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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2hWO4QE:
It’s kind of funny– the earlier post today came out of my queue and I hadn’t realized it posted today, and then I posted a fic scene that had animal slaughter in it. So today is just Animal Death Day on this blog, I guess. Whoops!
I’ve never been a vegetarian, but I’ve had a lot of friends who were, and I’ve considered it pretty deeply. The sister who owns the farm was, for a while, and for a long time after was a “flexitarian”, and still maintains some of that behavior– she studied nutrition a bit, and so structures her meals in such a way that she doesn’t require a lot of animal protein in them. For years, she would only eat animals that someone she knew had killed, and she still prefers to do that. It helps that she raises animals herself. (They mostly eat their own chicken and pork, beef they’ve traded for, and venison that was hunted on their land. A lot of that is thrift, of course; you don’t make a ton of cash at farming. But she’s chosen this lifestyle, and that’s part of it.)
Part of the farm’s choice to raise animals is economic necessity. Their land isn’t that great for vegetables. They couldn’t compete with some of the other local organic farms; my sister’s former boss has a great site on river bottom land and can grow anything he wants because the soil is so good, even in a rough year like this past one. Their farm, the soil is poor and rocky, and they can work with it but it will never be great. So, animals it is, and vegetables by subscription because they can make up in variety and reliability what they lack in quantity.
Animals are, or can be, a really valuable and efficient source of nutrients. But it’s expensive and difficult to raise them humanely. Animal cruelty laws in the US don’t apply to agriculture. Any standards that do exist, are voluntary certifications adopted by producers.
But there’s tremendous demand for it. Customers love that they can come to the farm and walk up the hill and look at the animals they’re going to eat. Some of the other workers on slaughter day are customers, who want to really know (and also know they can get paid in chickens and feet and hearts and such). And I’m really glad to be a part of that. It’s something to be proud of, to know that I can account for every moment of this animal’s death. If I’m going to derive my nutrition that way, I should be willing to witness it like that.
I hope that this kind of agriculture continues to grow in popularity, and I really hope it can get more accessible. At the moment, it’s just so expensive.
And the supply chain isn’t there. For now, they buy day-old chicks from a commercial hatchery that does not have humane standards for its breeding flocks. A long-term plan is their own breeding flock, but they’d have to change what kind of chickens they use, and they’d be slower growers most likely, which means more expensive. It’s all a balancing act.
I think it’s important to think about where your food comes from– animals, for their own sake but also the sake of their workers (many slaughterhouses employ illegal immigrants, for example), but also vegetables, for their workers’ sake. Vegetable farming is overwhelmingly done by migrant workers and it is brutal work; I know that firsthand as well. (A local catchphrase in the farming community is “works like a Jamaican”, as in, someone who doesn’t take days off. The local migrant workers are all either Mexican or Jamaican, and I attended a gala dinner for a farmland trust earlier this summer that was held in a field next to a melon farm, and as the sun went down and the band started playing, there was a work gang of Mexicans still hard at work in the field next to us. They’re paid hourly, and they’re going to work as many hours as they can while they’re here, that’s how it goes. I stood there with my cocktail in my hand and watched them loading tote after tote until it was too dark to see.)
We’re all prisoners of the market; we can’t buy food that isn’t available to us. But I think there’s a general movement to pay more attention to our food, and I’m excited about it. It just feels really good to have that kind of ownership of your food source, you know?
And the more demand there is, the more that market can grow, the more small growers can thrive. It’s not really possible to produce that kind of food on a large scale, but the more small producers there are, as well, the more of the profit stays in the community. It’s a much more top-to-bottom sustainable kind of economy than what we have.
It’s kind of funny– the earlier post today came out of my queue and I hadn’t realized it posted today, and then I posted a fic scene that had animal slaughter in it. So today is just Animal Death Day on this blog, I guess. Whoops!
I’ve never been a vegetarian, but I’ve had a lot of friends who were, and I’ve considered it pretty deeply. The sister who owns the farm was, for a while, and for a long time after was a “flexitarian”, and still maintains some of that behavior– she studied nutrition a bit, and so structures her meals in such a way that she doesn’t require a lot of animal protein in them. For years, she would only eat animals that someone she knew had killed, and she still prefers to do that. It helps that she raises animals herself. (They mostly eat their own chicken and pork, beef they’ve traded for, and venison that was hunted on their land. A lot of that is thrift, of course; you don’t make a ton of cash at farming. But she’s chosen this lifestyle, and that’s part of it.)
Part of the farm’s choice to raise animals is economic necessity. Their land isn’t that great for vegetables. They couldn’t compete with some of the other local organic farms; my sister’s former boss has a great site on river bottom land and can grow anything he wants because the soil is so good, even in a rough year like this past one. Their farm, the soil is poor and rocky, and they can work with it but it will never be great. So, animals it is, and vegetables by subscription because they can make up in variety and reliability what they lack in quantity.
Animals are, or can be, a really valuable and efficient source of nutrients. But it’s expensive and difficult to raise them humanely. Animal cruelty laws in the US don’t apply to agriculture. Any standards that do exist, are voluntary certifications adopted by producers.
But there’s tremendous demand for it. Customers love that they can come to the farm and walk up the hill and look at the animals they’re going to eat. Some of the other workers on slaughter day are customers, who want to really know (and also know they can get paid in chickens and feet and hearts and such). And I’m really glad to be a part of that. It’s something to be proud of, to know that I can account for every moment of this animal’s death. If I’m going to derive my nutrition that way, I should be willing to witness it like that.
I hope that this kind of agriculture continues to grow in popularity, and I really hope it can get more accessible. At the moment, it’s just so expensive.
And the supply chain isn’t there. For now, they buy day-old chicks from a commercial hatchery that does not have humane standards for its breeding flocks. A long-term plan is their own breeding flock, but they’d have to change what kind of chickens they use, and they’d be slower growers most likely, which means more expensive. It’s all a balancing act.
I think it’s important to think about where your food comes from– animals, for their own sake but also the sake of their workers (many slaughterhouses employ illegal immigrants, for example), but also vegetables, for their workers’ sake. Vegetable farming is overwhelmingly done by migrant workers and it is brutal work; I know that firsthand as well. (A local catchphrase in the farming community is “works like a Jamaican”, as in, someone who doesn’t take days off. The local migrant workers are all either Mexican or Jamaican, and I attended a gala dinner for a farmland trust earlier this summer that was held in a field next to a melon farm, and as the sun went down and the band started playing, there was a work gang of Mexicans still hard at work in the field next to us. They’re paid hourly, and they’re going to work as many hours as they can while they’re here, that’s how it goes. I stood there with my cocktail in my hand and watched them loading tote after tote until it was too dark to see.)
We’re all prisoners of the market; we can’t buy food that isn’t available to us. But I think there’s a general movement to pay more attention to our food, and I’m excited about it. It just feels really good to have that kind of ownership of your food source, you know?
And the more demand there is, the more that market can grow, the more small growers can thrive. It’s not really possible to produce that kind of food on a large scale, but the more small producers there are, as well, the more of the profit stays in the community. It’s a much more top-to-bottom sustainable kind of economy than what we have.
