[HN Gopher] On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)
Author : ddtaylor
Score : 199 points
Date : 2021-03-12 10:14 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.abevoelker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.abevoelker.com)
| 14 wrote:
| I love how this article mentions Canada's Dairy Cartel. They make
| it seem like such a good thing. It is not. We pay very high
| prices for milk and dairy products. I would rather a free market
| where those who can provide cheap and quality get the market
| share. Instead there is no competition the system is really
| screwed and definitely not endorsed by all Canadians. One gallon
| of milk costs us about $6Cad. Mean while if you have a good year
| and your cows really produce well you are only allowed to bring
| to market there set amount you produce. So yes Canada has a dairy
| cartel that price fixed and regulates the entire market but is
| allowed.
| mjparrott wrote:
| I'd encourage anyone with advice for the farm industry to work 1
| week on a farm if they haven't before. Many probably were born
| and raised on it but if you weren't, it'd be worth it.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| My niece is (was) a Milkmaid in Switzerland. Her family dairy
| farm sold off all the cattle a few years ago when the state de-
| regulated milk.
|
| I remember the cattle were pastured across the road. There was an
| underpass for the cattle to get from barn to field and back. In
| the evening they would begin their trek, the herd gathering and
| filing through the underpass. Each cow would take her place in
| the barn, in a stall with her name, ready to be milked.
|
| To be sure, they re-purposed the land and farm. The national polo
| team practices in the field and stables in the barn. So that's
| some income. But not the same.
|
| My niece is a teacher now.
| kickout wrote:
| Great write up OP! Love hearing first hand accounts of the "get
| big or get out" directive that probably caused many unintended
| second and third order effects
| drewg123 wrote:
| My uncle owned a large dairy farm before he died. He loved
| farming, loved his cows ("the girls"), and loved farming enough
| to farm until he died, even though it was hard physical labor
| that had already taken a large toll on his body.
|
| The running joke in the family was that he made more from real-
| estate speculation than he ever did from farming. His farm was
| next to a major interstate and in the suburban expansion path for
| his metro area. He'd buy land and farm it when the price was low,
| and because he farmed it, the real estate taxes were negligible.
| He'd then sell it when the prices where high and use it to
| subsidize the farm.
|
| He died a millionaire, but lived in a ratty, falling down
| farmhouse and drove a 20+ year old car.
| newthrawywhodis wrote:
| This is one of the only real ways to make money as a small
| farmer, the others being agro-tourism (pick your own),
| hospitality (airbnb, events etc) or most difficultly direct to
| consumer farm sales.
|
| >He died a millionaire, but lived in a ratty, falling down
| farmhouse and drove a 20+ year old car.
|
| To some people this is a feature, not a bug. He also probably
| wasn't surrounded by 100 nosy neighbors.
| duxup wrote:
| Farming as a business gets idealized in the US and there's often
| this concept of a good old days when family farming was
| profitable and stable.
|
| But historically speaking farming has always been a boom and bust
| industry. Even during the land rush days in the US the amount of
| space granted per farm was barely enough / not enough to scrape
| by, even at that time.
|
| Now everything is so heavily tied up with legislation to try to
| recreate appropriate market conditions that I suspect whatever
| the actual market would be without all that legislation is an
| unknown.
|
| I grew up around folks trying to scrape by on their family farms
| living at the whims of markets that can make or break them over
| the course of just a few years. As much as I like the ideal of
| the family farm, I'm not sure it is, and not sure it ever was a
| good way to make a living (outside some exceptions).
| cies wrote:
| > Farming as a business gets idealized
|
| And I understand that in case of plant growers. In case of
| livestock exploiters I dont see what's so "cool" about it.
| kyrieeschaton wrote:
| Have you heard of "cowboys"?
| duxup wrote:
| I guess I was speaking more generally but as far as livestock
| there's certainly plenty if idolizing that too, even if some
| don't.
| cies wrote:
| Stinking animals, caged or fenced up, slaughter looming
| over their pitiful existence. Nope. No glamour there as far
| as i see.
| duxup wrote:
| Your distaste for it really doesn't have much to do with
| if it is or isn't idealized.
| derriz wrote:
| I agree nostalgia can cloud judgement but there has been a
| fundamental shift in the nature of farming in the last few
| decades.
|
| Btw, this is a perspective from Europe - the same thing has
| happened with family farming here. While I didn't grow up on
| one, I spent a lot of time on my grandparent's farm.
|
| Farming has never been easy but the amount of capital required
| (represented by land, livestock and machinery) to run an
| economically viable farm has increased enormously increasing
| the risk. By viable I mean profitable enough to provide an
| average family with a median income.
|
| My grandparents raised 4 kids, putting 3 of them through 3rd
| level education and never really wanted for much purely on
| income from a 90 acre farm. All their neighbours and the entire
| landscape was covered with family farms of this size plus or
| minus. What's left now are some old bachelors barely surviving
| or part-timers (who generally inherited the land) with "real"
| jobs who keep some dry stock or rent out their land to big
| producers.
|
| It's sad to see a way of life disappear but I don't see any
| alternative. From an economic perspective, it can only be
| supported by transferring income from others to small farmers.
| This is effectively what happened in the past through higher
| prices paid for agricultural produce. As a share of disposable
| income, spending on food is a fraction (well under 10% in the
| west) of what it was in the past - which hurt the poor
| disproportionally.
| ip26 wrote:
| This seems fairly inextricably tied to a heavy reliance on
| cereal crops & soy. If fruits & vegetables were a higher
| portion of our collective diet, more small farmers could be
| supported (produce being less mechanized) and while food
| spending would increase, our collective health might improve
| at the same time.
| nradov wrote:
| It's not really possible to produce enough calories for the
| population by focusing on fruits and vegetables. Only
| cereal and starch crops can do that. This has been true
| ever since humans stopped being hunter-gatherers and it
| won't change in our lifetimes.
|
| Also even produce farming is increasingly automated. For
| example there are already working prototypes of strawberry
| picking robots; within 10 years those will be in widespread
| use on large farms.
| duxup wrote:
| I think hanging your hat on 'well produce will just make
| more' if the market shifts towards that is a bit fragile.
|
| Generally farmers have been really good at increasing
| output across the board... often driving prices way down.
|
| Probably a good idea diet wise, but generally not a tried
| I'd expect would save many farms for long. We've seen
| increases in other types of farming boom and bust time and
| again after flooding the market with product.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I'm fairly skeptical about trying to turn the tide of
| efficiencies and market forces in this case. It really seems
| to just be shuffling deck chairs and with some bad
| consequences.
| pullmn wrote:
| Yes, if you compare farmers with actors, they seem to have
| similar problems with stability of employment, low pay, and
| hard working conditions. In both cases these are partly caused
| by unavoidable factors about the industry, partly caused by
| ruthless suppliers, customers, investors and so on, partly
| caused (let's be honest) by the fact that many people make a
| lifestyle choice to do those professions, and will put up with
| poor conditions to keep on doing so.
|
| However, we constantly hear about the rough deal farmers are
| getting and how important it is to do something to help them.
| And we never hear this about actors.
| [deleted]
| YinglingLight wrote:
| You don't need Shakespeare to live
| pullmn wrote:
| Well, you don't need steak either, but both things are
| considered _extremely important_ to human life and our
| society.
| jasonv wrote:
| I visited a dairy in Utah a couple of summers ago. 130 cows, 3
| employees.
|
| It's a fully automated facility, using equipment from Germany.
| The cows enter a stall, the machine milks them, gives them a
| treat, they move on. Employees get a text if a cow hasn't milked
| itself in a while... usually a tap on their shoulder is enough to
| get them to walk over to the machine.
|
| Even yet, the person giving the tour said they don't make enough
| money selling the milk to sustain the operation. They also make
| high-end cheeses on-prem, and that's what keeps them in the
| black.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I recall hearing that there is a glut of milk in the US because
| there are just too many dairy cows. Is this still true?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Don't forget rBGH.[0] Canada and the EU banned it, but thanks
| to big Pharma, you can get still get hormone adulterated milk
| in the US of A.
|
| [0]https://www.organicvalley.coop/blog/rBGH-decoded-what-is-
| bov...
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| Is there good scientific evidence that rBGH is bad for you?
| I don't know a lot about this, but my first guess is that
| "naturalness" / "organicness" partisans are opposed to it
| for reasons related to the non-scientifically-supported
| ideas they have that are rooted in purity instincts.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| Yes, but I think it depends on the location. At my local
| grocery store in Chicago, milk has been $2 per gallon ($0.53
| per liter) for years, as long as you buy 2 gallons or more.
| When I was in Florida for a few months, I couldn't find it
| for less than $3.79 per gallon ($1 per liter) anywhere.
|
| The cheaper milk in the upper midwest tastes better too, as
| it all comes from Wisconsin and Indiana where the cows can
| feed on green grass that grows naturally because it gets
| plenty of rain, etc.
| llsf wrote:
| I pay $5.69 the gallon in SF at grocery store.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| I've helped with an IT project for several large dairies in the
| US (1,000+ cows each). Like you said the cows practically milk
| themselves. They walk by themselves into the milk barn, one
| person attaches the automatic milking machines to each cow as
| they walk into a stall. The milking machine automatically drops
| off the udders when the cow is done being milked and they walk
| back out to their pen on their own. I was told the cows like to
| be milked because it's uncomfortable for them when they are
| full of milk. Most dairies milk their cows 3 times a day around
| the clock. One of the dairies I've been to has a round milk
| barn with a rotating floor with about 100 milking stalls around
| the outside edge, so the guy attaching the milking machines to
| the cows doesn't even have to move. By the time the cows rotate
| all the way around the building they are done, the milking
| attachments drop off and the cows walk out the door on their
| own and go back to their pens to eat. I've shown up at these
| places a few times unannounced and spent 30 minutes walking
| around looking for a person (other than the guy in the milk
| barn) to let me into the office. Many times there's two people
| at the entire dairy: the guy in the milk barn and a guy driving
| a tractor that drops the feed for the cows along the sides of
| their pens. Each pen has artificial wood floors kind of like
| trex decking material and sprinklers in the roof of the pen
| that run automatically several times a day to wash away the
| poop which drains into holding ponds. The holding ponds have
| machinery just like a waste water treatment plant: the solids
| settle to the bottom of the ponds, and the water is used for
| corn crops that are fed back to the cows. The manure is dredged
| from the holding ponds, dried, and distributed on the fields
| with tractors to fertilize the corn. The majority of food fed
| to the cows is corn silage, which is the entire corn plants
| ground up and composted/fermented in large covered piles for a
| while to make it easier for the cows digest. This makes the
| whole setup fairly self sustaining. If they need to, the
| dairies will buy feed, but they try to minimize that because it
| increases their expenses. Most of these large dairies own
| thousands of acres around the dairy that is almost entirely
| dedicated to growing corn to feed the cows. After being to
| these kinds of setups it's clear to me that there's no way a
| small operation could compete. If they could replace those last
| two employees with machines, they would.
| laszlokorte wrote:
| I had to look that up:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLjI_eixBQk
| jasonv wrote:
| Yeah, the screen looks the same, I think the Utah dairy had a
| newer model.
|
| They also mentioned that there were only 3 dairy farms in the
| state with any kind of automated milking machines.
| bsima wrote:
| buy raw milk from a local family farm. its one of the best ways
| to spend your money
| ro-mx wrote:
| Dead of agriculture in general happened to undeveloped countries
| like the one I am from a long time ago. You might not see it now
| but the next logical thing to happen is starvation of mass
| population, and a state of irrecoverable workforce, many of us
| around the world are doing the same, leaving the farms to go
| working on computers. Let me tell you this: you cannot eat bytes.
| lettergram wrote:
| As someone who's spent a lot of time in and around farms. I even
| bought a farm last week!
|
| This is an accurate depiction for the vast majority of farms.
| It's an industry where you have a high over head cost (want to
| start raising cattle - $300k land, $50k equipment, $30k housing /
| barn, $20k fencing, $10k to start a herd - profit in 2-3 years).
| This scales well. Get some more land, you can keep the equipment
| running longer, concentrate cows, etc
|
| I do think this creates overall a less healthy and productive
| nation. The reason I bought a farm was for my families nutrition.
| Food from the store has far less nutrition. Working on a farm
| teaches you hard work (as the article describes) and family
| bonds. We personally don't plan on making much profit, if any.
|
| All that being said, focusing on the niche is important. In
| Tennessee they produce grass fed cattle. Many farmers make
| profits with relatively small herds. I'm planning on planting a
| walnut or pawpaw grove, and raising elk.
|
| Unique goods provide a way to make a profit without scale. This
| is like every industry.
| willismichael wrote:
| I understand that you're probably estimating bare minimum
| costs, but getting started for half a million dollars is
| actually way more affordable than I imagined you would
| describe. That's comparable to what some people pay for a
| middle class suburban home near a lot of the mid-sized
| metropolitan areas around the United States.
