In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

David, I'm surprised you didn't respond to


I didn't see it.

"Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a
hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the
Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas,
roughly from Omaha andTopeka east to the Atlantic and south to the
Gulf of Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and
soy. But returned to permanent cover, **it would sequester 2.2
billion tons of carbon every year**. Bane writes:


This statement bothers me because it allows one to think that the quoted
rate of sequestration can go on indefinitely.. Every land use will reach a
different equilibrium in the amount of carbon that it can store. Forest
stores more per acre than pasture which stores more than row crops according
to my local agronomist. So it makes sense to say X amount is sequestered
per year at a point in time while the biomass is growing. So if you convert
an acre of row crop to forest it sequesters a given amount per year which
slows to zero as it reaches its maximum storage when the forest matures.
After that there is no net sequestration.

Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's
pasture), creating, hypothetically, one inch of topsoil per year. That's
the goal. The tree maxi-es out. The grass maxi-es out, BUT the topsoil
keeps on growing (sequestration), one inch per year.

If the guy is full of pucky, I'm listening, but it makes sense. The only
question is where to put the decimal.

I would need to know just what this bloke is talking about before commenting
further.

**That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases**, not
counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing
forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov-
ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes
in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in
industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely
imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang-
ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In
fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land
were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs.4

The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160
4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1

p. 250



I cannot read this site, I get a whole lot of blank rectangles, garbled text
and IE complaining a script is taking too many resources.

So who is Peter Bane? What are his qualifications? Where can we see his
calculations and more importantly his assumptions?


With the Salatin paradigm, the US could sequester its CO2 emissions,
grow healthy meat on permanent pasture, and create 5 million new jobs.
It's good not just for your inner environment but your outter
environment as well.

This may or may not be so. The whole issue of carbon sequestration has been
greatly politicised and scrambled. I need to see all the details to have a
view of whether this is reasonable. Of course carbon sequestration is but
one aspect of any proposed change to land use and agricultural methods.

David
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

"Billy" wrote in message
"songbird" wrote:
Billy wrote:
...
Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly
transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of
pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen
eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred
acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the
fact
that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it
will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier
underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)."

these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that
many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that
many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals
for cows alone).

does the basic math add up right here Billy?

Sorry, I'm no a rancher. The above is a quote from

The Omnivore's Dilemma:

Fascinating stuff Billy - lots of clips on You-tube where they explain how
they do it. The one of killing and processing the chooks was particulalry
interesting and impressive. They killed, dressed and prepared 417 birds in
two hours.

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac
of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable
contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is
used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more
accurate the above production is from 550ac.

I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The
comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the
conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble
matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in
calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of
this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many
inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not
live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone.

Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the quality of
life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have seen intensive
operations such a feed lots and caged chooks.

I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages on the
place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put birds that
were off colour and needed to be taken away from the bullying tactics of the
rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when other poultry farmers were
moving to cages and proud of it, we were free ranging. We once had a city
person come back to us and complain about the eggs they bought off us.
According to them, the eggs were 'off' and had to be thrown out because they
had 'very yellow yolks'.

"Billy" wrote in message

Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's
pasture),

What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie grass'?
The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's place doesn't
look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like he's got a farm on
quite rich land in a well protected area. 'Prairies' to me suggest very
open and exposed locations and the grasses there would, TMWOT, be much
tougher and less nutritious than in good pasture land. I might be talking
through my hat 'cos I haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what I'd
expect here in Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities.

FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is
450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a
sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and
biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other
ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac.

I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional
means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think
because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would
have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that
just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might
win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a
limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side
effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high
fructose corn syrup) alone.

Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the
quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have
seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks.


That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook sheds for
meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a shed with a dirt
floor with just enough room to move between the feed and the water. Lights
on half the night to get them to eat more. The workers wear breathing
apparatus to clean out the sheds and it will make you puke at 400m on a hot
night. The eagles dine well on those who get trodden under. Nuff said.

I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages
on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put
birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the
bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when
other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were
free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain
about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were
'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'.

In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet chook
food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk still such an
indicator or is it emulated these days by diet additives?


David

In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message

Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's
pasture),

What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie grass'?
The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's place doesn't
look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like he's got a farm on
quite rich land in a well protected area. 'Prairies' to me suggest very
open and exposed locations and the grasses there would, TMWOT, be much
tougher and less nutritious than in good pasture land. I might be talking
through my hat 'cos I haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what I'd
expect here in Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities.

OK, you got me walkin' on thin ice here. Having escaped the housing
tracts of southern California, I'm long on book learnin' and short on
experience, BUT the proposition was to create a carbon sink. Quoting from
"The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" by Lierre Keith
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160
4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1

"Salatin's rotating mixture of animals on pasture is
building one inch of'soil annually.4

Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a
hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the
Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly
from Omaha and Topeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of
Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But
returned to permanent cover, it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of
carbon every year. Bane writes:

That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases, not
counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing
forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov-
ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes
in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in
industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely
imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang-
ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In
fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land
were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs."6

So were not talking about using the same pasturage (grasses), but using
the same practices, i.e. chooks following steers into the pastures.

