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Just in case….
We’ve always been skeptical of the “global warming” scenario though our recent un-winter and early spring has moved us closer to the agnostic column. Still we’ve always managed Thistle Hill as though the environmental alarmists are right. There’s no question, based on our own observations, that clean water and chemical-free land is better for our animals and for us. And the cost savings in not spraying pesticides, not spreading fertilizer and not mowing fields is considerable. Managing your land that way not only cuts way back on energy consumption, it also keeps carbon out of the atmosphere and in the ground where it does the most good. This is why Thistle…
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If you can’t beat them, buy them….
We’ve made the point before that the organic label has been seriously corrupted. Big agriculture industry giants (Big Ag) have infiltrated the organic field and, with their accomplices in government, are doing all they can to blur the differences between our contaminated supermarket food supply and safe food. Again, Democrats and Republicans alike in Washington are the culprits in this story. You would think, of course, that “organic” means entirely natural; it grows and we eat it unadulterated except for what we may add as we prepare it. Well, that’s not true. Something like 300 additives, some carcinogenic, have already been cleared by the “watchdog” government agency for use in organic food…
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Better living through chemistry (cont’d)….
It’s a problem that apparently is growing: the wholesale use of antibiotics is causing drug resistant immunities to build-up in humans as well as animals. We just can’t depend on drugs to battle disease as we once did. E.coli is one of them. Industrial agriculture is based on antibiotics. All commercial animals…cattle, chicken and pigs…are fed them routinely as a preventative. They have to, because in the way they are raised, they’d die otherwise. So you get them too, whether you’re buying meat at the supermarket, a restaurant or McDonald’s. More than that, those cows you see gracing lovely landscapes (unless you’re looking at Thistle Hill and similar farms), are…
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How Monsanto does it….
The Big Ag company that doesn’t miss a trick. Generally, Monsanto buys its friends in government with campaign contributions and its friends in the ag colleges with grants to study problems that may or may not exist. But here’s a first…they’re establishing a “chair” at the University of Illinois communications school to teach budding journalists to love chemical agriculture. http://www.4-traders.com/MONSANTO-COMPANY-13589/news/Monsanto-Company-Monsanto-Commits-$250-000-to-University-of-Illinois-Ag-Communications-Program-14308443/
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The father of the “real food” movement….
Wendell Berry truly is a legend in his own time. This Kentucky farmer, writer and philospher has been thinking and writing about our land…and our food…longer than anyone I know. It’s easy to be misled by his gentle nature, as this New York Times writer was, but Berry is a fighter who pulls no punches when the occasion demands. But first, the introductory article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/25-1 Before you leave the article, click on the “good reads” link for a compendium of Berry’s writing. Or just click here: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/8567.Wendell_Berry Here’s a quote to give you the flavor. Again, I recommend you read the several pages of excerpts from his writing. “Whether we and our…