| lettergram wrote:
| That's literally the cost I just paid lol
|
| But yes, $500k is about the minimum. Plus ~40 acres. For
| grass fed beef you can raise probably 20 heads and buy
| supplementals. You might only make $5-10k up to maybe $30k
| (buying hay or leasing other land to grow feed) profit
| initially.
|
| BUT it's not a ton of work, really only feeding the cattle
| every other day, doing injections on the cattle and cutting /
| bailing hay 2-3 times a year. Average is probably 10 hrs of
| work a week.
|
| When those trees I mentioned start growing in, I can net
| closer to $2-3k per acre. So closer to $60k profit on that 40
| acre farm. That's only one harvest a year, plus checking
| periodically. I can work a full-time job besides the 2 week
| harvest season.
|
| Another important factor for me, was the protection from
| inflation. Food prices go up during inflation, so my farm is
| worth more. Further, what the farm PRODUCES is worth more. So
| I took out a loan and my loan will be easier to pay off from
| the production and be worth more when I sell. Effectively
| letting me leverage the loan to make more profit.
| gruez wrote:
| >Another important factor for me, was the protection from
| inflation. Food prices go up during inflation, so my farm
| is worth more.
|
| this is a moot point because literally any other thing you
| invest it (short of maybe government bonds) protect you
| from inflation.
| lettergram wrote:
| Not quite. Stocks, gold, Bitcoin, a house you live in
| (not rent) don't produce anything (unless your stock has
| a dividend).
|
| You want something that produces.
|
| Say I buy $300k worth of gold, 10% inflation hits and
| there's no change in demand and its now worth $330k.
|
| Say I buy a $300k farm. 10% inflation hits and there's no
| change in demand. It's now worth $330k... but the value
| of production of said farm is also up 10%.
|
| This makes an opportunity. If I take a loan on my farm in
| year 1, I can buy a larger farm (say on 3% interest). If
| inflation hits I can pay down that farm loan at an ever
| increasing rate. This allows someone to leverage the
| inflation and debt to make larger purchases.
|
| It protects your INCOME from inflation. Not just your
| investments.
| smeyer wrote:
| What you're describing isn't specific to farms. If you
| take out a fixed-rate loan, you'll benefit from increases
| to inflation (since it makes the inflation-adjusted
| interest rate lower). This is true whether you use that
| loan to buy a farm, a house, gold, et cetera.
|
| Other than the loan, it makes sense to work in real
| dollars (inflation adjusted) not nominal dollars (non-
| inflation adjusted). In real dollars, you $300k farm
| doesn't change in value and your income also doesn't
| change. In real dollars, gold (in your example) also
| doesn't change.
|
| Gold is a poor and weird investment for a variety of
| reasons, but it's not like farms are magically better
| than other asset classes (like regular old stocks).
| eej71 wrote:
| Perhaps I'm deeply misinformed, but as a hedge against a
| modest amount of regular inflation, stocks generally
| perform quite well over the long term - especially when
| compared against other asset categories.
| milesvp wrote:
| You're not misinformed. This is kind of a weird thread.
|
| Generally, if you want to hedge against inflation, you
| buy anything but dollars. If you want a very safe hedge
| against inflation you buy US government bonds. They are
| considered the lowest default bond, and as such will
| generally be priced at expected inflation. Next up, if
| you want about 1% above inflation (and the associated
| risk) you go with corporate bonds. And if you want about
| 3%, and more risk, you go with stocks.
|
| Generally you should know the higher the interest the
| greater the risk. Some of the risk is short term risk,
| like not being able to liquidate. Some of the risk is
| longer term, like a company becoming insolvent.
|
| To get good returns from the stock market, you need
| diversity, and long time lines, and growing companies.
| Else luck.
| gruez wrote:
| >Stocks, gold, Bitcoin, a house you live in (not rent)
| don't produce anything (unless your stock has a
| dividend).
|
| Houses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_rent
|
| Stocks: You're literally owning a share of a corporation
| that produces stuff. Producing a dividend (or buybacks)
| isn't guaranteed, but that isn't that much different than
| owning a farm, which can also fail to produce a profit
| (if costs exceed expenses).
| lettergram wrote:
| Perhaps you missed "a house you live in (not rent)"
|
| I agree with the idea renting a home would be similar to
| a farm. The whole thing is you have to generate an income
| from the asset.
|
| Stocks are, as you mentioned, kind of similar - but IMO
| not precisely the same. Often companies have expenses
| that also inflate, so it's more similar to gold or
| holding something static. When you own the means of
| production it's a tad different. Personally, I'd consider
| stocks somewhere in-between. Better than gold, less good
| than production your own.
|
| However, owning a farm or means of production does come
| with more risk.
| gruez wrote:
| >Perhaps you missed "a house you live in (not rent)"
|
| It's not giving you cash every month, but it's saving you
| from having to pay rent, which is effectively the same
| thing. This is what imputed rent is.
|
| >Stocks are, as you mentioned, kind of similar - but IMO
| not precisely the same. Often companies have expenses
| that also inflate, so it's more similar to gold or
| holding something static.
|
| and farms don't? You need to buy fuel, fertilizer/feed,
| equipment, all of which inflate. There's also the
| opportunity cost of your labor, which also inflates.
|
| There also exists a much simpler way to see the
| equivalence between the two: what's the difference
| between owning a farm, and owning a share in a
| corporation that operates a farm?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The other inflating asset is the $500k real estate. Here
| in the midwest, 40-acre farms a few dozen miles away from
| cities are constantly being converted into 40-unit
| residential housing complexes that sell at $500k/unit.
| Zillow and comps in my neighborhood say that my 50-year-
| old suburban ranch, which I bought 5 years ago, is worth
| more than double what I paid for it.
|
| Buy the farm at $500k, sell it for $1M in a few years to
| another farmer or a developer, and you'd make double the
| profit of the cow farm itself. Or spend $200/square
| (which is itself insane) to build houses on it for a
| total of $24M and, if current trends continue, sell them
| all at $1M each for $16M profit.
|
| With that insane real estate market status, the cows and
| lumber at $60k/year are almost a moo point. It's like a
| cow's opinion, you know, it just doesn't matter. It's
| "moo".
|
| Not that the current real estate bubble isn't guaranteed
| not to pop. But there are a lot of powerful people and
| institutions which are highly incentivized to pretend
| it's not a bubble and make every effort to keep it from
| popping, so I think it's unlikely to do so.
| jiofih wrote:
| > Average is probably 10 hrs of work a week
|
| > closer to $60k profit on that 40 acre farm
|
| > Food prices go up during inflation, so my farm is worth
| more
|
| > my loan will be easier to pay off from the production and
| be worth more when I sell
|
| > I can work a full-time job besides the 2 week harvest
| season
|
| Jesus Christ, I'm sorry to say this but you are in for a
| rude, violent awakening. Best of luck.
| [deleted]
| DC1350 wrote:
| Couldn't you feed a family high quality food for a few
| decades with $500k? This seems like a lot of effort if you
| aren't planning on making a profit.
| lettergram wrote:
| That's fair, but two posits
|
| (1) you can't really get high quality food outside a lot
| of sourcing and effort. As an example, I grow purple
| green beans that taste better than any green bean I've
| every bought. You may be able to get that particular
| green bean from a specialty shop, but I'm doing this with
| 30 different plants on 1-2 acres. I can harvest and eat
| the plants the same day as well (which has far more
| nutrition).
|
| (2) I shouldn't have said no profit, I do have a plan to
| make it profitable. But that's not the primary goal, nor
| would it be my primary job. I'm a software engineer by
| trade and can work remote easily. Further, I can later
| sell the farm and equipment. It's likely I'll make a
| profit there as well.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > you can't really get high quality food outside a lot of
| sourcing and effort
|
| To be fair, this is very dependent upon the region you
| live in. I live in a suburban area bordering on farmland,
| and so I can get piles of really good quality foods at my
| local farmer's market every weekend. There's farms
| naturally raising grass fed beef, as well. And a couple
| people that go out to the Pacific and catch fish and then
| sell it at the same farmer's market.
|
| I imagine that's a bit of a luxury in some places, for
| sure, but I'd bet it's not _that_ uncommon, either.
| dakna wrote:
| I'm in a fairly similar situation, albeit on a smaller
| scale (6 acres) and I do this for reasons you already
| mentioned (nutrition, inflation hedge) plus climate
| change. I have years of experience growing veggies in my
| backyard and I agree, it takes a lot of money to get the
| same quality food elsewhere, and some specialties are out
| of reach. It's also a lot of fun.
|
| I'm also planning for retirement in the 2030s and I'm
| trying to funnel my software engineering money into a
| small productive farm/market garden that produces enough
| to make a small profit and hire some help when needed. I
| haven't found a good way to offset my initial investment
| costs as a beginning farmer against my regular income
| from my main job, but I just started to learn more about
| Schedule F Profit/Loss from farming. Any pointers on what
| to read or CPA recommendations are highly appreciated.
|
| Greetings from Hardiness Zone 6, which I assume will turn
| into Zone 7 within my lifetime.
| lettergram wrote:
| Frankly, while I've bailed hay, grown my own food, etc.
| I'm also unfamiliar with this scale - just decided to go
| for it.
|
| I already have someone willing to harvest for me and
| split the profits 50/50. I'm offering them a
| 30(me)/70(them) split on the condition they teach me to
| run their equipment, explain what they know, etc. There's
| not really a guide on starting a farm, you need to find
| someone who knows and work with them.
|
| I also have family members in the cattle industry,
| construction and one family member specializing in
| maintaining prairie land. Speaking with them I am working
| to figure out the best way to maintain and improve the
| farm. For instance, I have a cabin on the property from
| the civil war period; we're going to repair it and put a
| new roof on etc.
| valvar wrote:
| That's assuming it's their money to begin with (I'd
| assume it's a loan). With those numbers it takes about a
| decade to make it back -- perhaps more with capital
| costs. That doesn't sound bad at all? What were you
| expecting?
| DC1350 wrote:
| I don't know. It just seems inefficient to me. Farming is
| not enjoyable work for most people who do it so the whole
| plan just reminds me of Marie Antoinette's peasant role
| play hobby.
| nradov wrote:
| That $500K doesn't disappear. In a few decades the farm
| can be sold and you can get your money back (depending on
| changes in land prices).
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| But farms across the nation are failing and
| conglomerating. It just seems like he's investing in
| horses after the Model T has been released.
| tengbretson wrote:
| These conglomerating farms are exactly the reason for the
| lower quality food the poster is talking about. If the
| trend you identify continues then the relative scarcity
| of high quality food will rise.
| tweetle_beetle wrote:
| Do you really need a whole farm just to provide nutrition for
| you family, even if it does have some livestock, or is there
| more to it than that? I remember reading about some amazing
| results that can be achieved on very small patches of land,
| with the right techniques, tools and planning. The official
| website is light on details, this article is better [2].
|
| [1] https://www.themarketgardener.com/ [2]
| https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-01/a-model-for-pr...
| dkersten wrote:
| I remember reading something about a square foot or three of
| tightly packed grow space (using vegetables that complement
| each other or whatever; I also remember reading about was it
| tiered gardening?) is enough to feed a person. My mother
| grows a bunch of vegetables in about ~3 square feet of space
| and while its not everything she eats (vegetable or
| otherwise), it does cover a good bit and she always has more
| of what she grows than she needs.
|
| So if that's true, seems like a decent plot of land should be
| plenty for feeding a family yet still having some left over,
| at least for vegetables and maybe eggs.
|
| If you want to keep other livestock (lettergram mentions
| grass-fed beef), then I guess you do indeed need an actual
| farm.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > a square foot or three of tightly packed grow space [...]
| is enough to feed a person
|
| That seems insanely optimistic to me. I've done a lot of
| reading about people's attempts to feed themselves with
| home-grown agriculture, and it's way more difficult than
| many assume. I would multiply that square footage
| requirement about 1000x before even trying it-- and that's
| if all possible relevant research is implemented and
| everything goes smoothly.
|
| I tried & failed to find an article I read a few years ago
| which broke down a whole bunch of the math behind this, but
| here is a video that matches pretty closely with what I've
| read elsewhere (despite being short on sources):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926Z6wzf278
| fock wrote:
| yes, I think I've come to the conclusion that around
| 1000m2 per person should be enough to have a significant
| impact on food supply per person in a non-optimal,
| manual-labor based workflow. 1/3m2 won't cut it as the
| mother of the preposter probably also ate a healthy dose
| of carbohydrates, proteins and fat which generally are
| not abundant in any typical "decorative" vegetables. And
| if you want to selfsustain your family you really need a
| lot (just look at the weight of military ready-made meals
| and think that you have to produce that (as a baseline)
| (x 365 x number of people supplied). Also in any urban
| setting, the supply of clean water will kill you faster
| than any lack of food.
| m463 wrote:
| I think there's one thing to mention - this has been happening
| for a long long time.
|
| In my family tree, there were lots and lots of farmers, and now
| there are no farmers left.
|
| Looking backward along your family tree you'll probably find the
| same, probably like something in this blog post.
|
| I think this is the graph that might describe it:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#/media/File:Transi...
