Local v. Organic

Whenever I walk into a Safeway, Whole Foods, TJ's or through the farmers market, I always ask the same two questions: 1. Do I know where this food is coming from? 2. How was it produced? Depending on where I am, the answer ranges from being readily apparent (at the farmers market) to being a mystery that even a super sleuth of my caliber finds challenging (at TJ's...EVERYTHING is from Monrovia, CA!). For the record, I'm no super sleuth, I just wanted to say that word. As a result, I have come up with an equation to help determine the quality of the food I buy. It's a very complicated, Good Will Hunting inverse quadratic function of two important variables: origin (where the food is from) and production method (how the food is grown). Given the information that I have about these variables with respect to any food product, I simply assign values to each of the variables and plug them into my nifty iPhone app designed exclusively to calculate the "quality" of the food. Accordingly, I make my decision. Genius, right? I wish.

400 (or so) years ago, the equation would have been simple, because the "value," if you will, of both these variables was readily apparent. Most people lived near the source of their food. In fact, most people were the source of their food. No, not like that. What I mean is that many people grew their own food. Additionally, food production was a highly decentralized, democratic industry. Well, it wasn't really even an industry back then. People produced food for themselves, their neighbors, and for anyone who was willing to buy from them at market. The quaint little family farm, which is now all but lost, was exactly what farms actually looked like. Unfortunately while the public conception of what a farm looked like stayed stagnant, the reality of farming evolved into something drastically different. Think: (Innovation of Eli Whitney x Ubiquity of Google) ^ Size of Mt. Everest. All the while, the public is clueless about these changes because the image on the carton of milk still shows a slim Holstein chewing on some green grass by a stream with a red barn in the background.

Now, fast-forward to today because, frankly, I don't know enough about the history of food production to take you all the way from the Industrial Revolution to present day in a concise manner. Our food system today is not only highly industrialized, it is global in scale. This makes for a very difficult trip to the grocery store for someone who wants to find out anything about the food he buys other than what is on the label. So difficult, that when I walk into TJ's and pick up that unnecessarily gigantic box of basil (seriously, who uses that much basil?) to try to find out where its from, all I can see is "Packaged and distributed from Monrovia, CA." Now, given that it's basil, I can make fair assumptions as to the climate that it originated in, how far it might have had to travel, and so on...but really, I'm just guessing. What about the frozen processed foods? Or the canned foods?

Now, the choice is supposed to be easier at a place like Whole Foods, right? They claim to sell mostly organic products, support local farmers and artisans, and have a generally more knowledgeable staff than other chains. They even label the origin of a lot of their produce! But even here, where the answers are seemingly apparent, it's a potential minefield for consumers. Large-scale retailers like Whole Foods need large-scale suppliers. Thus, while that head of cabbage may be organic, it may have been produced using the same industrial-techniques of a large-scale conventional farm, discounted only by the use of organic pesticides instead of conventional pesticides. I'm not trying to knock Whole Foods, but I think its important to recognize that while Whole Foods has ingeniously found a way to compete in the existing food system, it is still part of the existing food system.

Which brings me to farmers markets. Depending on where you live, your experience with farmers markets may vary, but generally speaking the food sold here is, by definition, local. Phew, at least I don't have to worry about that one. The next question, which is a little hairier, is how it is produced. This is where the struggle occurs, and where I really began asking the two questions that are the crux of this post. Just because a farmer isn't certified organic, does that mean she doesn't practice organic agriculture? How do I know that the farm is actually organic, without going to see it myself? At this point, does it even matter if the food is produced organically or conventionally, given that I am getting it locally?

I've come to the conclusion that the debate over local versus organic, on balance, is won out by local. The further our food is from where we are, the more energy it takes to get it from there to here, in terms of natural resources and labor. Also, it just doesn't make sense for my avocado to come from Mexico, or tomato from Chile, or olive oil from Spain, especially when they are readily available locally for, at least, part of the year. So, until someone makes a fortune off my iPhone app idea, our decisions on where to get "quality" food may well be somewhat less perfect, but no less thoughtful...and that's a step in the right direction.

Pet sales banned in West Hollywood, raises interesting questions...

West Hollywood became the second city in the nation to officially ban the sale of cats and dogs when the city council unanimously approved a proposed ordinance to that effect on February 1. The city council has since then passed the proposed ordinance on February 16, and it will take effect next month. South Lake Tahoe was the first city to adopt such an ordinance last year.

The ordinance bans the sale of cats and dogs within city limits, exempting home breeders, municipal shelters, and private rescue groups. Currently, there aren't any pet stores selling dogs or cats in West Hollywood, so the ordinance is more of a preemptive strike as well as a model for other municipalities. While pet sales will be prohibited, stores will be allowed to offer shelter/rescue animals for adoption. The stated goal of the ordinance is to "address the inhumane conditions endured by animals in the puppy mill industry, which relies heavily on sales through retail pet stores for its profits."

