Robert Paterson's Weblog

At some point we need a Butcher like this on PEI - Surely not too hard

The Meat Packing Plant seems too big - could we go back to a really good butcher?

Agriculture - Our Delusion - My Questions

I checked in with a dear friend the other day - who knows more about agriculture than most and who has a really fine mind. We found that we were on the opposite ends of what we felt had to be done. Being real friends, neither wanted to push the other too far - for there was no negotiating room. We were like Catholics and Protestants in 1600. So we got to talking about our kids and the summer instead.

This encounter has been very disturbing for me. How could we be so far apart? So here are the 10 questions I would like to pose to all of you who hope that we can somehow find a way to reinvigorate our existing system.

If you feel like it - please write in with your answers.

1. In the entire 40 year history of looking to exports as the answer for farmers, when you expect farmers to make money and more important to earn a decent ROI? (Farmers returns have dropped all through this period) What is it about your plan that will turn this around?
2. As the food distribution system has become more concentrated, Canada has the most monopolistic system in the world, the power of the distributors has crushed the earning power of producers - how do you plan to have farmers sell through this system and make money?
3. When do you expect Peak Oil to affect agriculture?
4. What do you think the effects of much higher oil costs will be on farmers with low margins?
5. Tell me why you think that easy credit is going to come back and that farmers will have access to the kind of working capital that they need to stay in operation?
6. The average age of farmers today is about 60 - who do you expect to take over the farms that exist today? How will the successors be able to finance this type of operation with such a low ROI? With a 10 year horizon for this to happen, what is your plan?
7. Have you noticed that there are more and more health issues with our food system? Both in terms of infection and poor human health ( 30% of Americans now obese) What do you think are the real drivers for these problems? When outbreaks are routine and when 50% of Americans are obese do you think that this will go away as an issue? How will this affect our skyrocketing health costs?
8. How are all the millions without work or any hope for a job with livable pay going to cope and eat?
9. Are all the jobs going to come back? Please answer with Why and How if your answer is yes
10. Do you think that government can afford to support the large percentage of people who cannot work? If so how? If not, then what happens?

Please help me here. I need to understand how the current system can be fixed.

Child's Work

Matt posted this coincidentally as I posted the film on raising chickens. A visitor to his blog was appalled.

What I find appalling is that most kids and adults pay no head to how that chicken breast ended up in plastic wrap in the meat counter of the supermarket.

This is OK? This is better? This is ethical?

Food Safety Regulation

The good news - the Obama administration realizes that the food system is unsafe:

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told food producers and food-safety advocates that enough is enough.

"We've seen too many large-scale recalls, everything from spinach to peanut products, pistachios, peppers, mushrooms, alfalfa sprouts and recently even cookie dough."

Five thousand Americans die from contaminated food each year, she said, and tens of millions get sick.

The administration is directing its agencies to design tougher production standards for marketers of poultry, beef, leafy greens, melons and tomatoes. The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be designing a national food registry so contaminated food can be traced back to its source, and so consumers can be alerted immediately once a problem is discovered.

The BAD NEWS is that their entire approach is based on the idea that Industrial Processes are OK - it is only the regulation that needs to be applied.

They miss entirely the reality that it is high concentrations of animals. of how and where they are killed, how and where the food is packed and how it is distributed that is the root cause.

A fear is that an unintended consequence of all the regulation is that it may kill the very system that does work - Local small batch short distance food.

US Obesity Rates Surge - Why?

I was in the supermarket this afternoon - I was feeling hungry - I have not felt hungry since I was a boy at school in the post rationing period in England. I was hungry because I have been on a diet. Not a tough diet. I eat meat, dairy, including lots of butter and cheese - even bacon and sausages. I have been eating a lot of veggies.

What I have stopped eating are simple carbs - bread, pasta, potatoes etc - beer/no - wine yes!

In 3 weeks I have lost 9 pounds and now only look 3 months pregnant rather than 7! I feel great too. My poor old knees are better and I just feel good.

But as I walked around the market all I saw was the kind of food that had helped me get fat. Massive advertising push behind food that is bad for us. On a day when Presidents choice had to recall a lot of meat.

What's wrong? The entire industrial food system based on corn and sugar and on treating animals really badly and OUR acceptance of this as being not only normal but desirable.

Here is a new report as reported on by the BBC - The results of this capture of our fodd and our minds by the system maybe our downfall.

Obesity rates in the US have surged over the last year, a report shows.

The Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found adult obesity rates rose in 23 of the 50 states, but fell in none.

In addition, the percentage of obese and overweight children is at or above 30% in 30 states.

The report warns widespread obesity is fuelling rates of chronic disease, and is responsible for a large, and growing chunk of domestic healthcare costs.