|
| I think we have to sort of figure out not only the loss, but the
| gain.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Fun fact: newborn cows are switched from their mother's milk to
| an industrial milk formula just five days after their birth,
| instead of the normal weaning period of 8 months, so that humans
| can drink the calf's milk.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Fun fact:...
|
| Fun is weird where you are. What are your amusement parks like?
| aurizon wrote:
| This is all exacerbated by the decline in birth rates. Milk
| marketing promotes milk as a nearly perfect food - and it is, but
| it is costly for the ~6% of nutritional content in milk, (skim
| and 2%BF being lower). I only use milk for tea and often a gallon
| sours before I finished - so I switched to superfiltered bagged 3
| packs, as the sealed ones last a month in the fridge. So you have
| super cows making more and a populace drinking less - it does not
| augur well...
| cryptica wrote:
| I keep saying this and repeating over and over again... Yet keep
| getting downvoted. The monopolization of everything is caused by
| monetary policy. All these megacorps are not a natural phenomena.
| They are not competing on an even playing field.
|
| Even die-hard capitalists who read Ayn Rand and watched her
| interviews will understand that monopolization should not happen
| without government intervention. The current monetary policy (of
| printing money and then giving control of it to existing capital
| holders based on how much capital they have) is bound to lead to
| this highly inefficient economic situation... One which takes the
| entire economy on a downward spiral while essentially bribing
| rich people with free money to keep playing along... Thus we get
| increasing inequality.
|
| Then when the big corporations keep beating and buying up the
| competition (thanks to the disproportional amount of free credit
| that they have access to), they will claim that it's because
| they're more efficient (aka economies of scale) but in reality,
| the big players are just getting subsidized by free money from
| the government. Simple as that.
|
| Give me access to 1 billion dollars of credit over 50 years and
| even with no industry experience, I can bankrupt all competing
| small businesses in any industry and in any city I want...
| Possibly in the entire country depending on the country.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| How do you explain the railway monopolies?
| cryptica wrote:
| Monetary policy allowed a small number of people to
| accumulate a disproportionate amount of capital. This capital
| allowed them to lobby and influence politicians to give them
| the right to build and own a massive rail network.
|
| It simply would not have been possible for any group of
| people to build a rail network which traverses an entire
| country without serious government intervention. Think of the
| road/rail crossings that had to be built, bridges over rivers
| and other parts of the rail network which was built on public
| land... Think of the number of people who were probably
| forced by their local government to sell their land to build
| the railway on top... There was a lot of government
| intervention to make it possible.
|
| And the amount of capital required to build such rail network
| could only have been accumulated as a result of unjust
| monetary policy. The complexity involved in operating a large
| enough enterprise to accumulate that kind of wealth would
| simply not be possible on a competitive level playing field
| to begin with.
|
| On a level playing field, there would be too many profit
| opportunities for employees to quit and become competitors.
| There is clearly an artificial force holding everything
| together. That force is monetary policy. It used to be gold
| reserve debasement and now it's fiat money printing.
| urthor wrote:
| On one point the article has made.
|
| Canadians are really really unhappy with their milk system, they
| have some of the highest priced milk in the entire world and they
| despise it.
|
| "probably through a supply management program similar to what
| Canada has" is a nonstarter for cityfolk. It would mean $4 milk.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| In Singapore, a _liter_ (not gallon) of fresh milk starts from
| about $3. Then again, neither the Chinese nor Malay populace
| historically drinks the stuff.
| DC1350 wrote:
| I don't buy dairy at all because of how expensive it is here. A
| cheap block of store brand cheddar cheese costs $5. A 2L carton
| of milk is around $3, or I can get a 4L jug for $5. A small
| container of sour cream is $3. A single 100g Greek yoghurt cup
| is $1. Huge waste of money.
|
| Big dairy in Canada is really powerful to the point where it's
| impossible to get elected as Conservative party leader without
| supporting the dairy cartel.
| telchar wrote:
| That's equal to or less than what I pay in the US. Seems to
| me the Canadian system doesn't drive up costs that much.
| k__ wrote:
| We have rather cheap milk here in Germany, because it's heavily
| subsidized.
|
| But right now plant based alternatives are on the rise. I
| didn't buy milk for years now.
| SECProto wrote:
| Canadian here, very happy with the milk quota system. Despite
| all the media hoopla, I don't actually know anyone who cares
| about it. And I live in a city.
| F_J_H wrote:
| Also a Canadian. Likely most people don't care about it
| because they don't really know about it, and the additional
| price that goes to subsidizing farmers is also not material
| for many people. Also, many who live near the border make a
| bi-monthly trek into the US (pre-covid) to buy milk, eggs,
| and gasoline.
|
| re: _> > "I don't actually know anyone who cares about it"_
| see: https://imgur.com/gallery/BTOog
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| From my perspective (being Canadian, and having enough money to
| purchase milk) the price is fine with me. No one in my family
| drinks milk. My kids have it with cereal, and I use it for
| cooking. A price of $5 CDN for 4L of regular milk, and $9 CDN
| for 4L of organic milk is just high enough to ensure that it is
| drunk in moderation. Using Walmart, I chose Plano, TX and the
| price of 1 gallon of Walmart brand milk costs $2.41 USD which
| converts to $3.05 CDN so Canadians pay a $2 premium. I purchase
| 4L every 2 weeks, so I pay $48 more per year to have a milk
| system that benefits the farmers, and their neighbours. I'm OK
| with that. Plus that extra $2 ensures that Canadian milk
| doesn't contain growth hormones which are permitted in the
| USA.[1]
|
| [1] https://bcdairy.ca/milk/articles/does-milk-contain-growth-
| ho...
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| It amounts to about a $150 dollar a year tax (more with the
| more children you have). Only, the tax goes to 13,000
| producers, so it's a regressive tax that penalizes the poor.
|
| https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/03/suppl...
| refurb wrote:
| I remember the first time I saw cheese prices in the US and
| almost cried. A 1 kg block of good cheese was like $20-30, not
| $60-90.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Costco is our salvation here in Ontario. Cheese prices are
| high, yes, but about 1/2 at Costco compared to anywhere else.
| They have good selection and quality. Reference is a 500g
| block of Jarlsberg at currently $9.50 Canadian. Expensive,
| but still affordable.
| pja wrote:
| !
|
| Decent cheddar is PS7 / kg in the UK & that's ignoring the
| cheap stuff.
| hc-taway wrote:
| Once you're above the grade of "cheese" that I'd suppose
| Europeans wouldn't recognize as such at all, even our low-
| end actual cheese in the US is _incredibly_ expensive
| compared to (Western, at least, IDK about the rest) Europe.
| Not sure why.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Officially, US cheddar seems to be trending about $12/kg
| ($5.50/lb). I actually pay a lot less, ~$12.50 for a 4lb
| block (Walmart).
|
| ref: https://www.statista.com/statistics/236863/retail-price-
| of-c...
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| To my knowledge there are still functional family dairy farms
| here in Ontario. And the cost of milk, about $4.80 (Canadian)
| for 4L, and butter (hovering between $3 and $6 per pound - we
| buy it on special, it stores well in the freezer) is really not
| an issue even for our family of four. So far so good. I'm glad
| to pay it if it keeps family farms in business. I grew up on a
| dairy farm in Germany (in the pre-quota days).
|
| The issue is the quota system. A quick google says it's
| hovering around $25K Canadian for the right to ship one
| kilogram of butterfat (whole milk is about 3.5% fat) per day.
| This means the quota tends to be a farmer's single most
| valuable possession, and it protects idyllic family farms
| (good) but makes it prohibitively expensive to get into the
| business.
|
| All in all, you can drive around in Ontario's farm belts and
| they still look pretty traditionally prosperous. We must be
| doing something right.
| AlanYx wrote:
| It's actually not true that family dairy farms in Ontario are
| doing well. If you look at actual data (search for "D056
| Number of farms with shipments of milk by province"), you'll
| see that the number of independent farms in Ontario has
| declined by 29% since 2006. You see the same long term trend
| in every province.
|
| At one time long ago, the quota system was billed as
| protecting the family farm, but in practice now it drives the
| death of family farms, as people with quotas slowly sell out
| to large producers and new farmers cannot enter the
| marketplace because of the quota cost wall. Ontario currently
| is tied with Quebec for the cheapest quotas in the country,
| but getting started in the industry is still impossible
| without huge investments beyond the reach of young farmers
| (e.g., the upfront cost just to buy just the quotas, not the
| land or the cows, for a small 100 cow venture in Ontario is
| currently $2.4 million -- compare this with someone else in
| this thread who managed to get a whole farm up and running in
| the US, _including_ land and his herd, for around $500k USD).
| gruez wrote:
| >All in all, you can drive around in Ontario's farm belts and
| they still look pretty traditionally prosperous. We must be
| doing something right.
|
| By having laws that force consumers to subsidize the
| businesses of special interests?
| qxfys wrote:
| previous discussion about this :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368542
| dang wrote:
| Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19320335 with 1
| comment from the author, pointing to this thread which started
| the article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18942467
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Why don't struggling dairy farmers convert to beef production?
| Seems to me it would be much less labour intensive and more
| profitable. Obviously if every struggling dairy farmer converted
| to beef it would drive prices down. I think people are eating
| less dairy in general than in past times. I am not lactose
| intolerant but I don't think I have had milk or ice cream for at
| least a year. I do eat cheese and yogurt so maybe that (more
| than?) counterbalances my lack of milk consumption.
|
| With regard to the manure issue there are various ways to handle
| it. Some modern barns are set up with trenches running along the
| stalls, the stalls can be periodically washed into the trenches,
| and the trenches drain into a giant holding tank. Manure can be
| used as a nitrogen source for fields fertilisation or it can be
| anaerobically digested for methane which can be used as a source
| of energy.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| > Why don't struggling dairy farmers convert to beef
| production? Seems to me it would be much less labor intensive
| and more profitable.
|
| Love these comments.
|
| Clearly someone who has never been on a dairy farm vs. a cattle
| ranch. =P
|
| So for dairy, you normally have smaller pastures (less land)
| and keep your cows fed hay and expensive foods to help keep
| them producing high quality milk.
|
| For beef production, you'd normally have large pastures for
| cattle to graze on grass. More land, more naturally occurring
| (cheaper), but lower caloric-dense food.
|
| Big call out... there are different kinds of cows for milk and
| beef. Holstein's make milk, Angus make hamburgers. There's a
| huge list of types of cattle... each have their own pros and
| cons for beef vs. dairy production.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cattle_breeds
|
| To support the "more land" approach, you have horses to move
| the cattle around between pastures. You also need equipment to
| put up hay for the winter (buying hay is expensive).
|
| You can go the feedlot route, but that's more the "finishing
| school" for beef production. Not a lot of margins at small
| scale. Dangerous to keep too many cows together too, from a
| disease perspective.
|
| As a rancher, since you've got a tractor anyway for hay
| production, and ample land, you may want to plant a few fields
| of corn, wheat, millet... anything to sort of help cover costs
| of all the expensive equipment and cost of land. And you're not
| bound to a rigid daily care schedule for the cattle.
|
| Ranchers have spurts of work... more cows, living outdoors, so
| harder calving seasons... more work for branding and such, more
| time fixing fence for bigger pastures. Put ranchers and dairy
| farmers in a room... they're different people. They may look
| similar, but they're just wired differently.
|
| You invest a small fortune in the milking facilities, if you
| run a dairy operation. You invest in land if you're a ranch.
| They're not like "oh, let's just flip a switch and it's
| converted."
|
| Anyway I'd write more but just because you have cows, doesn't
| mean it's at all interchangeable.
| urthor wrote:
| Because beef uses feedlots with grain as well, and have the
| same manure lakes.
|
| The beef industry has figured out that cattle fatten up _far_
| faster on grain, so they leave the cattle out for I think it 's
| 12 months to basically grow to their "adult" size, then put
| them on grain for a few months to fatten up.
|
| They have it precisely timed, because the cattle basically die
| on the all grain no silage diets they get, or would if they
| don't get sent to the abattoir literally a fortnight before.
| rl9 wrote:
| I had a similar upbringing, but in Canada. A lot of this rings
| true.
|
| Our family doesn't farm anymore,but for different reasons. Still,
| the pressure to go big or go home exists north of the border,
| too.
|
| I think Adam Smith nailed it back in the 1700s, when he noted
| that farmers could not take advantage of specialization. They're
| capitalists and labourers and landlords and semi-professional
| veterinarians and commodity traders all in one. Without
| specialization, they're unlikely to ever be very wealthy relative
| to the amount of labor and capital they input.
|
| The bigger farms can actually hire dedicated mechanics and
| accountants and such, so it's no surprise they get a better
| return on investment. That would probably remain true even if
| they didn't engage in shenanigans like undocumented laborers and
| excessive pollution, though no doubt those practices help them
| pull even further ahead.
|
| On a different note, since supply management was mentioned, I
| can't resist linking to this program:
| https://youtu.be/3d-FlQHoHpU
|
| Short argument against supply management: it's a regressive tax
| on people who buy milk, cheese, butter and yogurt.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| Is it even worth it to make cheese anywhere else than France,
| Switzerland and Italy mountains?
| codingdave wrote:
| For years, we had a few goats, and made our own dairy and
| cheese. It worked fine, at the price of having to do some extra
| chores each day. So I'm not sure what you are measuring to
| define if it is "worth it".
| jeromenerf wrote:
| I was just being sarcastic I guess.
|
| Anyway, I don't believe in high volume, low value dairy
| products as sustainable. They aren't even good products.
|
| I am perfectly fine with homemade cheese from the backyard
| goats.
| jansan wrote:
| I have relatives who run an organic farm, which is rather large
| and industrialized for a farm that has the official German
| "bio" label. They make their own cheese as a side business, but
| it is only sold locally. This way they can charge a higher
| price and there are no middlemen, so it is profitable. But I
| doubt this would scale.
| arethuza wrote:
| We were on holiday in France skiing for a week once and the
| hotel dinner included 4 different local cheeses each night -
| none were repeated of the course of a week.
|
| It wasn't exactly a smart hotel (2* I think) but the food was
| sublime.
| jansan wrote:
| Some of the cheese they sell in France would be classified
| as a biological weapon in Germany. They are awesome.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Equally, Limburger would be classed as a biological
| weapon in France, and I dare say, the world.
| Brevibacterium Linens for the ... eeeugh.
|
| (but, good cheese)
| urthor wrote:
| You can make good cheese in the United States, cheese is really
| about the recipe (and how much cream was left in the milk).
|
| There just is nothing like the culture of cheese production, US
| foodstuffs are awful quality because the general public buys it
| up for some unknown reason.