Prairie grasses (grasses that supported the buffalo in the American
midwest) created rich topsoil that was exploited (and consumed) by
Europeans with ploughs.

See http://ed.fnal.gov/entry_exhibits/grass/grass_title.html
for a quick overview of prairies, and
http://www.stockseed.com/prairiegrasses_default.asp
for grasses.

Switching from the idyllic setting of Salatin's farm to American
"factory farming", we find that feed is a huge issue.

DAVID KIRBY: We worry about what we eat, but we also need to worry about
what we eat eats. And the quality of feed can be highly compromised in
these factories, where the drive to lower costs and prices is so great,
and the temptation to cut corners is there, and this is the result. And
we have to remember that factory farming has produced not only
salmonella, but also E. coli, also mad cow disease, also swine flu, I
believe, and MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that now kills
more Americans than AIDS.

AMY GOODMAN: You say, "Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of
cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating
parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly
E-coli bacterial contamination." All as a result of animal factories, as
you put them.

DAVID KIRBY: Correct. Now, those diseases could conceivably emerge in
any farm, even the smallest, most sustainable farm, but they¹re far more
likely to emerge in these large industrial factories. And again, the
scale is so much larger that when you have an outbreak, you have this
massive problem that¹s going to cost millions and millions of dollars,
just in terms of the lost eggs and productivity.

And just to mention the workshops that you were mentioning earlier with
the federal government, the Obama administration has vowed to try to
even the playing field a little bit more, so that we have greater access
to smaller, independently raised farms. And one way, I think, to do that
is to address the subsidy issue. This farm got very cheap grain from a
farmer who got millions, perhaps, of dollars in our money to lower the
price of that feed. If DeCoster (one of the 2 egg companies involved in
the present egg recall) didn¹t have access to that cheap feed, he
wouldn¹t be able to operate in this way, and that would provide greater
access to the market for smaller producers.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the significance of feed and what¹s in it.

DAVID KIRBY: Well, feed is a huge issue. And for example, with the
chickens that we eat, so-called broiler chickens, they often add arsenic
into that feed to make the birds grow faster and to prevent intestinal
diseases. Another thing we do in this country‹

AMY GOODMAN: Arsenic?

DAVID KIRBY: Arsenic, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Isn¹t that poison?

DAVID KIRBY: It is poison. Yes, it is poison.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does it affect humans? I mean, the chickens eat the
arsenic. Why do they grow faster?

DAVID KIRBY: They don¹t know. No one knows. The theory is that when you
poison a chicken, it gets sick, so it eats and drinks more, consumes
more, to try to get the poison out of its body. That makes a chicken
grow faster, and it prevents intestinal parasites. The risk to humans,
there have been studies done, and they have found residue of arsenic in
some chickens. The real threat is in the litter that comes out the other
end of the chicken. When that gets spread on farmland, people breathe in
that arsenic dust. And there¹s a town in Arkansas where cancer rates are
just through the roof. There¹s been over twenty pediatric cases in this
tiny town of Prairie Grove with just a couple of thousand people.

AMY GOODMAN: Let¹s go to Arkansas. Don¹t‹let¹s not shortcut this,
because you have a very interesting book, where you look at families in
several different communities. Arkansas‹describe what are the animal
factories that are there and what happens to the people in the
community.

DAVID KIRBY: Most of them are so-called broiler operations. Tyson
chicken is from Arkansas. The big operators, they¹re in northwestern
Arkansas. It¹s just‹it¹s chicken country. And with consolidation, you¹ve
had the rise of these very large factory farms. And again, up until
recently, Tyson was using this arsenic product in its feed, and the
other companies were, as well. And around this little town of Prairie
Grove, as an example, this stuff is dry spread‹the litter is dry spread
on the cropland. And where the school was‹

AMY GOODMAN: You mean the chicken manure.

DAVID KIRBY: The chicken manure. And the dust has been found in the air
filters of homes and schools in this town, and it¹s been found with
arsenic that has been traced back to the feed in the chicken.
Something else we feed chickens that people don¹t realize is beef
products. And when those chickens eat that beef product, some of it
falls into their litter. Well, we produce so much chicken litter in this
country, because of these factory farms, and it is so rich in phosphorus
and nitrogen, its land application uses are limited. So you have surplus
chicken litter and nothing to do with it. What do they do with it? They
feed it to cattle. So we feed beef cows chicken crap. That chicken
litter often contains bits and byproducts of cattle. So we are actually
feeding cattle to cattle, which is a risk factor for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. We actually feed cattle
products to cattle in three different ways: chicken litter, restaurant
scraps, and blood products on dairy farms. And all the mad cow cases in
this country came from mega-dairies where, when that calf is born, they
remove it from its mother immediately, because that mother¹s milk is a
commodity, it¹s worth money, so instead they feed that calf a formula
that includes bovine blood products, and again increasing the risk of
mad cow disease. "

