase from the chain supports the entire chain is my point. This is true if it is half a percent of the chain or 50%. Of course, meat and milk is what drives the cattle industry. If we remove beef and dairy the rest of the chain from fashion to medicines would become price restrictive for most Americans. Unfortunately, most people do not how many animal products they use every day - that was my point of the previous post.
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Joe commented on the article |
If you are driving past the cows Gary you are using beef by products to do so. Brake fluid, asphalt, steel ball bearings, car upholstery, plastic molds, and lots of other things come from cows.
You can not use a car, truck, airplane, or bus without using cattle parts! You are helping keep meat prices low by providing extra markets for the slaughterhouses.
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Joe commented on the article |You may be correct about 'most' local producers. I can not speak for them. I only 'know' about the producers we use. They 'must' not needlessly kill for profit. They purchase chicks from time to time, but most are hatched within our community.
My main point was that, unfortunately, we must examine our food sources. Just avoiding meat and eggs does not solve 'our' problems. If one goes to Walmart and purchases vegetables chances are they were grown in a most unfriendly manner without regard to anything beyond profits. Profits can be viewed as a catchall term for human greed. Profit need not be money.
People do need to eat more grains and vegetables, but what we need is education more than anything. My point on buying from a local source be it a farm, farm market, a co-op or whatever gives you the chance to go and see for yourself what is happening. If you can not do that then you can perhaps meet the person(s) responsible for getting the food to market to see if you trust their judgement. At least one will have the opportunity to perform some due diligence before spending (investing) in food.
I agree that the problem is most people in this country view all resources as a right and not a privilege and responsibility. When I go to the factory food store and make my purchases without regard to the history of the food then I am as guilty as those who killed, maimed, poisoned, etc.
We raise almost 75% of what we eat and purchase the rest locally and with great care to be certain our impact is minimal. I just made a career change to help others minimize their footprint.
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Joe commented on the article |
I specifically did not mention any organization name in my earlier post nor did I mention what part of the country I am from - so your claim that I am self promoting is unfounded and unfair. I was simply trying to point out that there are alternatives to factory food that can include meat and eggs.
Also, your claim that the males must still be killed is untrue and unfounded for the farms we work with. Yes, they are raised for meat, but they live in a free range environment and are protected from natural predators until they become a meal for a human instead of some other animal.
Chickens in the wild do not live long meaningful lives to die at a ripe old age. Most are eaten as chicks and most of the handful that make it to adult stages are later eaten. Only a very very few ever die from old age.
Most of the non-meat foods eaten in this country kill countless animals due to the use of petro-chemicals as fertilizers. The damage done by the massive produce farms in the southwest is an environmental travesty. The problem is the factory food system where profits are all that matter. In some ways this poison is worse because land is being destroyed that will not support animal life for generations to come.
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Joe commented on the article |
Purchasing from small local producers is another way to solve the problem. Knowing the producer and how they treat their livestock deprives the factory farms of revenue and rewards the small producer who may also be raising rare, heritage breeds. We have moved one egg producer to switch to heritage breeds and hope to add another.
I have just switched gears and am working with a small group of local producers to help them minimize costs without cutting corners. I am also handling their marketing. We are finding we can be surprisingly competitive with the huge factory farms. Nobody will get rich, but everyone and everything in the local market (environment) will benefit.
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