While the ordinance will have the modest effect of withdrawing support of the puppy mill industry, it implicitly raises an interesting question about the cultural idiosyncrasy in America of treating pets as companions, while at the same time maintaining a multi-million (billion?) dollar industry and market in pets. On the one hand, our culture celebrates pets as though they are part of our families; even to the extreme that we have glorified beauty pageants for them, epitomized by the last week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. At the same time, pets are just commodities. They are bought and sold like bags of rice, traded across state lines, and even mass-produced in deplorable conditions in puppy mills and kitty factories. What accounts for this cultural schizophrenia with respect to pets, particularly cats and dogs?

We anthropomorphize animals to such an extent, just mentioning that maybe people shouldn't have pets in the first place would outrage just about anyone, including animal advocates. To me, it's odd that we accept it almost as a right, that people can have a pet. What is the purpose of a pet in modern times, other than to provide companionship? And do people have a right to companionship? Companionship surely does not mean the same thing today as it did hundreds or thousands of years ago. Companion animals served a purpose other than companionship in the past. Humans relied on animals as much as animals relied on humans. Perhaps a greater level of inter-species respect existed then. It seems to me that present-day domestic human-dog/human-cat interaction is nearly without reason. We don't need pets. We like pets. We like the dominance that comes with having someone obey us, like us, feed our selfish desire to have value. But we don't need pets. This is not to say that we shouldn't have companion animals, but just take a minute to reflect on the concept of buying and selling life merely as a means to satisfy a human desire for interaction, which, arguably, ought to be fulfilled by our own species.

The value in WeHo's ordinance is subtle, yet powerful; it exists. Tapping into the compassionate side of the public's two-face mindset towards companion animals, the law may begin to raise some self-awareness about the contradictory way we treat animals. Sometimes, it's hard to put two and two together. Hopefully, ordinances like this will begin to give pause to people to think about their choice of getting a pet, before the next time they go to Petco.

Future of livestock in Ohio uncertain

Last November, voters in Ohio passed a ballot initiative amending the state Constitution to create, for the first time, a Livestock Care Standards Board. The Board is to consist of 13 members, representing a "variety" of interests, as follows.

- The Director of Agriculture (Chairperson)
- One person representing family farmers
- One person knowledgeable about food safety
- Two members representing statewide organizations that represent farmers (essentially, Farm Bureau members)
- One licensed veterinarian
- The State Veterinarian
- Dean of the Agriculture Department at a college or university
- Two representatives of consumers
- One representative from a county humane society
- One family farmer appointed by the Speaker of the House, and
- One family farmer appointed by the President of the Senate

A couple of things to note right off the bat. First, neither the bill nor the enacting legislation define 'family farmer.' Given this ambiguity, the Board could potentially define it broadly to include farms technically owned by a family (i.e. Smith Family Farms) that nonetheless employ several hundred workers and raise hundreds to thousands of animals; hardly a family farm in the common understanding of the term. Alternatively, it may choose to simply operate without defining the term, thus leaving it to a future legal challenge and court interpretation, though it is unclear who would have standing to bring that kind of action.

Second, Ohio is an Ag state. This means that agricultural interests dominate state and local politics, the same as energy does is West Virginia and ranching interests in Montana. Potentially then, there are 12 out of the 13 seats on the Board that can be filled with Ag interests. The one that is least likely to be an Ag seat is the humane society representative. With that kind of majority, there is no reason not to expect that the Board will simply perpetuate the current policies in place regarding "livestock care."

Let's be clear, the current policies are not pretty. Ohio is a significant meat and dairy producing state in the country, with over 2.5 million animals in agriculture in the state. It is the 9th largest pork producing state in the country. Currently, standard industry practice (farming is "industrial" in nearly every sense of the word), includes the use of gestation/farrowing crates for pigs, battery cages for hens, and nearly constant milking for cows. Gestation crates are holding devices that restrict a sow's ability to move once impregnated, through gestation, and into birth. Farrowing crates, which follow, are also holding devices that restrict a sow's ability to move so that her piglets can constantly suckle her for milk. Battery cages are also holding pens for laying hens that are used on industrial farms across the state and country. They are incredibly confining for the hens, and are generally stacked 6-8 high, and the hens never leave the cages. Lastly, dairy cows are milked constantly and are artificially inseminated several times a year. See my previous post for some of the more egregious consequences of industrial dairies.