The conversation winds on through beef, and pork production, to
contamination of wild fish.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/24/david_kirby_on_the_looming_threat

A quick aside to David,
when you consider inputs to monocultures you have to figure in the
expense of the fossil fuels (exploration, production, delivery,
pollution), and the greater reliance on pesticides that comes from
growing the same crop, in the same place, year after year. There is a
reason why gardeners are supposed to rotate crops. "IF" monocultures are
more productive in terms of calories, you still need to subtract the
calories lost in marine life due to the "dead zones" at the mouths of
the big rivers, such as the Mississippi, where the dead zone is the size
of the state of New Jersey.
---
p. 125

"It is a twisted irony that the oil pumped from the bottom of the gulf
is eventually returning energetically as runoff that pollutes the marine
ecosystem. The estuaries of the Chesapeake, Massachusetts, North
Carolina, San Francisco Bay, and nuinerous others all regularly
experience the ecological destruction this runoff brings.

Runoff of soils and synthetic chemicals makes agriculture the largest
non-point source of water pollution in the country. It is estimated that
only 18 percent of all the nitrogen compounds applied to fields in the
United States is actually absorbed in plant tissues. This means that we
are inadvertentiv fertilizing our waters on a gigantic scale. When this
runoff reaches waterways, it promotes robust growth in algae and other
waterbome plants, a process known as eutrophication in fresh waters and
algal bloom in oceanic systems. This unbalanced growth depletes the
level of oxygen dissolved into waters. Aquatic life of all varieties is
literally asphyxiated by the transformation. The additional algae blocks
the transmittance of light energy to depth, creating a less biodiverse
water column. Over time this addition of nitrogen changes the whole
structure and function of water

ARTIFICIAL FERTILITY » 127

ecosystems. Less aerobically dependent organisms prevail, which
compromises the productivity of fisheries. Many of these organisms
produce toxic materials as a by-product of their metabolism. Toxic "red
tides" and the resulting fish kills and beach closures are brought on by
excessive nitrogen levels. Pathogenic organisms such as Pfieste-ria and
Pseudo-Nitzschia also proliferate in these polluted waters.
Numerous farming communities in the United States have experienced
nitrogen pollution in their aquifers and drinking supplies. When
ingested by humans, nitrogen compounds are converted to a nitrite form
that combines with hemoglobin in our blood. This changes the structure
and reduces the oxygen-holding capacity of blood, which creates a
dangerous condition known as methemoglobinemia. Various communities
throughout the midwestem United States have suffered from outbreaks of
this condition, which is particularly acute in children.

A large quantity of the nitrogen compounds applied to fields volatizes
into gaseous nitrous oxides, which escape into the atmosphere. These are
greenhouse gases with far greater potency than simple carbon dioxide.
Elevated levels of these gases have been directly linked to
stratospheric ozone depletion, acid deposition, and ground-level ozone
pollution. In this way, our fertilizer use exacerbates the already
untenable problems of global air pollution and climate change.

THE DEBT IS DUE

All of these adverse effects of fertilizers result from their
application. It is equally important to consider the problems associated
with the production of fertilizers. The Haber process first made for the
direct link of fertility to energy consumption, but this was in a time
when fossil fuels were abundant and their widespread use seemed
harmless. The production of nitrogenous fertilizers consumes more energy
than any other aspect of the agricultural process. It takes the energy
from burning 2,200 pounds of coal to produce 5.5 pounds of usable
nitrogen. This means that within the industrial model of agriculture, as
inputs are compared to outputs, the cost of energy has become
increasingly important. Agriculture's relationship to fertility is now
directly related to the price of oil.

The Fatal Harvest Reader
Edited by Andrew Kimbrell
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-.../dp/155963944X
/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282583500&sr=1-1
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

Billy wrote:
....
If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click on
"Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic
Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their feed
from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system.

sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video
or youtube here...


Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2
reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other is on
meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we
having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing supply,
but rather about maintaining quality.

yea, i read something the other day in
the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new
rules (FDA i think) that just went into
effect. we'll see if they actually help.
two producers and hundreds of millions
of eggs.


Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can
screw up the system for many others.

what ever happened to monopoly enforcement?


It's like the dog food scandal,
where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder, which
turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give the
appearance of higher levels of protein.

that was outright fraud. which is a moral
and ethical issue apart from sustainable
agricultural practices. i didn't follow
up what happened back in China but i think
there were comments about, "facing possible
execution."


songbird

In article ,
songbird wrote:

Billy wrote:
...
If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click on
"Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic
Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their feed
from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system.

sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video
or youtube here...


Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2
reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other is on
meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we
having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing supply,
but rather about maintaining quality.

yea, i read something the other day in
the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new
rules (FDA i think) that just went into
effect. we'll see if they actually help.
two producers and hundreds of millions
of eggs.


Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can
screw up the system for many others.

what ever happened to monopoly enforcement?


It's like the dog food scandal,
where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder, which
turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give the
appearance of higher levels of protein.

that was outright fraud. which is a moral
and ethical issue apart from sustainable
agricultural practices. i didn't follow
up what happened back in China but i think
there were comments about, "facing possible
execution."


songbird

Relax, he was executed. The dog food was feed to steers, pork, and fish.
Feel better?

"Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine" by Marion Nestle
http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Food-Polit...520265890/ref=
sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282796329&sr=1-2

She isn't the best of writers, but it is a good book.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is
450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a
sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and
biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other
ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac.

I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional
means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think
because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would
have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that
just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might
win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a
limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side
effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high
fructose corn syrup) alone.

Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the
quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have
seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks.


That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook sheds for
meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a shed with a dirt
floor with just enough room to move between the feed and the water.
Lights on half the night to get them to eat more. The workers wear
breathing apparatus to clean out the sheds and it will make you puke at
400m on a hot night. The eagles dine well on those who get trodden under.
Nuff said.


Indeed. I've been to a feed lot and I had the same reaction although this
was probably one of the better run ones. I'd turn vegetarian if our local
buthcer sourced his meat at places like that but I can see his 'feed lot'
(for want of a better description as it's jsut his farm) from the road and
his cattle have quite a nice spot for the final finish on feed before they
take the trip to the abattoir. (sp?)

I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages
on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put
birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the
bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when
other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were
free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain
about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were
'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'.

In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet chook
food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk still such an
indicator or is it emulated these days by diet additives?

That is one of those 'it depends' answers as in, it depends ont he feed.

If you feed them on kitchen scraps (not recommended as that isn't nutritious
enough) then free ranging (as opposed to keeping confined) will change the
colour of the yolk. Pellets contain a yellowing agent, but apparently that
yellow isn't carried through so that in baked goods show up the yellowing.
Yolks that are yellow as a result of the feed they find outside does hang on
through the baking process so that the baked goods (like say a butter cake)
will appear more yellow. I've not done these tests myself but there was a
long article on it (with comparative pics) in one of the 'Australasian
Poultry' mags a couple of years ago. A great little magazine and as cheap
as chips.

"Billy" wrote in message
In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"Billy" wrote in message

Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's
pasture),

What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie grass'?
The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's place
doesn't
look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like he's got a farm
on
quite rich land in a well protected area. 'Prairies' to me suggest very
open and exposed locations and the grasses there would, TMWOT, be much
tougher and less nutritious than in good pasture land. I might be
talking
through my hat 'cos I haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what
I'd
expect here in Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities.

OK, you got me walkin' on thin ice here. Having escaped the housing
tracts of southern California, I'm long on book learnin' and short on
experience, BUT the proposition was to create a carbon sink. Quoting from
"The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" by Lierre Keith
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160
4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1

"Salatin's rotating mixture of animals on pasture is
building one inch of'soil annually.4

Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a
hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the
Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly
from Omaha and Topeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of
Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But
returned to permanent cover, it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of
carbon every year. Bane writes:

That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases, not
counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing
forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov-
ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes
in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in
industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely
imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang-
ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In
fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land
were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs."6

So were not talking about using the same pasturage (grasses), but using
the same practices, i.e. chooks following steers into the pastures.

Prairie grasses (grasses that supported the buffalo in the American
midwest) created rich topsoil that was exploited (and consumed) by
Europeans with ploughs.

See http://ed.fnal.gov/entry_exhibits/grass/grass_title.html
for a quick overview of prairies, and
http://www.stockseed.com/prairiegrasses_default.asp
for grasses.

Hmmmm. I havent' a clue about the territory you're talking about however, a
one size fits all approach often doesn't work in different areas. Often the
same approach wont' work withing just a few kms. I think I'll have to get
the book and read it.

Switching from the idyllic setting of Salatin's farm to American
"factory farming", we find that feed is a huge issue.

DAVID KIRBY: We worry about what we eat, but we also need to worry about
what we eat eats. And the quality of feed can be highly compromised in
these factories, where the drive to lower costs and prices is so great,
and the temptation to cut corners is there, and this is the result. And
we have to remember that factory farming has produced not only
salmonella, but also E. coli, also mad cow disease, also swine flu, I
believe, and MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that now kills
more Americans than AIDS.

AMY GOODMAN: You say, "Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of
cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating
parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly
E-coli bacterial contamination." All as a result of animal factories, as
you put them.

DAVID KIRBY: Correct. Now, those diseases could conceivably emerge in
any farm, even the smallest, most sustainable farm, but they¹re far more
likely to emerge in these large industrial factories. And again, the
scale is so much larger that when you have an outbreak, you have this
massive problem that¹s going to cost millions and millions of dollars,
just in terms of the lost eggs and productivity.