Obesity is linked to a range of health problems, including heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Dr Jeff Levi, TFAH executive director, said: "Our health care costs have grown along with our waist lines.

"The obesity epidemic is a big contributor to the skyrocketing health care costs in the US.

"How are we going to compete with the rest of the world if our economy and workforce are weighed down by bad health?"

How indeed?

How do you make industrial meat safe? You Can't!

Today it is President's Choice that are announcing a huge recall of meat.

What is to be done to make meat safer? The answer is that when you concentrate animals the way we do - when we feed them food that is not their norm - they get ill. Hence the massive amounts of anti biotics that that have to take.

The problem is our system. Based on concentration and corn. As long as we concentrate, we have to have disease

The answer?

A network of smaller local units with the animals eating what they should eat - cut the corn out!
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(CBC) Consumers should avoid eating certain President's Choice brand steaks, roasts and ground beef products that are being pulled from store shelves due to possible contamination with E. coli, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says.

The agency issued the health hazard alert Tuesday as an expansion of a voluntary recall of beef products in the U.S. by JBS Swift Beef Company in Greeley, Colo.

It affects:

• Fresh beef steaks roasts and ground beef bearing best-before dates between April 29 and June 16, inclusive, sold in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
• Fresh beef knuckle roasts, four to five pounds (about 1.8 to 2.27 kilograms) in size, sold from Apr. 30 to June 10 at Sue's Market at 205 Don Head Village Blvd. in Richmond Hill, Ont.

The agency advises consumers who have purchased the affected products to throw them out.

As of Tuesday, no illnesses associated with the contamination had been reported.

Food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 may not look or smell spoiled, but eating it may cause serious and potentially life-threatening illnesses.

CFIA list of products affected by the recall

• PC cab sirloin tip stk marinating sc.
• PC cab sirloin tip oven roast sc.
• PC cab strip loin grilling stk sc.
• PC cab strp loin prem oven rst sc.
• PC cab tenderloin grilling stk sc.
• PC cab tnderloin prem. oven rst sc.
• PC cab flank marinating steak sc.
• PC tnt top sirloin steak cp.
• PC tnt top sirloin beefeater steak.
• PC tnt top sirloin cap steak.
• PC tnt top sirloin steak.
• PC tnt top sirloin oven roast.
• PC tnt top sirloin steak.
• PC tnt top sirlion steak cp.
• PC tnt top sirloin roast.
• PC tnt top srln c/o beefeater.
• PC tnt top srln cap stk bnls.
• PC tnt top srln cap stk bnls.
• PC tnt top sirloin steak.
• PC tnt top sirlion steak cp.
• PC tnt top srln c/o beefeater.
• PC tnt top sirloin oven roast.
• PC cab beef ground xlean sc.
• PC cab beef ground lean sc.

Natural Farming - The Salatin Polyface Story

If you have read the Omnivore's Dilemma, you will have read that amazing chapter about the Salatin Family.

Here is a link to a few short videos and to their main site.

The farm of the future is here. It is not hard to do only hard if you think that farming is how we all do it now

Thanks Josh for the link

How many pigs live like this? Wonder why we are in so much trouble then?

Ranald MacFarlane' Pleasant Farm on PEI - He sells locally at the Summerside Farmer's Market

Thanks to Experience PEI

Recession Gardens - Food Bank 2.0

This is too good a post simply to link to it - here it is in full.

The Micro farm/garden idea is blooming!

Time to help people get onto this here on PEI?
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CNN) -- As American families try to stretch their food budgets during the recession, some are turning to the backyard, rather than the grocery store, as the place to look for produce.

Susan Hopper of Tampa, Florida, uses her garden to teach her students where food comes from.

Recession gardens are catching on with many first-time planters who want a healthy meal at an affordable price.

The gardeners are following seed-strewn paths laid by Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt, both of whom have used the White House lawn to show the value of a garden during tough times.

The scope of today's trend is shocking even to those in the gardening industry.

W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the largest seed and gardening supply store in the country, says it has seen a 25 to 30 percent spike in vegetable seed and plant sales this spring compared with last.

"I've been in the business for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like it -- even remotely like it," said George Ball, chairman and CEO of the company.

In 2008, there was a 15 to 20 percent uptick in seed sales because of high food and gasoline prices. Not since the '70s, when the company saw sales increases in the 10 percent range, has gardening seen such buzz, he said.

The National Gardening Association expects 43 million American households to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries this year. That's up 19 percent over last year, according to a 2,559-household survey the group conducted in January.

About a fifth of the gardeners this year will be new to the activity, the survey says. Most -- 54 percent -- said they will garden because it saves them money on food bills. A slightly larger group say they garden because homegrown food tastes better.

