brownie barker

brownie commented on the article | about 2 years ago

Meals on Wheels: the Future of Sustainable, Ethical Meat

Mobile slaughter trailers began in Texas as a way to slaughter buffalo raised on range. If you have ever tried to corral and chute a buffalo you can understand why standing a few hundred yards away with a rifle equipped with a laser sight makes alot of sense. Texas still permits state inspected slaughter facilities.

The 1st USDA FSIS approved red meat trailer was as stated started on Lopex Island in San Juan County, Washinngton State. It is USDA Organic Certified.

In 1996, a group of livestock farmers in San Juan County, Washington state, started talking with each other and the county extension service about how to make local meat production possible. The farmers lacked access to USDA slaughter and processing – they couldn’t transport their animals to facilities on the mainland. When the idea of a mobile slaughter unit came up, the farmers and the county extension agent approached the Lopez Community Land Trust, a community land trust focused on affordable housing and sustainable rural development, to be the host organization for the project. LCLT hired Bruce Dunlop to design and build the MPU.

The total cost for the project was $150,000 in 2000. A new trailer in 2008 with the same capacity costs $170,000.

Trailer $60,000
Equipment & Installation $27,000
Truck $18,000
Design/ Project Mgmt. $25,000
Testing $15,000
Outreach $ 5,000

It is operated by producers as a co-op is profitable and exceeds income expectations. Last year the producers consider getting a bank loan to expand but after looking at all the red tape involved dipped into their own pockets to make the loan.

There are now several of these in operation around the country and also a bunch Chicken slaughter mobile units such as in Vermont and Kentucky.

Since they are mobile and approved by the USDA, no zoning requirements need to be met. Most urban areas where these would work would never permit a fixed slaughterhouse. The vegan and Peta folks use any such public hearings as PR field day.

The next phase in the renewal of an alternative food chain is to build New Zealand style processing plants. These are basically small scale butchering operations that most people familiar with this part of the food chain considered to be the safest plants in the world. World wide research by Booze-Allan labeled these as the safest and most hygienic facilities in the world. McDonald's buys about 20% of it burger meat for the US from these plants due to safety factors, although their PR statements on this are more to apllease the cattleman's beef lobby. The reality is McDonald's does not want to have to change their sign from Billions and Billions served to Billions and billions shelled out for a bad hamburger. The coffee case taught them a lesson.

These New Zealand style processing plants allow the Mobile unit to drive up and transferred a cleaned hanging carcass into a dry storage area. Most meat today is wet hung rather than dry hung.

One big advantage of such a system is minimizing contamination and better tasting, think quality meat. In the typical slaughter facility the live animals mill around waiting to go to the chute. In big feedlots, CAFO's you got very large populations. There feces and urine cover everything including the animals and the human handlers. It is impossible to have a system under such conditions where the carcass is not subject to some form of contamination. That why anyonme familiar with the current USDA FSIS inspection system HACCAP - will tell you the acronym stands for Have Another Cup of Coffee and Pray.

You will be happy to know that your government has done everything possible to prevent a New Zealand style processor from being built in the USA. Praying is a lot cheaper for the Cargill's and Tysons of the world.
brownie commented on the article | about 2 years ago

No Farms, No Food

While a real catchy slogan, No Farms NO Food, doesn't really identify the real problem. Without farmers or ranchers you can have all the farm land in the world and you are going to starve.

I'm not sure if this is the exact figure but I believe less than 4% of the farmers in the US today are under 35. If you subtract out the part time folk, if farmers or ranchers were animals they would be at the top of the endangered species list.
At my county's recent Farm Bureau Banquet the young people were in their 50's. My guess, half the people attending were over 70. The County Farm Bureau Queen is a smart young woman who grew up on a beef operation and is using her scholarship money to study to be a nurse. She and her brother were the only people in the room under 35.

The County and State, where I farm, Baltimore County & Maryland are up there in the forefront of preserving agriculture. If you are not inheriting the land, you are looking at $1 million dollars or so to purchase a 50 to 100 acre farm. Next there are the operating costs. If you calculate in the current expected return on investment studying to be a nurse is a wise decision, if you are motivated by a decent standard of living or being able to pay your bills. What young person under 35 would want to pursue a career choice where in all probability they will be bankrupt by 35.

Rather than enacting more laws protecting farmland, I believe solutions that make farming a viable economic choice would do more to preserve farmland and farmers. If over lets say 10 years, my return would be greater than selling out to a developer, a rational person would not sell or someone who was willing to pay to keep farming the land would buy it. But under current economic conditions growing townhouses is the only choice since the other choice would be to let the land lie fallow. Remember there are not enough farmers to replace the ones being lost or people wanting to farm willing to match what a developer would pay. The recent real estate crash actually has probably done more to preserve farmland from development than all the current laws that have been enacted.

Over time however unless something is done to make farming viable, the free market forces will return. The solution to me is what can be done to make farming viable. Greed will as it has in the past motivate people to circumvent the rules to convert protect farmland into houses. This is typically a permanent change.

Next I find the paragraph containing ... " protecting the land base that all kinds of agriculture (no matter what your definition of "sustainable" is) depends on." rather interesting.

Protecting the land base to me, also mean protecting the lands ability to nurture a crop now and in the future. What good is preserving land for farming if it can't grow anything. In the 4th century BC, Heroditus described the part of North Africa today known as Libya, as a land of milk and honey, crystal clear springs and lush meadows/pastures of alfalfa. Due to the agricultural methods pursued then, today it is desert. So if the goal was to create plenty of beach front property those ancient were very successful. If however their goal was to preserve land for farming, they were remarkable failures. When you think about it, the 2400 years that have passed, since Heroditus and Pliny described this area, are in the expanse of time, the earth has supported humans and agriculture, not much more than blink of an eye in your lifetime. Just preserving land for agriculture is not enough, as there are numerous examples of civilizations due to poor agricultural policy destroying themselves. What must be done is preserving the land in a form where it will be productive for growing.

To sum up farming must be made viable and land preservation must enhance the soil and environment.

Consider the fact that the largest housing subsidy the government gives out is the interest dedcution on mortgage payments. This encouraged homeownership, which increased the demand for houses, which resulting in plowing up farm fields for new ones.

What economic incentives do farmers get?

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