And just to mention the workshops that you were mentioning earlier with
the federal government, the Obama administration has vowed to try to
even the playing field a little bit more, so that we have greater access
to smaller, independently raised farms. And one way, I think, to do that
is to address the subsidy issue. This farm got very cheap grain from a
farmer who got millions, perhaps, of dollars in our money to lower the
price of that feed. If DeCoster (one of the 2 egg companies involved in
the present egg recall) didn¹t have access to that cheap feed, he
wouldn¹t be able to operate in this way, and that would provide greater
access to the market for smaller producers.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the significance of feed and what¹s in it.

DAVID KIRBY: Well, feed is a huge issue. And for example, with the
chickens that we eat, so-called broiler chickens, they often add arsenic
into that feed to make the birds grow faster and to prevent intestinal
diseases. Another thing we do in this country‹

AMY GOODMAN: Arsenic?

DAVID KIRBY: Arsenic, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Isn¹t that poison?

DAVID KIRBY: It is poison. Yes, it is poison.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does it affect humans? I mean, the chickens eat the
arsenic. Why do they grow faster?

DAVID KIRBY: They don¹t know. No one knows. The theory is that when you
poison a chicken, it gets sick, so it eats and drinks more, consumes
more, to try to get the poison out of its body. That makes a chicken
grow faster, and it prevents intestinal parasites. The risk to humans,
there have been studies done, and they have found residue of arsenic in
some chickens. The real threat is in the litter that comes out the other
end of the chicken. When that gets spread on farmland, people breathe in
that arsenic dust. And there¹s a town in Arkansas where cancer rates are
just through the roof. There¹s been over twenty pediatric cases in this
tiny town of Prairie Grove with just a couple of thousand people.

AMY GOODMAN: Let¹s go to Arkansas. Don¹t‹let¹s not shortcut this,
because you have a very interesting book, where you look at families in
several different communities. Arkansas‹describe what are the animal
factories that are there and what happens to the people in the
community.

DAVID KIRBY: Most of them are so-called broiler operations. Tyson
chicken is from Arkansas. The big operators, they¹re in northwestern
Arkansas. It¹s just‹it¹s chicken country. And with consolidation, you¹ve
had the rise of these very large factory farms. And again, up until
recently, Tyson was using this arsenic product in its feed, and the
other companies were, as well. And around this little town of Prairie
Grove, as an example, this stuff is dry spread‹the litter is dry spread
on the cropland. And where the school was‹

AMY GOODMAN: You mean the chicken manure.

DAVID KIRBY: The chicken manure. And the dust has been found in the air
filters of homes and schools in this town, and it¹s been found with
arsenic that has been traced back to the feed in the chicken.
Something else we feed chickens that people don¹t realize is beef
products. And when those chickens eat that beef product, some of it
falls into their litter. Well, we produce so much chicken litter in this
country, because of these factory farms, and it is so rich in phosphorus
and nitrogen, its land application uses are limited. So you have surplus
chicken litter and nothing to do with it. What do they do with it? They
feed it to cattle. So we feed beef cows chicken crap. That chicken
litter often contains bits and byproducts of cattle. So we are actually
feeding cattle to cattle, which is a risk factor for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. We actually feed cattle
products to cattle in three different ways: chicken litter, restaurant
scraps, and blood products on dairy farms. And all the mad cow cases in
this country came from mega-dairies where, when that calf is born, they
remove it from its mother immediately, because that mother¹s milk is a
commodity, it¹s worth money, so instead they feed that calf a formula
that includes bovine blood products, and again increasing the risk of
mad cow disease. "

The conversation winds on through beef, and pork production, to
contamination of wild fish.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/24/david_kirby_on_the_looming_threat

Eeeeeew! I feel sick!


A quick aside to David,
when you consider inputs to monocultures you have to figure in the
expense of the fossil fuels (exploration, production, delivery,
pollution), and the greater reliance on pesticides that comes from
growing the same crop, in the same place, year after year. There is a
reason why gardeners are supposed to rotate crops. "IF" monocultures are
more productive in terms of calories, you still need to subtract the
calories lost in marine life due to the "dead zones" at the mouths of
the big rivers, such as the Mississippi, where the dead zone is the size
of the state of New Jersey.
---
p. 125

"It is a twisted irony that the oil pumped from the bottom of the gulf
is eventually returning energetically as runoff that pollutes the marine
ecosystem. The estuaries of the Chesapeake, Massachusetts, North
Carolina, San Francisco Bay, and nuinerous others all regularly
experience the ecological destruction this runoff brings.

