Saturday, November 14, 2009 |
16:23 - Do the chickens have large talons?
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God, I love Chipotle. But I think it's about time they rolled out a new set of cups.
The current set of four cup essays has been circulating for three or four years now. It's always the same distressingly moralizing ones now: the one about some local indie band, the one about bovine growth hormone, the one about Tabasco sauce (okay, not much moralizing there), and the one about The Land Institute, where sustainable farming of a type presumably endorsed by the Chipotle-sponsored makers of Food Inc. is practiced.
I think, honestly, that Chipotle has made its point. It's hippie burritos; I get it. Steak without guilt. Chicken without cruelty. It's tasty because it has no hormones, not because it's seasoned well and cooked well and combined with things like salt and cheese and peppers that traditionally make a thing taste good.
But I wonder if a time is coming when people will be more receptive to what this guy is saying: Blake Hurst, a "factory farmer", speaking out in defense of the modern world and the many wonders of technology.
The largest producer of pigs in the United States has promised to gradually end the use of hog crates. The Humane Society promises to take their initiative drive to outlaw farrowing crates and poultry cages to more states. Many of the counties in my own state of Missouri have chosen to outlaw the the building of confinement facilities. Barack Obama has been harshly critical of animal agriculture. We are clearly in the process of deciding that we will not continue to raise animals the way we do now. Because other countries may not share our sensibilities, we'll have to withdraw or amend free trade agreements to keep any semblance of a livestock industry.
We can do that, and we may be a better society for it, but we can't change nature. Pigs will be allowed to "return to their mire," as Kipling had it, but they'll also be crushed and eaten by their mothers. Chickens will provide lunch to any number of predators, and some number of chickens will die as flocks establish their pecking order.
In recent years, the cost of producing pork dropped as farmers increased feed efficiency (the amount of feed needed to produce a pound of pork) by 20 percent. Free-range chickens and pigs will increase the price of food, using more energy and water to produce the extra grain required for the same amount of meat, and some people will go hungry. It is also instructive that the first company to move away from farrowing crates is the largest producer of pigs. Changing the way we raise animals will not necessarily change the scale of the companies involved in the industry. If we are about to require more expensive ways of producing food, the largest and most well-capitalized farms will have the least trouble adapting.
As he says earlier, lots of people these days seem to think "farmers are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families." But as we probably all know if we really think hard about it, everybody's doing the best they can; and sometimes, particularly when modern technology is involved, that ends up meaning that they do pretty damn well.
"Commercial" and "industrial" didn't used to be dirty words.
Via .clue.
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