Fortunately, in the wake of Ohio's push to maintain the status quo organizations are gathering signatures for an initiative on this year's ballot that would at least limit the Livestock Care Board's seemingly unfettered discretion a little by creating minimum standards of care. These include:

- prohibiting any tethering device or confinement that wouldn't allow a veal calf, pregnant sow, or egg-laying hen to stand up, lie down, turn around freely and stretch its limbs,
- requiring "humane" slaughter (though this is ostensibly already embodied in the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, a federal law),
- prohibiting strangulation as a form of euthanasia (see my post: Death on a Factory Farm), and
- prohibiting the transfer/sale of downer cows for human food supply.

Last time, Ohioans got it wrong. Hopefully this time, they won't.

Abuse at NY Dairy

Earlier this month, Mercy for Animals released a video (WARNING: disturbing footage) from an undercover investigation into the treatment of animals at New York state's largest dairy farm, Willet Dairy. The video is horrific and grotesque, from the conditions in which the cows live, to the manner in which they are treated. Some of the examples of abuse include:

- calves having their horns removed without anesthesia, where the worker places his fingers in the calf's eye to keep it still as the worker burns the calf's horns off,
- cows with severe wounds including prolapsed uteruses, untreated infections, swollen joints, all covered in manure,
- cows are shocked with metal prods as they are funneled into a truck from the pen, or vice versa, and
- cows have the ends of their tails "docked" without anesthesia.

This is a partial list of the actions that are, according to the investigator, commonplace at the dairy. The last of the abuses mentioned above, known as "tail docking," is a practice common at dairies across the country. Recently in California, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed a bill into law banning the practice of "tail docking." California Penal Code §597n, already banning the practice of docking horse's tails, was amended to include cattle.

Following in California's footsteps, and on the heels of the recently released MFA video, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal of New York Assembly District 67 proposed a similar bill banning the practice of tail docking.

The practice of tail docking is justified by proponents as necessary to preserve cleanliness of the cow's udder, higher quality milk production, and worker health. Though, according to several scientific, peer-reviewed journal articles (this is one of them), these justifications are unfounded. Still, approximately half of the 9 million cows raised for milk in the United States have their tails docked, according to a 2001 USDA survey. Approximately 1.2 million of those cows are raised in some 2152 California dairies, the nation's largest dairy producing state.

One of the reasons the welfare of cows has deteriorated is the dramatic consolidation of the dairy industry in the last 30 years. Small dairy farms (<30 cows), while representing nearly 30% of all producers in the country, account for a mere 1% of milk produced. In fact, the number of farms with less than 200 cows decreased by 30% in 6 years between 2000 and 2006. At the same time, the number of farms raising 2000+ cows doubled! In California, dairies with 500+ cows accounted for 88% of all dairy production in the state. For more statistics of the changes in the dairy industry, see the 2006 USDA study, here.

The treatment of animals raised in agriculture is an issue that is consciously and effectively hidden from the public. Given this latest video, with good reason. Nearly 10 billion animals are raised and slaughtered each year in the United States from human consumption. That is to say: we raise and kill for food the equivalent of almost one and a half times all human life on this planet, each year. Most of these animals are raised and/or slaughtered on large farms, run by major publicly traded corporations that treat these animals as commodities, reaching continuously to reach the highest efficiencies and economies of scale. As a result, the welfare of the animals is discarded in favor of lowering the bottom line further and further. The harsh eventuality of this industrialization of agriculture is now beginning to show itself, and stories like this one about Willet Dairy must compel us to react.

The silver lining here is the power that consumers hold in their pocket books. By choosing not to support large dairies where the majority of these animals are raised (and hence, abused), you will be taking a small step in the right direction. One small step may not be much, but two, three, four, 50, 100, 500, 1000, and more, eventually add up. Of course, choosing not to support dairies altogether would be a larger step, though not everyone is capable of doing that, including myself (for the time being). Thus, buying organic, rBGH-free milk, raised on small, local farms is a modest, yet valuable vote you can cast against cruelty to animals in agriculture.

Finding Purpose

This blog has been like a long-distance friendship for me. For the first few months, we keep up with each other just the same as before the distance inserted itself between us. Weekly posts, even daily posts are the norm. The hours of the day soon fill up with ordinary life and I start to feel the distance. I rationalize the uncharacteristic gap between contact as me just being busy. "I'm sure everyone is busy these days, anyway." Then one day, I wake up and realize that 3 silent months have gone by with no notice. That feeling has brought me back to this moment several times, and several times I have begun to write and have not finished.

This time is different. I lost track of what is, to me, the purpose of a blog. It started as a means of communication with family and friends out of necessity. Once that need was gone, I didn't replace that purpose with something else. Now, I have a purpose again.

The future of this blog will be devoted to any and all issues related to non-human animal welfare, animal rights, food, and the impossibly intricate connection between animals, nature, and humans.

keep it fresh...