Food Dialogues
Comment on Question
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Eliminate factory farms!! Implement organic community farms across this country; small community farms within the community; implement raising farm fish & clams on these farms; thank you.
Author: gailflaherty@yahoo.com
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Topic: Food Safety
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18
Vote
USFRA believes that there is a place for all types of farms in this country – big or small, conventional or organic - and that it takes a combination of solutions to continue to provide healthy choices for people everywhere.
Hey Gail,
Some of us are working in that direction, but it isn't easy to buck the establishment. I can't even find a local landlord to part with his precious "VACANT SPACE." I drive down the road, and the factories are empty.
My local industrial areas are ghost towns, and people wonder why the American economy is doing poorly. Land owners won't subdivide and allow smaller businesses like you propose. That's OK with me. I won't be paying their property taxes, and I can wait for them to wake up and smell the recession.
I have to agree, I do not purchase meat that has been raised in tiny cages all its life, I no longer eat eggs after finally realizing how male chicks are culled and killed. I tell everyone who will listen about this issue. Will I make a dent in the reduction of purchases of meat/eggs? Maybe in my own small way.
As much as I sympathize with your viewpoint, the immediate elimination of all factory farms is simply not feasible, although I do believe that they will ultimately be phased out naturally of their own accord.
Why? Comments from this thread provide a clue - many of us are tired of megaconglomerates dictating what we eat, choosing harmful ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup or genetically modified organisms over more natural and healthy ingredients because they are cheaper, and choosing profit over public welfare.
The deciding factor, though, will be economics. As chemically based farmers find their petroleum-based chemicals more expensive and harder to come by, not to mention declining yields from their use over time, more and more farmers will choose more natural methods because they are, in the end, the only methods that truly feed the soil, and thus the crops grown therein.
I would not agree with Keyspoet concerning the elimination of large growing farms being eliminated because they can produce a large quantity of protein and protein products at one time with the lowest cost per pound. The only way they would be phased out is if they are unable to produce "live, wholesome pounds" which is how they get paid. As for high fructose corn syrup, it is just another form of sugar. Studies have shown that GMOs are just as safe and natural as any other ingredients otherwise they would not find their way into the food supply. I find it hard to believe that crop yields are decreasing due to chemical use. Crop yields have increased substantially in the past few years due to genetic selection (GMOs) and will continue to increase in years to come.