Runoff of soils and synthetic chemicals makes agriculture the largest
non-point source of water pollution in the country. It is estimated that
only 18 percent of all the nitrogen compounds applied to fields in the
United States is actually absorbed in plant tissues. This means that we
are inadvertentiv fertilizing our waters on a gigantic scale. When this
runoff reaches waterways, it promotes robust growth in algae and other
waterbome plants, a process known as eutrophication in fresh waters and
algal bloom in oceanic systems. This unbalanced growth depletes the
level of oxygen dissolved into waters. Aquatic life of all varieties is
literally asphyxiated by the transformation. The additional algae blocks
the transmittance of light energy to depth, creating a less biodiverse
water column. Over time this addition of nitrogen changes the whole
structure and function of water

ARTIFICIAL FERTILITY » 127

ecosystems. Less aerobically dependent organisms prevail, which
compromises the productivity of fisheries. Many of these organisms
produce toxic materials as a by-product of their metabolism. Toxic "red
tides" and the resulting fish kills and beach closures are brought on by
excessive nitrogen levels. Pathogenic organisms such as Pfieste-ria and
Pseudo-Nitzschia also proliferate in these polluted waters.
Numerous farming communities in the United States have experienced
nitrogen pollution in their aquifers and drinking supplies. When
ingested by humans, nitrogen compounds are converted to a nitrite form
that combines with hemoglobin in our blood. This changes the structure
and reduces the oxygen-holding capacity of blood, which creates a
dangerous condition known as methemoglobinemia. Various communities
throughout the midwestem United States have suffered from outbreaks of
this condition, which is particularly acute in children.

A large quantity of the nitrogen compounds applied to fields volatizes
into gaseous nitrous oxides, which escape into the atmosphere. These are
greenhouse gases with far greater potency than simple carbon dioxide.
Elevated levels of these gases have been directly linked to
stratospheric ozone depletion, acid deposition, and ground-level ozone
pollution. In this way, our fertilizer use exacerbates the already
untenable problems of global air pollution and climate change.

THE DEBT IS DUE

All of these adverse effects of fertilizers result from their
application. It is equally important to consider the problems associated
with the production of fertilizers. The Haber process first made for the
direct link of fertility to energy consumption, but this was in a time
when fossil fuels were abundant and their widespread use seemed
harmless. The production of nitrogenous fertilizers consumes more energy
than any other aspect of the agricultural process. It takes the energy
from burning 2,200 pounds of coal to produce 5.5 pounds of usable
nitrogen. This means that within the industrial model of agriculture, as
inputs are compared to outputs, the cost of energy has become
increasingly important. Agriculture's relationship to fertility is now
directly related to the price of oil.

The Fatal Harvest Reader
Edited by Andrew Kimbrell
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-.../dp/155963944X
/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282583500&sr=1-1
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is
450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a
sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and
biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other
ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac.

I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional
means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think
because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would
have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that
just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might
win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a
limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side
effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high
fructose corn syrup) alone.

Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the
quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have
seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks.


That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook sheds for
meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a shed with a dirt
floor with just enough room to move between the feed and the water.
Lights on half the night to get them to eat more. The workers wear
breathing apparatus to clean out the sheds and it will make you puke at
400m on a hot night. The eagles dine well on those who get trodden under.
Nuff said.


Indeed. I've been to a feed lot and I had the same reaction although this
was probably one of the better run ones. I'd turn vegetarian if our local
buthcer sourced his meat at places like that but I can see his 'feed lot'
(for want of a better description as it's jsut his farm) from the road and
his cattle have quite a nice spot for the final finish on feed before they
take the trip to the abattoir. (sp?)

I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages
on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put
birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the
bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when
other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were
free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain
about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were
'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'.

In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet chook
food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk still such an
indicator or is it emulated these days by diet additives?

That is one of those 'it depends' answers as in, it depends ont he feed.

If you feed them on kitchen scraps (not recommended as that isn't nutritious
enough) then free ranging (as opposed to keeping confined) will change the
colour of the yolk. Pellets contain a yellowing agent, but apparently that
yellow isn't carried through so that in baked goods show up the yellowing.
Yolks that are yellow as a result of the feed they find outside does hang on
through the baking process so that the baked goods (like say a butter cake)
will appear more yellow. I've not done these tests myself but there was a
long article on it (with comparative pics) in one of the 'Australasian
Poultry' mags a couple of years ago. A great little magazine and as cheap
as chips.

Besides having a yoke that looks like an apricot, instead of a lemon,
real eggs have a viscosity to them that factory produced eggs don't.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

Billy wrote:
In article ,
songbird wrote:

Billy wrote:
...
If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click
on
"Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic
Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their
feed
from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system.

sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video
or youtube here...


Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2
reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other
is on
meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we

having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing
supply,
but rather about maintaining quality.

yea, i read something the other day in
the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new
rules (FDA i think) that just went into
effect. we'll see if they actually help.
two producers and hundreds of millions
of eggs.


Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can

screw up the system for many others.

what ever happened to monopoly enforcement?


It's like the dog food scandal,
where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder,
which
turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give
the
appearance of higher levels of protein.

that was outright fraud. which is a moral
and ethical issue apart from sustainable
agricultural practices. i didn't follow
up what happened back in China but i think
there were comments about, "facing possible
execution."


songbird

Relax, he was executed. The dog food was feed to steers, pork, and
fish.
Feel better?

"Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine" by Marion Nestle
http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Food-Polit...520265890/ref=
sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282796329&sr=1-2

She isn't the best of writers, but it is a good book.

Not just dog food! They were executed for putting the same stuff in
human baby food formulas which killed several babies in China. The baby
formulas was not sold in the US.

Have you purchased cod, catfish in stores? Product of China.
Some have statements like "Carbon Monoxide added for flavor enhancement"
on the bags????

--
Enjoy Life... Dan L

In article
-se
ptember.org,
Dan L wrote:

Billy wrote:
In article ,
songbird wrote:

Billy wrote:
...
If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click
on
"Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic
Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their
feed
from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system.

sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video
or youtube here...


Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2
reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other
is on
meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we

having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing
supply,
but rather about maintaining quality.

yea, i read something the other day in
the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new
rules (FDA i think) that just went into
effect. we'll see if they actually help.
two producers and hundreds of millions
of eggs.


Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can

screw up the system for many others.

what ever happened to monopoly enforcement?


It's like the dog food scandal,
where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder,
which
turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give
the
appearance of higher levels of protein.

that was outright fraud. which is a moral
and ethical issue apart from sustainable
agricultural practices. i didn't follow
up what happened back in China but i think
there were comments about, "facing possible
execution."


songbird

Relax, he was executed. The dog food was feed to steers, pork, and
fish.
Feel better?

"Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine" by Marion Nestle
http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Food-Polit...520265890/ref=
sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282796329&sr=1-2

She isn't the best of writers, but it is a good book.

Not just dog food! They were executed for putting the same stuff in
human baby food formulas which killed several babies in China. The baby
formulas was not sold in the US.
China's economy is growing at a rate of 10%/year. This would probably
come under the heading of deadly growing pain. I saw an interview with
some of the workers of the factory where the wheat flour was laced with
melamine and cyanuric acid (they are about 5 times more deadly in
combination than alone), and the workers smiled and said, "Yeah, it
looks like it has more protein." They obviously didn't have a clue about
its effects on a living organism. People thought that they were buying
wheat gluten (not laced wheat flour). There isn't one wheat gluten for
animals and one for humans. This was one of the points that Amy Goodman
was trying to make about the integrated global economy. No one knows
what's in the food anymore, because it has be made from a mish-mash of
ingredients from around the planet. In 2006, China ranked third behind
India and Mexico in the number of food shipments refused by the FDA.
These dame neo-nutcake-liberals don't want any government regulations
because it impedes business. But as we can see with the egg recall,
people are getting sick because business is on the honor system. The
least we can do is give the FDA the authority to declare a recall when
they see a health concern. The FDA also needs to be funded for what it
has been mandated to do. The funding for health concerns should be taken
away from the USDA, which markets farm products (conflict of interest),
and be given to the FDA.

Have you purchased cod, catfish in stores? Product of China.
Some have statements like "Carbon Monoxide added for flavor enhancement"
on the bags????

That is damn decent of them. Here in the good ol' U.S. of A., we do it
without any kind notification.
http://meatisneat.wordpress.com/2009...aging-meat-in-
carbon-monoxide/
The carbon monoxide binds with the hemoglobin to keep the meat looking
fresh (red), no matter how old and funky it may be. This is done to some
meat that is wrapped in plastic. It is also the reason that I won't buy
meat that is wrapped in plastic, like Saturday's, barbecue, pork ribs.

How's "Eaarth" coming along?
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article
-se
ptember.org,
Dan L wrote:

Billy wrote:
In article ,
songbird wrote:

Billy wrote:
...
If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click
on
"Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic
Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their
feed
from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system.

sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video
or youtube here...


Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2
reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other
is on
meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we

having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing
supply,
but rather about maintaining quality.

yea, i read something the other day in
the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new
rules (FDA i think) that just went into
effect. we'll see if they actually help.
two producers and hundreds of millions
of eggs.


Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can

screw up the system for many others.

what ever happened to monopoly enforcement?


It's like the dog food scandal,
where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder,
which
turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give
the
appearance of higher levels of protein.

that was outright fraud. which is a moral
and ethical issue apart from sustainable
agricultural practices. i didn't follow
up what happened back in China but i think
there were comments about, "facing possible
execution."


songbird

Relax, he was executed. The dog food was feed to steers, pork, and
fish.
Feel better?

"Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine" by Marion Nestle
http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Food-Polit...520265890/ref=
sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282796329&sr=1-2

She isn't the best of writers, but it is a good book.