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| Wait. You just wrote that if America implemented a supply
| control system that milk prices would increase to $4/g with
| the implication being that increase in price would be
| unacceptable. Now you wrote that "US foodstuffs are awful
| quality because the general public buys it for some unknown
| reason." You can't have your cake and eat it too. Most likely
| the public has gotten used to low prices for low quality
| products. I have had amazing cheese in Vermont and it was
| expensive - probably because the producer had to use more
| milk fat which is more costly.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Supply control increases prices without increasing quality.
| High quality dairy gets even more expensive.
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| Agreed. I didn't suggest that supply control increases
| quality, and yes it does increase price. However in
| Canada it appears that the increase in price has returned
| a benefit to the consumer by the gov't restricting the
| use of certain drugs.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Portugal, Spain, Greece and the rest of the Balkans, Romania,
| UK, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands also make, eat and
| export plenty of cheese.
| ainiriand wrote:
| As a vegan, I am concerned about the cruel treatment of farm
| animals. Losing family farms only aggravates the problem in this
| price race against the bigger actors in dairy production.
|
| While dairy is not strictly necessary for grown ups, I recognise
| that it will be present for some time so we should care about how
| it is produced. Dairy should be more expensive than it is now,
| similar to what happens to meat.
| speeder wrote:
| Mind you, activist veganism is one of the biggest reasons
| family farms are being destroyed all over the world.
|
| Basically, low quality food is flooding the market, and getting
| purchased by the poorer population, that don't feel they have a
| choice in what they eat, because they eat whatever is necessary
| to fit in their budget.
|
| Meanwhile people that CAN afford to buy high quality food from
| family farms, don't, because of activism convincing them that
| doing so is evil, specially any farm that has anything to do
| with animals, this results in things that are actually really
| bad, like climates where wool is an excellent product have the
| farmers fail due to lack of demand, and instead people start
| buying plastic-based clothes, that contribute to plastic
| pollution.
|
| Or in Brazil: people love to blame the animal industry there
| for the fires, but it is not so simple, the massive areas being
| deforested ilegally are often used to produce soybeans, that
| are on an evergrowing demand due to two sources of demand
| compounding:
|
| 1. As family farms die, cattle instead of eating grass
| (something that in Brazil and some other countries was
| important, as some places only grow grass, and not other plants
| more useful for direct human comsumption), people switch to
| factory animal farms, that require rations, that are often made
| of soybeans.
|
| 2. Meanwhile the upper strata of society is switching from high
| quality meat (that would eat grass) to eating soybean-based
| products (like soybean milk, soybean-based meat, etc...)
|
| I think many activists have their heart in the right place, but
| they don't understand they are causing more problems than
| fixing them, the soybean industry is massively destructive,
| incentivizing it is extremely bad idea.
|
| final note: Remembered other major source of soybean usage...
| when in the 60s and 70s there was this massive media campaign
| against usage of animal fats for frying, people switched to
| soybean oil to fry instead, Brazil also produces massive
| amounts of that, and I know many people that personally use
| soybean oil because they honestly believe it is healthier to
| them and better for the environment than using butter, pork
| fat, etc...
| wtmt wrote:
| > Basically, low quality food is flooding the market, and
| getting purchased by the poorer population, that don't feel
| they have a choice in what they eat, because they eat
| whatever is necessary to fit in their budget.
|
| This has everything to do with capitalism and large
| corporations selling 99c (meat) burgers with fries and cola
| with hardly anything healthy in them at the cost of the
| environment, workers, and other aspects. It's not a recent
| phenomenon either. So your starting claim about activist
| veganism causing problems and continuing to this paragraph
| immediately after doesn't make sense.
| speeder wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Then better quality farmers have two choices: becomea
| competitor for mass-quantity farmers and rely on practices
| like feeding animals with soybeans, or focus on the high
| end market...
|
| But vegans convinced people on the high end market, to not
| buy those products.
|
| The article we are commenting on, already explained all the
| other reasons for death of the small dairies, I just added
| one more, it felt to me the article done enough to talk
| about government regulation and whatnot, and I didn't need
| to repeat it.
|
| Considering the replies I had here, maybe I was wrong on
| that.
| byerobh wrote:
| Completely agree that the decline in food quality and the
| economic structures is tied to a decline in food culture.
| Seems the rest of the comments do not get the point that if
| people who can demanded quality food, the race to the bottom
| could be avoided.
|
| For example, I see how dairy went from the milkman delivering
| high quality milk to the mass produced stuff that barely
| resembles the original item. The interesting part is that now
| the high quality milk can only be had at ever increasing
| prices as the demand for it has decreased. If people who can
| afford it don't buy it, less people will afford it in the
| future furthering the decline in food quality.
|
| Truth is the poor don't even come into the picture. The
| decline in food culture is driven by the upper class and the
| pretense that things are the same. "It is still milk!" No it
| is not the same item. See also, impossible meat, etc...
|
| Catering to the lowest common denominator is only enabled by
| betters not knowing and choosing better. The health
| consequences are already apparent and the difference between
| people's diet and outcomes will only grow starker
| simonh wrote:
| A fall in the demand for high value meat dosn't itself affect
| demand for low value meat. That makes no sense.
|
| On Brazilian soybeans. Most of the soybeans produced there
| are actually used to feed livestock. American vegans will be
| eating American Soybeans not Brazilian ones, so there's no
| real connection there. Even if there are a ton of Brazilian
| Vegans, it will take a lot fewer soybeans to feed them
| directly than it would feeding them via meat anyway. Same for
| vegans anywhere, surely you must know this?
|
| I'm not even a veggie, but I can't deny the environmental
| argument is very strong.
| coppolaemilio wrote:
| Did you know that the soybeans planted there are 100% to feed
| cattle?
| u678u wrote:
| Milk production is up every year, so I think you are wrong.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/194937/total-us-milk-
| pro...
| valgor wrote:
| You will be happy to learn that the majority of soybeans fed
| to live stock, so if you are worried about the environment,
| soy is better than meat.
| odonnellryan wrote:
| I think it is ridiculous to blame vegans for this.
| montoro wrote:
| I suggest you look into the data behind soy production and
| usage: most of the soy that is produced in the world is fed
| to animals which people then eat (which is highly wasteful
| compared to directly eating the soy) and so if you care about
| the environment, eating soy products is much, much better
| than eating animal-based products.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/soy
|
| Livestock farming is terrible for the environment and has a
| huge carbon footprint, partly due to the extreme amount of
| land it uses.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
| shlant wrote:
| > activist veganism is one of the biggest reasons family
| farms are being destroyed all over the world
|
| You're going to have to provide some substantial evidence to
| back that up. In reality, family farms are actually being
| destroyed by factory farms[1][2]. This is the case with most
| industries - smaller operations cannot compete or get bought
| out by larger players.
|
| > massive areas being deforested ilegally are often used to
| produce soybeans
|
| If you are concerned about deforestation due to soy
| production, pointing to vegans as the main culprit is
| misguided at best and misleading at worst.
|
| If you care about preventing deforestation from soy, then you
| should know that around 70-75% of the world's soya ends up as
| animal feed for cows, pigs, chickens and farmed fish[3] "In
| 2017, Brazil produced 16.3 million tons of soymeal for its
| domestic market, and more than 90 percent of that became
| animal feed, with 50 percent used as chicken feed, 25 percent
| as pig feed, and 12 percent for beef and dairy cattle
| feed."[4]
|
| 1. https://sentientmedia.org/family-farms-and-the-rise-of-
| indus...
|
| 2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/09/americ
| an...
|
| 3. https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publicati
| on...
|
| 4. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/brazilian-hunger-for-
| meat-...
| NoOneNew wrote:
| The dairy industry isn't the best to attack on animal cruelty.
| While there are bad actors within it, it's a small amount
| compared to it as a whole. Low stress cows produce noticeably
| better quality milk. This isn't a secret in the industry.
|
| Wheat, soybean, avocados, palm oil and more are just as bad for
| the environment and animal life due to commercialization.
| Monoculture industrial farming is inherently unsustainable.
| High density growing of a single type of organism that requires
| outside resources to be brought it. Artificial fertilizer
| production isn't ecological either. The pest control required,
| and I'm not talking about bugs, I'm talking about rodents,
| birds, boar and deer, is pretty harmful for not just the
| animals, but for the regional ecosystem.
|
| "Let's just make food more expensive for people! I decide what
| people should eat and when even though the purchasing power of
| the average individual is shrinking as is!" As an omnivore, I
| have to tell you, "slow down there Stalin". Then again, you're
| not wrong. You need less farmland if you starve enough people
| to death. Guess you're a fan of population control?
| Historically speaking, on average, anyone that advocates for
| the limiting of general food distribution to everyday people
| don't become well known as humanitarians or "good people".
|
| You choose to be vegan, good for you. But don't pretend
| industrial farming of soy, peas and avocados don't have blood
| on their hands. The only vegans who can lay claim to the moral
| high ground are the ones that permaculture grow their own food.
| They get my respect, big time, since they're not virtue
| dieters.
| esaym wrote:
| >As a vegan, I am concerned about the cruel treatment of farm
| animals.
|
| For a somewhat malicious counter point... if the entire world
| stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we know it would
| quickly go extinct. They have no natural habitat, they can't
| take care of themselves, and they make really lousy pets.
|
| It is a somewhat similar story with elephants. They make lousy
| pets as well and selling ivory is illegal. So the best they get
| is being shoved into smaller and smaller chunks of dedicated
| public land.
| missingrib wrote:
| I don't understand this focus on "species" in the abstract
| over the individual members of the species.
| ozborn wrote:
| "the entire world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we
| know it would quickly go extinct"
|
| Lots of animals are not used for meat and dairy and are not
| extinct. Sure, numbers of cows would be massively reduced but
| that also frees up pasture. Pasture could be converted to
| habitat for wildlife and support a more diverse set of
| species.
|
| I can only speak for myself, but I don't care if the number
| of cattle are reduced to a tiny fraction of the population
| they once were, if it means more biodiversity.
| ska wrote:
| > For a somewhat malicious counter point
|
| I don't think you understand what vegans (typically) actually
| object to.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "For a somewhat malicious counter point... if the entire
| world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we know it
| would quickly go extinct. They have no natural habitat, they
| can't take care of themselves, and they make really lousy
| pets. "
|
| Reframing factory farming as a conservation measure is a very
| cyncial view. That's top notch spin doctoring and worth a
| long career in lobbying.
| causasui wrote:
| > if the entire world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow
| as we know it would quickly go extinct
|
| So what? Why should the cow exist for the sake of existing?
| andrew_ wrote:
| As a human who is concerned with the treatment of bull (male)
| calfs born on dairy farms and their treatment for the
| production of veal, I have absolutely no clue why being a vegan
| has any pertinence. Why is it such common practice to
| insufferably proclaim one's ethos as a vegan?
|
| In all seriousness, the conditions under which bull calfs for
| veal production is abhorrent, and I have great difficulty in
| balance sympathy for the plight of dairy with the practices of
| the industry. While the article mentions CAFOs, which are the
| largest contributors to veal production, I'd been hard-pressed
| to find a family run dairy farm in my home, midwestern state,
| which didn't at the least sell their bull calfs to outfits that
| do produce veal.
|
| Next time you see that on the menu, take a moment to think
| about where it's coming from and how it's made.
| cies wrote:
| > the conditions under which bull calfs for veal production
| is abhorrent
|
| To you!