There's evidence that recession gardeners stand to see substantial savings at the grocery store checkout.

Last year, Burpee released a report saying a family will get an average 25-to-1 return on its investment in a garden.

So, by that count, a family that spends about $200 on a medium-to-large garden, as Michelle Obama reportedly did, will save $5,000 in grocery bills over the course of a year.

That statistic is inflated, said Mike Metallo, spokesman for the National Gardening Association.

Metallo's group says a $70 investment in a garden will yield $600 in produce for the year.

To get those savings, a gardener has to know what to plant, when to plant it, where to plant it, how to deal with different soil types and how to care for the garden. 

That knowledge isn't innate these days, especially for urban dwellers.

Bobby Wilson, president of the American Community Gardening Association, says all of that interest is great, but he worries that Americans aren't equipped to grow their own food without some help.

"Many of the people that want to get into the gardening and greening movement right here have never gained the skills," he said. "Many of them came up in an era where there was no vocational education, so there was no need to learn anything about horticulture or agriculture."

He said all of the country's elementary schools should have gardens so future generations will learn how to save money and fend for themselves.

Susan Hopper, a 41-year-old elementary school teacher in Tampa, Florida, said she started a garden last year, partly to teach her family and her students about the food chain.

"I have three children of my own, and they think chicken comes in tenders and nuggets," she said. "I was concerned about their health, and I wanted them to understand that food is a process that we're a part of, and it just doesn't come in neat packages."

Hopper grew up watching her older family members garden, but when she first decided to plow a patch of her own yard, she wasn't too successful.

Florida's growing season is somewhat reversed, she said, so even though she had read Internet articles about how to garden, she didn't know the local tricks needed to make her plants survive.

In the process of digging back into the soil, though, some new gardeners are struggling with the fact that they're several generations removed from a farm.

Pamela Price, a 38-year-old mom in San Antonio, Texas, said her garden isn't profitable just yet because of droughts in her state. 

She grew up in a family of ranchers and farmers, but she's forgotten much of what she learned when she was young.

"We are fortunate that we don't have to rely on [the garden], but I certainly want to make sure that, in the event that something happens, we would know how to," she said. "It's a life skill."

Price said she's started to look at her local environment anew as she leans which plants will or won't grow in the harsh climate.

That gives her a connection with history, too, she said. She recently read a book about how some of Texas' residents a century ago had similar issues.

Wilson, of the community garden association, said new gardeners should seek advice from neighbors. On every block, there's a gardener who is willing to talk about the process, he said.

Face-to-face conversations are more helpful than Internet searches when it comes to learning about the local environment, he said.

One way to tap local garden knowledge is to join a community garden, where neighbors turn up communal plots together.

The activity is expected to see a fivefold increase this year, with 5 million households saying they're at least "very interested" in participating in a community garden, said Metallo, of the National Gardening Association.

New gardeners should start out small, he said. That way you'll learn as you go and won't get as frustrated.

"You don't have to go hog wild crazy," he said, adding that people who tear up their entire yards are usually disappointed. "Get comfortable with it"

Rebecca Hosking's Farm of the Future

Many of my readers rightly urge me to do better than offer up a diagnosis of our problems. Show me what to do - many ask. Many also ask me to be less blunt - not to miss the point but to be more respectful of the way that we are and by being respectful invite more into the conversation.

Here is a film by Rebecca Hosking, a farmer's daughter, that is I think the model for what you are asking for. She gently but firmly shows the problem and then goes out and finds the pathway to the future. I finished the film thinking that I had indeed seen the future A future that was was going to be hard to get  to because it violates many of our preconceived ideas about farming, but also a future that any of us could start to work on today, if we could overcome our mental resistance.

This is a deeply hopeful and yet also a realistic film. Rebecca uses her POV of coming from the pragmatic tradition of farming. So as a farmer's daughter she both asks the hard questions and also finds a way forward that makes practical sense. She speaks as a peer to all those that struggle to make a living farming today and she speaks as pragmatist to all who seek to find a way to the future. Shares with us her own voyage of discovery and you can see her own plans develop for her own farm. It's all about what she can do and so all about what you and I can do. The film is not a call to government action, nor is it a diatribe against the current system. It is all about what can you and I do.

It's her practical nature combined with her yearning for a better way that is such a combination.

Quiet spoken, a listener, she is also quite remarkably beautiful. There is a radiance about her that draws you in. Some of this is her art.

For before she returned to take over her father's farm, she was a naturalist and film maker. Her ability to tell a story and to select the right image and the right moment is exquisite. She never over tells. Her light hand is quite brilliant. You will "see", feel and know after this film.

She is the Planet Money of the Oil/Food issue.

If you have 50 minutes, please see this film. It may change your life.