Not just dog food! They were executed for putting the same stuff in
human baby food formulas which killed several babies in China. The baby
formulas was not sold in the US.
China's economy is growing at a rate of 10%/year. This would probably
come under the heading of deadly growing pain. I saw an interview with
some of the workers of the factory where the wheat flour was laced with
melamine and cyanuric acid (they are about 5 times more deadly in
combination than alone), and the workers smiled and said, "Yeah, it
looks like it has more protein." They obviously didn't have a clue about
its effects on a living organism. People thought that they were buying
wheat gluten (not laced wheat flour). There isn't one wheat gluten for
animals and one for humans. This was one of the points that Amy Goodman
was trying to make about the integrated global economy. No one knows
what's in the food anymore, because it has be made from a mish-mash of
ingredients from around the planet. In 2006, China ranked third behind
India and Mexico in the number of food shipments refused by the FDA.
These dame neo-nutcake-liberals don't want any government regulations
because it impedes business. But as we can see with the egg recall,
people are getting sick because business is on the honor system. The
least we can do is give the FDA the authority to declare a recall when
they see a health concern. The FDA also needs to be funded for what it
has been mandated to do. The funding for health concerns should be taken
away from the USDA, which markets farm products (conflict of interest),
and be given to the FDA.

I have sometimes wondered about wheat gluten. When I make my own
homemade breads I do not have stomach upsets. However I almost always
get heartburn and upset stomach from "added gluten" in store bought
products. I have been tested negative for celiac or wheat allergies.
I make my own foods and tend to stay away from packaged foods.
Why I have my own chickens and a Jersey milk cow.

Have you purchased cod, catfish in stores? Product of China.
Some have statements like "Carbon Monoxide added for flavor enhancement"
on the bags????

That is damn decent of them. Here in the good ol' U.S. of A., we do it
without any kind notification.
http://meatisneat.wordpress.com/2009...aging-meat-in-
carbon-monoxide/
The carbon monoxide binds with the hemoglobin to keep the meat looking
fresh (red), no matter how old and funky it may be. This is done to some
meat that is wrapped in plastic. It is also the reason that I won't buy
meat that is wrapped in plastic, like Saturday's, barbecue, pork ribs.
A very interesting site. You correct "Damn decent of them"! Other
companies have been doing it for years!!!! We are living on a new world.
I think I am going to get a boat a start fishing here in the great
lakes. I do miss the taste of good sea food, not just lake food. Only
thing in sea food markets are the bug foods, lobster, shrimp and oysters.

How's "Eaarth" coming along?
A very good book, currently on page thirty. He seemed to give up on
changing the world. Shifted to self protection. Seems like I have been
doing just that myself in the last few years. Just like the economy and
global warming, what can one do except, do our part and protect
ourselves.

We are living on a new world called "Eaarth". Learn to live with it.

--
Enjoy Life... Dan
Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.
Using a Laptop

Billy wrote:
In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there
is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods
make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig
feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and
assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above
production is from 550ac.

I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional
means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I
think because the conventional system uses many external inputs
and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I
suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive
monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can
only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and
many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not
live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone.

Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the
quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have
seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks.


That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook
sheds for meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a
shed with a dirt floor with just enough room to move between the
feed and the water. Lights on half the night to get them to eat
more. The workers wear breathing apparatus to clean out the sheds
and it will make you puke at 400m on a hot night. The eagles dine
well on those who get trodden under. Nuff said.


Indeed. I've been to a feed lot and I had the same reaction
although this was probably one of the better run ones. I'd turn
vegetarian if our local buthcer sourced his meat at places like that
but I can see his 'feed lot' (for want of a better description as
it's jsut his farm) from the road and his cattle have quite a nice
spot for the final finish on feed before they take the trip to the
abattoir. (sp?)

I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages
on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to
put birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the
bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when
other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were
free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and
complain about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the
eggs were 'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very
yellow yolks'.

In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet
chook food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk
still such an indicator or is it emulated these days by diet
additives?

That is one of those 'it depends' answers as in, it depends ont he
feed.

If you feed them on kitchen scraps (not recommended as that isn't
nutritious enough) then free ranging (as opposed to keeping
confined) will change the colour of the yolk. Pellets contain a
yellowing agent, but apparently that yellow isn't carried through so
that in baked goods show up the yellowing. Yolks that are yellow as
a result of the feed they find outside does hang on through the
baking process so that the baked goods (like say a butter cake) will
appear more yellow. I've not done these tests myself but there was
a long article on it (with comparative pics) in one of the
'Australasian Poultry' mags a couple of years ago. A great little
magazine and as cheap as chips.


My food books say the yellow of the yolk is due to xanthophylls which come
from plants, typically lucerne and corn. Not having chook books I do this
backwards. Apparently corn feed is also responsible for the yellow skin and
fat found in some "organic" meat birds.

Besides having a yoke that looks like an apricot, instead of a lemon,
real eggs have a viscosity to them that factory produced eggs don't.

Is the height and viscosity of the egg contents a result of diet and health
of the chook or a sign of freshness, or both? The same ref (McGee 'On Food
and Cooking') says freshness has much to do with it.

Come on chook people - give me the scoop before I build the chook house.

David