|
| To me (also vegan) any animal in a cage is abhorrent. I want
| to be free and wild and I also want all others to be free and
| wild. Maybe some humans deserve to be caged for their
| behavior. Animals can never be guilty...
|
| > Next time you see that on the menu, take a moment to think
| about where it's coming from and how it's made.
|
| Exactly. Was someone (NOT something) caged? Was a baby taken
| away from a mother, right after birth, in order to steal
| (=take what is not given) the milk that mum produces for
| baby?
|
| And after this consideration: go for one of the plant options
| on the menu!
| omginternets wrote:
| Here's what I don't understand about this reasoning: many
| of the animals you're defending -- such as cows -- have
| been domesticated to the point of relying on humans for
| survival. For these, the choice is not "live in captivity,
| or live free", it's "live in captivity, or not at all".
|
| My question is therefore: were you unaware of this, or do
| you prefer the disappearance of (e.g.) cows over their
| captivity?
| andrew_ wrote:
| This is yet more the kind of nonsensical, insufferable
| drivel that turns people away from rationally thinking
| about their food. Someone's preference for how and what
| they eat contributes nothing to conversation, and exists
| only to project a belief of superiority and collect pats on
| the back from like-minded thinkers.
| cies wrote:
| > Someone's preference
|
| It's not a personal choice (preference) when it cause
| another being to suffer (caged, artificially inseminated
| (raped), babies taken away, fed horrible food, etc.)
|
| Thinking that it IS a personal choice, to me, puts one on
| borderline insanity: total disdain for other forms of
| sentient life.
|
| I hope the taste of that meat/dairy/eggs makes it all
| worth it for you. I cannot imagine taste bud pleasure
| trumps ethics.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> I hope the taste of that meat/dairy/eggs makes it all
| worth it for you. I cannot imagine taste bud pleasure
| trumps ethics.
|
| You are putting a morality spin on something that has a
| biological basis. Humans like the taste of meat because
| it is a very good source of necessary nutrients. It is
| possible that our preference for meat and dairy (in
| particular, fermented dairy, like cheese) has provided us
| with an evolutionary advantage that has made us who we
| are today:
|
| _Human ancestors who preferred the taste of cooked meat
| over raw meat began to enjoy an evolutionary advantage
| over others. _"In general, flavour rewards us for eating
| the things we've needed to eat in the past,_" said Dunn._
| (My underlining)
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/07/how-
| early-hu...
| rtrdea wrote:
| You're a literal retard with no morals
| slfnflctd wrote:
| If a sentient AI with superhuman intelligence were
| observing us, they would be utterly puzzled at the amount
| of waste and destruction we perpetuate through the meat &
| dairy industries for no reason other than ephemeral
| perceived pleasure through our taste buds.
|
| If "someone's preference" - a completely subjective thing
| - is objectively less efficient and more harmful than
| doing something else, we can and do intervene to
| discourage such practices. No one should have to
| apologize for promoting something clearly better.
|
| If you love meat and are willing to burn the planet down
| so you can keep eating it, fine. But don't pretend it's a
| choice without consequences or that it's necessary.
| buildbot wrote:
| Or it would be wondering why we don't eat any piece of
| meat we possibly can in order to maximally extract
| nutrients from our surrounding environment.
| subungual wrote:
| Maximal extraction of resources would involve focusing on
| eating plants. Feeding the plants to animals and then
| eating them is tremendously inefficient in terms of both
| calories and nutrients.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Humans like eating meat because it is nutritious. It is
| not just a random preference and it is not something that
| anyone can just switch off, therefore it is not a matter
| of morality, as you are trying to portray it ("If you
| love meat and are willing to burn the planet down so you
| can keep eating it...").
|
| It is possible our taste for (cooked) meat gave us an
| evolutionary advantage that made us who we are today:
|
| _However, accessing more calories was not the primary
| reason our ancestors decided to cook food. "Scientists
| often focus on what the eventual benefit is, rather than
| the immediate mechanism that allowed our ancestors to
| make the choice. We made the choice because of
| deliciousness. And then the eventual benefit was more
| calories and fewer pathogens."_
|
| _Human ancestors who preferred the taste of cooked meat
| over raw meat began to enjoy an evolutionary advantage
| over others. "In general, flavour rewards us for eating
| the things we've needed to eat in the past," said Dunn._
|
| _In particular, people who evolved a preference for
| complex aromas are likely to have developed an
| evolutionary advantage, because the smell of cooked meat,
| for example, is much more complex than that of raw meat.
| "Meat goes from having tens of aromas to having hundreds
| of different aroma compounds," said Dunn._
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/07/how-
| early-hu...
| efiecho wrote:
| > While dairy is not strictly necessary for grown ups, I
| recognise that it will be present for some time so we should
| care about how it is produced. Dairy should be more expensive
| than it is now, similar to what happens to meat.
|
| Dairy and meat is part of a healthy diet. While not impossible
| to do without, health problems often develops with time. That's
| why most people (84%) who adopts a vegan diet at some point in
| their lives, returns to eating meat and dairy again. The first
| years on a plant diet are usually great, almost everyone feels
| better than ever. Then after 5-10 years many will experience a
| steep decline in health, both physical and mental that is
| resolved with returning to animal products. Of course eating
| too much animal products and not enough plants will also make
| you sick, that goes without saying.
|
| So yes, agree very much that we should care how it is produced.
| dkersten wrote:
| I don't have the source handy and couldn't be bothered
| looking for it... its my understanding that dairy is not
| necessary in a human diet. It doesn't contain anything that
| isn't easier or healthier to get from other sources and in
| some cases isn't really beneficial either. Studies have also
| shown that milk is not a good calcium source, either
| (although a very quick google didn't find sources to back
| that up, so maybe its not accurate). The advice I heard from
| one doctor was: if you enjoy dairy, consume it in moderation,
| but don't rely on it for nutrition.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > While not impossible to do without, health problems often
| develops with time.
|
| I beg to differ here. I'm allergic to all dairy products
| (protein allergy), and I haven't had any problem keeping a
| healthy diet.
|
| Dairy isn't at all necessary for survival after you're able
| to eat and digest solid food. In fact, most mammals and 65%
| of humans develop lactose intolerance by adulthood.
|
| Meat? That's a bit more difficult to replace in a completely
| vegan diet without vitamin supplements.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| More FUD from vegetarian haters. Please stop. Yes, 15 year
| old US vegans can be insufferable, just like libertarians who
| discover Ayn Rand at the same age.
|
| In India it is estimated that 23-37% of the population is
| vegetarian or vegan [1]. In a country of 1billion, that's
| like an entire vegetarian United States. It is absolutely
| fine to live a life as vegan/vegetarian.
|
| Also interesting you don't seem to have done any research on
| the health issues caused by eating red meat and dairy. Want
| to give that a go?
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43581122
| rtrdea wrote:
| HahahahahhHahahaha
| shever wrote:
| > Dairy and meat is part of a healthy diet.
|
| Not actually true. For centuries, the traditional Chinese
| diet did not include dairy and minimised meat consumption
| too. The oft-trotted-out trope of calcium in dairy is
| misleading
| (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/calcium-and-
| milk...) and even relatively small amounts of meat and dairy
| increase the possibility of prostate cancer
| (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18398033)
|
| Speaking as a vegan of over 10 years, who is mentally sharper
| and healthier than I was a decade ago, I also don't agree
| with the "steep decline in health, both physical and mental".
| I do agree that certain nutrients, such as B12, need to be
| supplemented, but the Institute of Medicine recommends that
| everyone over the age of 50 supplement B12 whether vegan or
| not.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> The oft-trotted-out trope of calcium in dairy is
| misleading
| (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/calcium-and-
| milk...) and even relatively small amounts of meat and
| dairy increase the possibility of prostate cancer
| (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18398033)
|
| From your link:
|
| _While calcium and dairy can lower the risk of
| osteoporosis and colon cancer, high intake can increase the
| risk of prostate cancer and possibly ovarian cancer._
|
| It increases the probability of developing some diseases
| and lowers that of developing others.
| Falling3 wrote:
| > [health problems are] why most people (84%) who adopts a
| vegan diet at some point in their lives, returns to eating
| meat and dairy again
|
| How did you come to that conclusion and what data do you have
| to support it? The overwhelming majority of ex-vegans I know
| did so because of either convenience or missing specific
| foods.
| codemac wrote:
| Where does 84% come from? Would love to see a cited source,
| so I can understand your point better.
|
| Re: health without meat & dairy: B12 and other vitamins
| missing in vegetables are _also_ missing in our meat, which
| is why all chicken, pigs, and cows are fed B12 vitamins in
| their feed.
|
| If you stop eating meat and dairy all together, you have to
| supplement B12 - but most Americans are B12 deficient either
| way, similar to vitamin D.
|
| Finally - eating meat and dairy also leads to health
| problems, see: heart disease. I know it's complex, but dairy
| is definitely not a required part of a diet, and is why
| humans don't feed their young human milk after infancy.
| corty wrote:
| While I can appreciate the author's nostalgia, I cannot really
| agree on some of the criticism:
|
| The manure problem is a problem at any size of farm, the amount
| of manure per cow is somewhat constant. So concentrating all the
| cows in some factory farm doesn't really make anything worse as
| long as the total number of cows is somewhat constant.
|
| The undocumented immigrant labour problem isn't as big a problem
| as the family farms' systemic problem of child labour and child
| exploitation. Which the author glosses over in his point of view.
|
| To feed a growing population on earth, we do need industrial
| farming. Maybe not so much cattle. But in general, higher
| efficiency and more professional operations should be applauded.
| Yes, that means that family farms will be gone at some point.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| On family farms (and my own), manure is used as fertilizer. On
| factory farms most manure is disposed of and animals fed on
| grain.
|
| Children of parents on a family farm is hardly exploitation.
| Paying illegal immigrants sub minimum wage to squeeze
| additional profit out of the land certainly is a bigger
| problem.
|
| Do we need industrial farming if it's driven by big capital? If
| the industry is happy to damage the environment, flout labor
| laws, harm animal welfare is it worth it? Personally I think
| the cost is too high and if anything, food is too cheap now.
| corty wrote:
| > Children of parents on a family farm is hardly
| exploitation.
|
| How so? I know it often isn't against labor laws because
| there are specific exceptions for exactly that case. But in
| any other circumstance the same thing _is_ considered
| exploitative.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| Answered below but there is a difference between a full
| time job and doing chores around a farm.
|
| If you can't see the nuance in that then I suggest you
| visit a family farm some day.
| phillc73 wrote:
| > The manure problem is a problem at any size of farm, the
| amount of manure per cow is somewhat constant. So concentrating
| all the cows in some factory farm doesn't really make anything
| worse as long as the total number of cows is somewhat constant.
|
| I wonder if this is true. Perhaps the real problem is the
| concentration of such a large amount of waste in those manure
| lakes.
|
| I don't have any fixed evidence or numbers, but recalling my
| youth working on a 200 - 250 cow dairy, the animals were strip
| grazed in paddocks during the day and night. They would
| therefore mostly defecate in the paddock, on the grass, spread
| across a wider area and acting as a natural fertiliser.
|
| There was a small manure pond with wastewater from the dairy
| itself, but this was not large.
|
| Problems with large manure lakes intuitively seem more likely
| as the nitrates and other nasties are concentrated, something
| which doesn't seem as bad with the same amount of manure spread
| across a grassy paddock.
| Laforet wrote:
| This is indeed the case. On the other side of the same issue,
| the loss of large mammals in the wild slows down the natural
| cycling of nitrogen and this has a knock-on effect that leads
| to further loss of biomass. This has been an issue since the
| start of human civilization but intensive herding of animals
| certainly did not help.
| corty wrote:
| > I don't have any fixed evidence or numbers, but recalling
| my youth working on a 200 - 250 cow dairy, the animals were
| strip grazed in paddocks during the day and night. They would
| therefore mostly defecate in the paddock, on the grass,
| spread across a wider area and acting as a natural
| fertiliser.
|
| This is something the author mentions in passing: Almost
| everywhere, farms are required by law to have a certain
| amount of land per piece of cattle to spread the manure on.
| So as long as that certain amount of land is large enough and
| the spreading happens sufficiently often, there shouldn't be
| a problem. If there is a problem, current regulations need to
| be updated. That land requirement will also naturally limit
| the total amount of cattle that is being raised.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| This logic seems wrong.
|
| By definition pollution is a problem of location and
| concentration.
| gizmondo wrote:
| > The undocumented immigrant labour problem isn't as big a
| problem as the family farms' systemic problem of child labour
| and child exploitation. Which the author glosses over in his
| point of view.
|
| He doesn't gloss over it, he glorifies it as "family bonding"
| or something. It's disgusting.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| How? Helping on a family farm has been done for generations.
|
| A corporate exploiting Illegal immigration is a preferred
| solution? Interesting values.
| gizmondo wrote:
| Owning slaves was also done for generations, so not sure
| what your point is.
|
| Both are bad, but according to my values exploiting
| children is somewhat worse than exploiting adults, yes.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| Do you classify helping with chores around the house as
| child exploitation too? As on a farm, kids have chores.
| They're not working night and day.
| joerandom wrote:
| Do you have ANY idea how chores on a farm look like?
| Hint: it's nothing like vacuming or taking dishes out
| from a dishwasher. It's lots of hard work. Dealing with
| excrements and dangerous animals (even a cow or pig is
| dangerous in confined spaces).
| deadmetheny wrote:
| Do YOU? Because I did farm chores growing up and the
| stuff you're tasked with doing is never particularly
| dangerous. Dirt and grime washed off just fine and it was
| good exercise and time outdoors.
| nradov wrote:
| Oh please. I took care of a few pigs and cattle as a
| child, including cleaning up manure. It wasn't that hard
| and certainly not dangerous.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| Yeah, I grew up on a farm. Happy memories of feeding
| calves, bringing in hay bales on summer days, feeding
| pigs.
|
| Also had to bring them in for winter and mending fences.
|
| It's actually far more pleasant than vacuuming floors and
| washing up.
| corty wrote:
| Chores around a house are an educational tool and may be
| considered beneficial. On a farm, you get lots of
| additional "chores" on top. Where the "chores" are hard
| labour, often dangerous, at times early in the morning
| before school and in an amount where you do replace paid
| workers. A household does work without a child doing
| chores. A family farm won't be profitable without the
| free labour from the children. There is a reason farming
| families do have a larger number of children compared to
| the average. And while, yes, it has been this way for
| millenia, times change. If it weren't on a farm, with the
| same amount of "chores", child protection would get
| involved in an instant.
| fogihujy wrote:
| Just an anecdotal observation from a part-time farmer: I
| couldn't keep my daughter away from farmwork even if I
| wanted to; it's not all about exploitation.
| saalweachter wrote:
| As both a child and a parent my experience has been,
| (young) children want to do whatever their parents are
| doing.
| gizmondo wrote:
| They often work _way_ more than other children. If your
| kid is doing "chores around the house" for hours every
| day, it's exploitation too.
| toyg wrote:
| Let's not be overdramatic. Working on farms as a kid is how
| the overwhelming majority of humanity lived for literally
| thousands of years. Not every kid working with his family is
| exploited or abused; I can think of quite a few of my
| teenaged peers from "difficult" backgrounds who got on the
| straight and narrow only when they were finally allowed to
| work.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| > the total number of cows is somewhat constant.
|
| But the number of cows isn't constant. The entire premise of
| the article is a demonstration of how large numbers and power
| laws work in economics.
|
| > To feed a growing population on earth, we do need industrial
| farming.
|
| Do we? That's a massively contested debate. See:
| (Neo)Malthusianism.
|
| > But in general, higher efficiency and more professional
| operations should be applauded
|
| These aren't virtues that one should blindly laud if the net
| result is externalizing costs towards the commons: society and
| ecology.
|
| What's the point of being able to feed 8 or 9 billion people on
| the planet, if quality of life for the majority of those
| individuals is rather low?
|
| The article rightly points at the glaring moral questions
| beneath all of this.
| corty wrote:
| >> To feed a growing population on earth, we do need
| industrial farming. > Do we? That's a massively contested
| debate. See: (Neo)Malthusianism.
|
| On the one hand, you dismiss my population growth argument as
| "Malthusianism" (which I don't consider a counter-argument at
| all, it is just naming things).
|
| But on the other hand you acknowledge that we cannot just
| feed ever more people:
|
| > What's the point of being able to feed 8 or 9 billion
| people on the planet, if quality of life for the majority of
| those individuals is rather low?
|
| So on one hand you are dismissing my argument as Malthusian,
| on the other hand you are making a very Malthusian argument
| yourself.
|
| My argument would be: I agree with you that mankind needs to
| shrink and right-size so the then-sustainable population can
| have some level of comfort for everyone.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Manure isn't a problem if you free range your animals, have
| landscape structures to prevent runoff and have other animals
| that eat bugs in the same space such as chickens. Then it just
| contributes fertility to the land.
|
| Children working their family farm are learning real skills.
| Learning how to produce food is vastly more important than
| american history or most of the literature they would learn in
| school.
|
| Industrial farming is stupid, and totally unnecessary. Using
| permaculture and silvopasture, you can produce much more (and
| more nutritious) food in the same space, while improving
| (rather than destroying) fertility. If done right, you don't
| need pesticides, your animals don't need antibiotics or
| dewormers, and the whole thing mostly runs itself aside from a
| little pruning/herding and a lot of picking. The only downside
| to these methods is they take some time to get going, and they
| require knowledgeable farm workers rather than dirt cheap
| migrant laborers or a combine.
| corty wrote:
| > Manure isn't a problem if you free range your animals, have
| landscape structures to prevent runoff and have other animals
| that eat bugs in the same space such as chickens. Then it
| just contributes fertility to the land.
|
| I would contest that. Animal manure runoff has always been a
| problem to e.g. brooks and rivers and only in recent years
| has the legislation started to prevent some of the more
| problematic practices. Like grazing all your cattle on a
| soon-to-be-flooded grassland next to the river. Nitrate
| pollution of the ground water is also more pronounced in
| German areas where free-range animals are more common.
|
| > Industrial farming is stupid, and totally unnecessary.
| Using permaculture and silvopasture, you can produce much
| more (and more nutritious) food in the same space, while
| improving (rather than destroying) fertility. If done right,
| you don't need pesticides, your animals don't need
| antibiotics or dewormers, and the whole thing mostly runs
| itself aside from a little pruning/herding and a lot of
| picking. The only downside to these methods is they take some
| time to get going, and they require knowledgeable farm
| workers rather than dirt cheap migrant laborers or a combine.
|
| If it were only farmer's knowledge that is required, farming
| industry would do it in an instant, considering the
| significant advantages you named.
|
| I would guess that either the methods you mention are far
| more labour-intensive as well as requiring more qualified
| labour. Or that the advantages aren't really that
| significant. Industrial agriculture is hunting for every bit
| of efficiency gain, and lots of businesses are looking for an
| edge any way they can. So it seems strange to me that the
| methods you mention aren't used in any significant amount.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| If you aren't running a ridiculous number of head per acre
| and you have swales cut into your land to control runoff,
| manure is absolutely not a problem.
|
| Permaculture + Silvopasture is labor intensive at harvest
| for sure, because you can't just run a tree shaker or
| tractor down rows, but you need to forage through a food
| forest which requires some knowledge and care. The bigger
| downside for industrial farmers is that instead of one
| product you can unload to a co-op easily, you have 30+
| crops you need to find a market for.
|
| In my experience a lot of farmers are fairly set in their
| ways. Even 100% win solutions like no till planting with
| cover crop grazing are being taken up very slowly.
| neolog wrote:
| Currently kids spend a lot of their time working in schools;
| I'm guessing working on farms might be better or worse
| depending on the farm and the school, but I don't know much
| about it. Where can I learn more?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| unfortunately the cow seems out of the barn for reasons other
| than legislation being missing.
|
| Farmers have not adapted to changes in conditions and they had
| time to do so. The point of a union should not be to collute to
| raise prices. The point of a union should be to pool market power
| and resources to break monopolies in creameries, or pollution.
|
| Any farmer should have seen the writing on the wall to have 1
| creamery being their only customer, and develop options
| immediately. Their lifelihood depended on it!! Farmers can't be
| kicked out of a coop they own. Too late for that. Also, farmers
| should have pooled resources and sued to high hell all the
| pollutants and reported farms using illegal labor. Petition
| townsfolk to start class action sue pollutants. Hit where it
| hurts.
|
| The article never talks about that. Only complaints about the law
| (which incidentally, should have not happened if farmers had been
| proactive at getting their communities to unite against the
| pollutants).
|
| Instead of putting bad actors out of business, this article seems
| to state that small farmers were not successful in petitioning -
| via legislation - to become bad actors themselves. Unfortunate.
|
| Legislation seems to have gotten small farmers in trouble,
| legislation will not come to the rescue now. Legislation is for
| the big guns. They are not that.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The point of a union should not be to collu[d]e to raise
| prices. The point of a union should be to pool market power and
| resources
|
| These are just different words for the same thing.
| gruez wrote:
| You can have cooperation without price-fixing.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| What would you be cooperating to do?
| alteriority wrote:
| can't speak for gruez, but a couple off the top of my
| head:
|
| -set standards that all members abide by, potentially
| bypassing "tragedy of the commons'-style coordination
| problems
|
| -share information which, in a more cutthroat
| environment, would be considered "trade secrets".
|
| Not sure how these would apply to the dairy industry
| specifically; it just seems overly broad to say that
| price fixing is the only plausible form of cooperation.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Look into the effects of your ideas, and you'll see them
| wind up in rising prices. Your first example, excluding
| industry members who don't meet a particular standard, is
| one of the most typical forms of "colluding to raise
| prices" you could possibly think of, often expressed in
| the form of professional certification.
|
| The only things an economic organization can do are raise
| prices and lower costs. For a labor union, costs are
| labor; from the consumer end the workers' "lower costs"
| mean less work is being done, which shows up as higher
| prices for consumers.
| elmomle wrote:
| Setting standards and price fixing are different things.
| You can have fair competition within a marketplace with
| rules and standards. Price fixing is when all sellers
| agree to not sell below a certain price, which is a
| problem pretty much regardless of a marketplace's rules.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Standards might be a way to prevent a race to the bottom
| in quality. I think that is the most important thing.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| By arguing from the standpoint of raising or lowering
| prices you're being very reductive. Doctors form trade
| associations too, and yes the prices for a certified
| doctor are much higher, but the quality of care is also
| standardized and usually higher to match. OP wasn't
| making the point that industry associations don't raise
| prices. OP was pointing out that most industry
| associations are formed to try to make things better. And
| that might result in increased prices, but that's a side-
| effect and not the goal.
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| Ultimately the problem is the price...
| jerome-jh wrote:
| The problem is that cooperatives turned into monopolies,
| becoming inefficient. So it is both a price and
| organizational problem.
| reedjosh wrote:
| I'm seeing a resurgence of competition on quality too. I
| personally purchase organic grass fed glass bottled milk
| from local farms. Sounds snobby and onerous, but it's
| available at any Whole Foods.
|
| Quality food is truly worth it. Milk should not be a
| commodity. I know it's a bit more expensive, but I
| promise eating quality reduces the need for quantity.
|
| Our bodies are starving on this poorly made junk
| commodity food.
| mcguire wrote:
| The other half of the article's issue:
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-
| gallery/gallery...
|
| " _Between 1960 and 1998, the average share of disposable
| personal income spent on total food by Americans, on
| average, fell from 17.0 to 10.1 percent, driven by a
| declining share of income spent on food at home._ "
|
| In 2019, it was 9.5%, with modest decreases on spending
| for food at home and increases in spending on food away
| from home.
| katbyte wrote:
| > Milk should not be a commodity
|
| neither should food, water, or shelter but here we are
| maxerickson wrote:
| Commodity literally means cheap and of consistent
| quality.
|
| All of those things should be commodities, even if we
| choose to pay for them as a society rather than
| organizing the flow of goods using markets.
|
| Put simply, if you are willing to buy it without sampling
| it, you think it's a commodity.
| reedjosh wrote:
| I think you mean if you are willing to buy it regularly
| without sampling. We bought a few brands prior to our
| current buying pattern.
|
| I am not willing to buy milk without sampling. Currently
| we have two that we like. Basically, one has extra fat
| added, but the other comes in a reusable (literally
| return for reuse) glass bottle. If only I could get both.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Yes, I mean willingness to grab a container off the shelf
| and buy it without sampling, not the process of
| establishing preferences.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agriculture was the first victim of the red/blue phenomenon.
| Agricultural and trade policy is all about government supported
| grain industry. For the dairy farmer, they are stuck between
| regulatory reform that dramatically increases the supply of
| milk by creating a national market, while their downstream
| supply chain partners are allowed to consolidate and form
| monopolies, because American legal theory is insane.
|
| I live in upstate NY from a former dairy producing region. I'm
| aware of 5 different dairy processors that were within 30-40
| miles of my childhood home. Now there is one larger company.
|
| It's only getting worse. The push for meat-substitutes will
| just lead to even more consolidation, and start introducing
| supply risks down the road. The aquifers that support Midwest
| grain are being depleted, and climate change will affect the
| Southern California miracle in the desert. In the meantime, the
| well-watered, prime farm I worked on as a teen had most of the
| topsoil stripped and sold, and there is a subdivision with
| 40-50 houses on it.
| tengbretson wrote:
| > The aquifers that support Midwest grain are being depleted
|
| An overwhelming majority of farm land in the Midwest is not
| irrigated, with Nebraska being the only significant outlier.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _The Ogallala Aquifer underlies parts of Colorado,
| Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota,
| Texas, and Wyoming. From wheat and cows to corn and cotton,
| the regional economy depends almost exclusively on
| agriculture irrigated by Ogallala groundwater. But
| according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4),
| producers are extracting water faster than it is being
| replenished, which means that parts of the Ogallala Aquifer
| should be considered a nonrenewable resource._ "
|
| In large areas, the water level has dropped more than 50
| feet. (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-
| images/nation...)
|
| Each of the circles in these satellite images is an
| irrigation system. Many are a mile in diameter.
|
| * https://goo.gl/maps/5m82TyPRSHnQ2xCx9
|
| * https://goo.gl/maps/wveD2BaP8Stp66yw7
|
| * https://goo.gl/maps/yXL2gWEXq9fmz4jj6
|
| * https://goo.gl/maps/VbhjEKYgWhaqgEHR6
|
| * https://goo.gl/maps/erC76vZx34Rhzt9VA
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Most of those states are not considered to be in the
| Midwest.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| McGuire answered this concern.
|
| The other one I forgot to mention is the topsoil erosion
| from brain dead farming practices, which is now in or on
| its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
| mcguire wrote:
| Yeah, be careful with that.
|
| You also need to worry about soil salinization, where
| irrigated land becomes less productive.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > In the meantime, the well-watered, prime farm I worked on
| as a teen had most of the topsoil stripped and sold, and
| there is a subdivision with 40-50 houses on it.
|
| Americans are addicted to (boring) houses in the suburbs and
| cars, it's such a shame.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| One man's boring is another man's idyllic.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Lina Khan may have been appointed just in time then.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| There is another danger that is not being touched upon.
|
| Once things consolidate, the overall system becomes massively
| more fragile.
|
| Think 2008 with a few very big multinational banks. A crisis
| basically brought the market to its knees. Contrast this to
| restaurants.
|
| We have had covid restrictions for months, but yet, 2/3rd of
| the independently owned are finding ways to operate. They are
| the epitome of resilience.
|
| Imagine if we had a big problem and a bunch of monsantos
| failed. 2008 style collapse...but this time of the food
| supply...
| AshleighBasil wrote:
| >reported farms using illegal labor.
|
| I'm from Mexico, but I've always suspected the reason the US
| Democratic Party supports immigration is precisely because a
| lot of big corporations want to drive down the price of labor.
| They piggyback on antiracist and antinationalist activism to
| advance the interests of big agriculture.
|
| If I was a big agro, I'd invest in both parties. The
| Republicans to remove regulation that helps big agro compete,
| and the Democrats to implement regulation that prevents small
| agro from competing.
|
| Although tbh this is all I know of American politics from
| reading internet threads, haha
| dbrower wrote:
| It's not Democrats, it's business owners needing that labor.
| The Republicans are equally bad in practice, it's their
| rhetoric that is tougher.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _If I was a big agro, I 'd invest in both parties. The
| Republicans to remove regulation that helps big agro compete,
| and the Democrats to implement regulation that prevents small
| agro from competing._"
|
| They do.
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/cargill-
| inc/summary?id=D000...
| darkarmani wrote:
| > is precisely because a lot of big corporations want to
| drive down the price of labor
|
| Doesn't immigration also create industry which then creates
| jobs?
| mindslight wrote:
| You're completely ignoring market inefficiency, as if a
| distributed desire for something better can simply be summed
| into creating a viable competitor. The tech equivalent is
| proclaiming that if you really don't like
| Google/Apple/Facebook/etc control, go start your own. It
| completely ignores that doing so takes an extraordinary amount
| of effort over a long period of time, and any serious
| competitor is likely to end up bought out by the bigger
| business before it can affect the market.
|
| I'm generally apprehensive any time someone says "there ought
| to be a law", but the article lays out a well-sourced case. The
| economy and big business are directly opposed, and having a
| distributed economy is much more important for us human beings.
| Perhaps price controls aren't the answer (and would actually
| further benefit the large farms that are killing the economy),
| but something needs to be done unless we want to end up with
| farming monocultures that will some day decide it's more
| profitable to _not_ supply us food. The right answer is
| probably antitrust breakup, and a statutory limiting of mergers
| going forward.
| vram22 wrote:
| >I'm generally apprehensive any time someone says "there
| ought to be a law", but the article lays out a well-sourced
| case. The economy and big business are directly opposed, and
| having a distributed economy is much more important for us
| human beings. Perhaps price controls aren't the answer (and
| would actually further benefit the large farms that are
| killing the economy)
|
| Your statements that I quoted above are almost a perfect
| counter-argument to show why the suggestion in the last
| sentence of your comment will not work in practice. It will
| be shot down by vested interests finding loopholes after a
| few years, if not sooner. IMO a deeper solution is needed.
| And no, I cannot give one off the top of my head. Nor am I
| qualified to do so. But even laymen to an area can see
| potential flaws if they are obvious.
| mindslight wrote:
| Possible deeper solutions are to end the centralizing
| trickle up economics of ZIRP, or to stop time. But either
| one of these is less likely to happen than targeted anti-
| trust. I get the defeatism that the market simply sees
| regulation as damage and routes around it, but that's also
| a result of our national psyche that lets ourselves be
| divided over surface issues while capital buys loopholes.
| We've been sold this unsustainable ratchet strangling
| humanity as some kind of inevitable progression, and at a
| certain point we've got to say enough is enough and push
| back within the paradigm rather than thinking we will
| outrun it.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| > It seems hard to believe but at one point it was possible to
| make a decent living as a dairy farmer with a small herd (what's
| now considered small, anyway). In 1981 my dad had a herd of 82
| milking cows and he cracked the top 50 in all of northwest
| Wisconsin's 22 counties for average milk production.
|
| > As for the distant future, I imagine it will look similar to
| the consolidation in other livestock industries, where a handful
| of mega corporations dictate production and the "farmers" are
| more like serfs, deeply in debt and entirely beholden to the
| corporation.
|
| Mirrors a lot of what my family went through. Grew up on a cattle
| ranch in the 80s... ranches were already 5-10x larger than they
| had been the generation before. Efficiency and capitalism and
| finding better ways to solve problems... totally get the reasons
| for the consolidation. Just sucks for the people. Farmers and
| Ranchers have been a dying breed for so very long now. And
| replacing the family farm with a factory farm -- practical or
| reasonable or not -- it just seems so... offensive.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRDaPEaDJ7E
|
| Interesting with the dairy cow milk production graphs since the
| 1970s. Probably belongs on this list.
|
| https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
| nineplay wrote:
| I think he's glossing over the obvious. A friend of mine was just
| reminiscing about growing up in her family's dairy farm.
|
| Every Saturday morning, every Sunday morning, every Christmas you
| get up to take care of the cows. Feel sick? You've got to get up
| and take care of the cows. Want to go on vacation? Can't, there's
| no one you can leave the cows with. It's a hard life - maybe a
| satisfying life in some ways but there are a lot of sacrifices.
|
| The author points out that only one of his brothers wanted to
| take over the dairy. He doesn't point out that without that one
| brother with the insane work ethic the farm would have shut down
| years ago. It's not a sustainable business model.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Bread and games rarely make for good business-models. A lack of
| bread makes for food riots, so even the most dysfunctional
| states keep that resource over-flowing and artificially under
| price pressures.
|
| In germany you are not even allowed by law, to convert surplus
| grain into energy by burning it.
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getreideverbrennung#Deutschlan...
|
| For fermenting it you need a expensive license. Nobody is even
| pretending that this is a free market and even the most
| hardcore Neo-libertarians do not call for it regarding food.
|
| The price fluctuations visible are usually the pearl-diving.
| All market participants dive for the pearls, aka the lowest
| possible price and hold their breath. Those who cant keep up,
| float to the top and are devoured by those who are still alive.
| Every round there are fewer and fewer small participants. Rinse
| and repeat, until only a few monopolistic giants are able to
| establish a price cartel.
| mitjak wrote:
| what a strange point. "the obvious" is not that there's
| concentration of power but that farming is hard? what about
| small farms where many people are happy to continue working
| because they find it fulfilling?
| nineplay wrote:
| The "obvious" is that operating a family farm as a profitable
| business is hard. Harder than three of the four adult
| children in the article are willing to work.
|
| That doesn't mean there aren't people who want to do it, that
| means that a lot of family farms are going out of business
| because there aren't enough people who want to do it,
| regardless of external pressures.
| mitjak wrote:
| that conclusion doesn't necessarily follow though. the
| proposed thesis by the article author is difficulty of
| having enough cattle to break even. you need to make enough
| to grow your operation, which is difficult given that you
| rely on external factors like creameries. the only reason
| you only have your family's labour to rely on could also be
| the difficulty of scaling up.
| nineplay wrote:
| I think the article writer is glossing over the
| difficulty of keeping a farm in business without the
| external factors. My experience, growing up in an farming
| area, is that the kids of farmers are relieved when the
| farm is sold to a big conglomerate.
|
| If the author cared so much about the farm, nothing
| stopped him from going back and dedicating his life to
| keeping it running.
| mitjak wrote:
| apologies if i'm coming across condescending or am
| missing your point but i'm having difficulty
| comprehending how the author staying on the farm would've
| fixed anything about the trend towards monopolization
| fuelled by corporate subsidies and other forms of
| preferential treatment coupled with those larger actors
| facing limited responsibility for any of the consequences
| to surrounding communities and environment?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Anyone who enjoys their job should work for free? How are
| they meant to pay bills? What are you saying?
| mitjak wrote:
| im providing a counter-example to the OP's point, and
| saying that people choosing not to remain farmers is not a
| sufficient explanation for decline in the number of small
| farms. the author clearly proposes many other reasons. see
| other responses to the message.
| xipho wrote:
| You seem to equate hard work ethic with sustainability, this is
| false. You obviously have never experienced the joys of winters
| with nothing todo except read, learn, cook and play, because
| you worked insanely hard on the farm for 6-8 months of the
| growing season (being your own boss, but who cares about that).
| analog31 wrote:
| A friend of mine is a farmer -- typical Wisconsin corn &
| beans. Those winters are spent finding other income sources.
| Some of his activities: Driving the big snow plows. Short
| haul truck driving on country roads in the dark. Repairing
| his ancient equipment. Being a local dealer for something or
| other. Same with any time slot that he can fill during the
| growing season.
|
| An issue he faces is that he pays more for seeds and
| fertilizer than the big farms, and gets paid less for his
| crop. Many of the "obvious" ideas to produce specialized
| crops (organic, popcorn, soybeans for tofu) turn out to be
| boondoggles that lose money.
|
| I'm not too sad for him -- his land is worth millions, he'll
| do OK. But the other thing is, he and I are the same age, and
| he looks about 20 years older. Part of it is that he's driven
| to do this. It's in his blood. He talks about "feeding the
| world" and so forth.
|
| Being your own boss, yes. Turns out being a "farmer" looks a
| lot different if you own the farm, than if you don't.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > he looks about 20 years older
|
| OTOH, my grandfather, who worked his own farm until he was
| deep into his 80s, is just about to celebrate 102. Up until
| a couple years ago he was still taking stairs two at a
| time, and winning corn shucking contests. Would he have
| made it so far, or in such good shape, if he had spent his
| life at a desk?
| hshshs2 wrote:
| he might have - health is important but once you pass a
| general fitness baseline living past 100 is just a
| crapshoot
|
| if it were simply a matter of exercise we'd have a lot
| more people living past 100
| nineplay wrote:
| At risk of stating the obvious, dairy cows do not have a
| growing season. Cows are a 365 days-a-year commitment.
| xipho wrote:
| My grandfather had a dairy barn, I'm aware of this. The
| community around it rebuilt it when it was burned, looked
| after it when he travelled across the country etc. Was it
| hard? Certainly. To suggest his (and his families) life was
| somehow less joyous than a 9-5 hacking l33t code all year
| is insanity.
| nineplay wrote:
| The writer of the articles was very clear that _he_ found
| farming less joyous than "9-5 hacking l33t code". Your
| argument is more with him than with me.
|
| The writer's other two siblings also found more "joyous"
| things to do. It isn't for everyone, and that is going to
| continue to be the reason that they can't survive against
| Big Ag.
| xipho wrote:
| Right. I don't have an argument with the writer, its a
| wonderful article, spot on. Yes my families work was
| largely pre-big ag. Nothing is for everyone. The trigger
| that looped me in here was the "not sustainable because
| hard work", I drifted to tangents too quickly.
| phillc73 wrote:
| This is not always the case. I recall learning during my
| youth that in Victoria, Australia, the heat cycles and
| pregnancies of the entire herd were synchronised to that it
| lead to a period of 6 to 8 weeks where no milking occurred
| at all.
|
| That's not to say that there was nothing to do on the farm,
| or it was time to take a holiday, just that the cows did
| not need milking during that time period, so perhaps it was
| easier to relax a little.
|
| There are also "contract milkers" who can be brought in for
| short stints of time, allowing the owners to take time off.
| Of course there is a cost to this, but I guess that just
| needs to be budgeted into the overall cost of the
| "holiday."
| nineplay wrote:
| The poster upstream suggested there were 6-8 months of
| downtime with nothing to do. We've gone down to 6-8 weeks
| with no milking. There's still feeding and watering and
| of course monitoring a herd of now-pregnant cows with all
| the possible health complications that come from that.
|
| I'm also relaying my friend's experience, not just
| speculating. In her circumstances, there was daily
| maintenance and no vacations. Perhaps her family didn't
| budget well enough.
| jbroson wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the fact that it's impossible to turn a profit
| in any of the "family" small scale dairy farms is a little more
| important than how hard the work is.
|
| And hard back-breaking work is not unique to farming. Plenty of
| restaurants or other small businesses basically run off owners
| and family giving dozens of hours of labor every week "for
| free"
| nineplay wrote:
| The author didn't want to work on the farm regardless of
| profit. 2 out of 3 of his brother didn't want to work on the
| farm regardless of profit.
|
| My friend would never go back to a farming life, nor would
| any of her siblings or cousins. It's just too much work in a
| world where there are a lot of fun things to do with your
| spare time. My friend mentors 4H students, but she also takes
| off on scuba-diving trips several times a year.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure the fact that it's impossible to turn a
| profit in any of the "family" small scale dairy farms is a
| little more important than how hard the work is.
|
| Why exactly is that important? I could not turn a profit
| running a family plastic casting business in the U.S. either.
| It's just not something that can be done competitively on a
| small scale. Seems like milk production isn't either. That's
| sad for people who want to do that as a profession. It's also
| sad that writing doesn't pay enough to employ everyone who
| wants to be writers, painting everyone who would rather
| paint, etc. Why is that a policy problem (besides the need to
| ensure these people have a soft landing in a destination
| profession that is economically viable)?
| Tossrock wrote:
| Because large agribusiness conglomerates extract their
| profits largely by creating negative externalities through
| pollution and underpriced illegal labor? That was kinda the
| whole point of the article. Government exists to create
| policy regulating externalities, and they're failing to do
| their job here.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I always joke with people that farming is a great half time
| job, just pick which 12 hours you want to work. I also think
| the only people that want to start farming are those that have
| never done it.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Haha, right. I run into people on reddit all the time who
| idealize life on a farm. Right up until I remind them that
| even if it's -20F and blowing snow horizontally and you're
| sick with the flu, you still have to go out and take care of
| the animals.
| foxhop wrote:
| And now the land will continue to be gobbled up by the Gates
| foundation and trust. Unregulated capitalism winner takes all
| regardless of industry. Monopolies and patients on life and
| genetics as far as the eyes can see.
| esaym wrote:
| Don't forget China: https://foxsanantonio.com/news/yami-
| investigates/chinese-win...
| Avernar wrote:
| There used to be a time when every town had a dairy and also nice
| men who would deliver it to you in glass reusable containers and
| perhaps even have sex with your wife.
| sologoub wrote:
| Fortunately for me, some US producers have managed to create a
| sustainable business model, while providing great (if old
| fashioned) product: https://blog.goodeggs.com/blog/straus-family-
| creamery-pionee...
|
| Straus milk is not cheap at ~$9 per gallon, but we don't consume
| a lot and the quality is simply amazing. Still haven't figured
| out what it is, but regular cheap US milk makes me incredibly
| sick to the point that my DR diagnosed me with lactose
| intolerance, except I noticed when traveling to continental EU, I
| never got sick even when accidentally eating something with
| dairy. Turns out I can have milk and milk-based product just
| fine, but something about the regular US milk was like poison to
| me. Tried the A2 bandwagon - didn't work. I can't now recall how
| I stumbled on Straus product, but it was life changing and I
| really hope they continue to survive!
| snikeris wrote:
| I'm also willing to pay more for milk I perceive as better.
| That seems to be the way forward...distinguish your milk as
| something better than what's usually found at the supermarket.
| The farm near me places emphasis on their breed of cows.
| u678u wrote:
| I'm torn on this, my uncles and grand parents were all dairy
| farmers with their own farms. I work in an office behind a
| computer every day. I dont envy them at all.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| It's difficult but I'm not sure what the alternatives might be.
| The largest dairy farms can cut costs in ways which would not be
| practical for small farms because the capital expenditure
| (robotised milking parlours for example) or the market power
| (being able to negotiate on feed prices). The mega lots with
| thousands of cows can sell milk for less than it costs a small
| farm to produce it.
|
| The only available option is specialisation. Build a brand around
| products manufactured on site, cheeses and butters for example.
| Diversification, I've been on two ex-dairy farms, one now
| produces mostly beer and the other is an ice cream based tourist
| attraction.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| You forgot the most important advantage of scale:
|
| Just barely comply with the letter of the law or be in the gray
| area, have a legal team that makes you harder to pick on and
| then wait for the regulators to figure out that the small guys
| are the easy targets.
| harshaw wrote:
| My Uncle started with a "family" farm in up state new york, maybe
| milking 80-100. Over the years as my Cousins took over, it turned
| into a commercial farm where they milk over 1000. The scale is
| pretty massive: from the barns that go on forever, to the giant
| pools of manure, the horizontal bunkers that store the sileage.
| They adapted I suppose - and because its a 3+ family farm with
| plenty of workers they can get time off from the grind. My Uncle,
| however, for years was the sole owner and worked his ass off 7
| days a week. Its taken him a very long time in his retirement to
| be able to enjoy his time.
| benjaminmaccini wrote:
| This was written in 2019. There is another thread, but this is my
| first time reading. So I understand;
|
| - Milk prices are going down due to a decrease in the cost of
| production + overproduction.
|
| - Farmland availability is decreasing because CAFOs are
| incentivized (required?) to buy more land. Property value is also
| decreasing for farmers near CAFOs.
|
| - Small farmers operate on decreasing margins.
|
| - Small farmers lack protection against rising overhead costs,
| this was historically done through co-ops, however these co-ops
| have grown to be massive conglomerates and fail to serve the
| underlying communities.
|
| - CAFOs are the leading pollutants of water sources. They are
| also the leading consumers of ground water.
|
| - There has been a dramatic decrease in the number of small
| farming operations.
|
| Bad economic policies lead to public health and cultural crises.
| I can't help but draw some parallels to what has been happening
| in the Rust Belt (Hillbilly Elegy is a great read for this
| topic). It's insane how little I know about food economics and
| scary how much of an impact it has on communities, especially
| impoverished ones.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > It's insane how little I know about food economics and scary
| how much of an impact it has on communities, especially
| impoverished ones.
|
| America mostly stopped caring about the welfare of rural
| Americans sometime around WWII. There have been some brief
| blips (Appalachia 68, farms 78) but generally - concern for
| Americans to sustain themselves ends at the edge of metro
| areas. Neither pols, nor press nor most of us are interested in
| a meaningful way.
|
| To be clear, my assertion isn't an invitation to pit the rural
| poor against the urban poor. It's to highlight how Americans
| tend to be particular about which Americans merit their
| concern. For schlubs like me, that might be understandable. But
| for those folks who's actual job it is to look out for everyone
| - rarely caring about the welfare of some Americans (who are in
| real and sustained trouble) is just systemic neglect.
| ska wrote:
| > Neither pols, nor press nor most of us are interested in a
| meaningful way.
|
| I'm not sure that's true - it's just that overall people are
| much more interested in cheap food. Agriculture has been
| pulled into a race for the bottom here for a while, and small
| farms & rural communities are a nearly unavoidable casualty.
|
| The basic math here is easy, the moment labor becomes a
| significant contribution there is pressure to reduce it,
| which means either worse pay for the same work, or figuring
| out how to be more productive with less labor (automation,
| scaling) or a mixture of both.
|
| Overall there is a lot of concern with being able to keep a
| food supply going, but that doesn't' translate to caring
| about e.g. family farms remaining viable.
| CSSer wrote:
| For those curious, CAFO stands for "Concentrated Animal Feeding
| Operation". I was unfamiliar with the term and had to look it
| up.
|
| See link for more details (found in Wikipedia sources) [0]:
|
| > A CAFO is another EPA term for a large concentrated AFO
| [animal feeding operation]. A CAFO is an AFO with more than
| 1000 animal units (an animal unit is defined as an animal
| equivalent of 1000 pounds live weight and equates to 1000 head
| of beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2500 swine weighing more than
| 55 lbs, 125 thousand broiler chickens, or 82 thousand laying
| hens or pullets) confined on site for more than 45 days during
| the year. Any size AFO that discharges manure or wastewater
| into a natural or man-made ditch, stream or other waterway is
| defined as a CAFO, regardless of size. CAFOs are regulated by
| EPA under the Clean Water Act in both the 2003 and 2008
| versions of the "CAFO" rule.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/plan...
| Sytten wrote:
| Even here in Canada with regulation we see the same consolidation
| happening. The quotas of production have become so expensive that
| it is not possible to start from scratch. In the case of my
| familly the cows were sold in 1989 because it was either growing
| the farm or selling.
|
| Now we produce only corn & soybean and despiste our ~100 acres it
| is not enough to sustain one person without a side job. There is
| not much money to be made in agriculture for small farms, that's
| why I am a software engineer.
| blowski wrote:
| One of the main characters in Serotonin (Michel Houellbecq, 2019)
| is a French dairy farmer watching his family's business slowly go
| bankrupt. It's a ficitonal version of a simlar set of events,
| causes and consequences.
| belorn wrote:
| There were a news article this fall about how demand for more
| ecological produced dairy and meat has gone down while public
| opinion about ecological produced dairy and meat has gone up. The
| explanation provided there is that while people increasingly care
| more about how the dairy and meat is produced, those same people
| are also reducing their consumption.
|
| This seems to be an area where pollution control and stricter
| regulation in regard to animal health is required in order to see
| improvements. In addition, human trafficking has become common
| practice in many cheap labor industries, to the point where the
| police has stopped investigating because otherwise they would
| have no resources to spend on areas which are more politically
| valuable. Many workers are forced to work or end up not getting
| paid, and then scared into avoiding the police in fear of
| violence. Work safety and health care rarely exist, and in the
| case of farm workers and construction there is few if any support
| system to help victims.
| corty wrote:
| Also, ecological production has suffered several scandals,
| quality problems and marketing snafus that have lead to it
| decreasing in popularity or getting less ecological:
|
| E.g. there have been scandals around contaminated ecological
| ("Bio-" in Germany) eggs because chicken droppings more easily
| contaminate eggs when nests and cages are larger and more free-
| range. Ecological vegetables had acceptance problems because
| the lack of pesticides meant that the looks were less appealing
| in the supermarket, leading to the increased use of "green"
| pesticides (that is, "naturally occuring" poison) and barrier
| methods that harm wildlife like nets and foils. Ecological meat
| has also consistently over-promised and under-delivered on the
| customer-apparent quality of the product. You just don't notice
| if the steak you are eating came from a happy cow...
| belorn wrote:
| I fully agree there exist problem with the ecological
| branding, and with eggs in particularly the standard is a bit
| shoehorned. In eu, ecological egg is mostly about how many
| chicken live per m^2, which is non-obvious by the name.
|
| For non-ecological egg in EU, the minimum standard is 16 hens
| in the small space of 6 cm^2 minimum per hen and cage. That
| to me is animal cruelty. Ecological egg has a minimum
| requirement of 6 hens per m^2 when inside, no battery cages,
| access to daylight 24/7 and outside access for half the year
| and then with 4m^2 per hen.
|
| There is also addition requirements for the feed but it feels
| so much less important than simply not having a cage where
| each hen has 6cm to stand on.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >>> In addition, human trafficking has become common practice
| in many cheap labor industries, to the point where the police
| has stopped investigating because otherwise they would have no
| resources to spend on areas which are more politically
| valuable.
|
| I'm sorry what.
| belorn wrote:
| It was in the local news a year or so back. If they go to any
| construction site, they will find so many cases that they
| won't have resources to do any other work related
| investigations for the rest of the year. As such they decided
| to stop doing it for the unforeseen future. From the
| politicians, they mostly want the companies to self regulate.
| Human trafficking for labor is costly to enforce and is not
| something which wins votes, and the shortage in low wage
| workforce has trickle down effects on political goals that
| they do care about.
|
| The situation is very similar in areas of farming (as the
| article describes), fishing, foresting, and cleaning.
| rtrdea wrote:
| What?
| jpollock wrote:
| In New Zealand, the average dairy herd size on the South Island
| is 611 (414 nationally).
|
| In Wisconsin, it's 150.
|
| Looks like there's a lot of room for consolidation in Wisconsin.
|
| https://www.jsonline.com/in-depth/news/special-reports/dairy...
|
| http://www.siddc.org.nz/about-siddc/south-island-dairying/
| [deleted]
| u678u wrote:
| lots of farms in the US have 1000+ cows.
|
| > According to the USDA's 2017 Census of Agriculture report,
| which is published every five years, most US milk cows (55%)
| reside on farms that milk over 1,000 cows. This is in contrast
| to twenty years earlier
|
| https://research.rabobank.com/far/en/sectors/dairy/Changing-...
| intrasight wrote:
| If an article was titled "On the death of my family social media
| service" would resonate? I assume not. Wouldn't these also be
| true: labor of love; work 24-7; can't take a vacation. Why does
| our society treat family farms differently than other businesses?
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