The Stockman: Redux

You may recall from a previous blog, my wonderful counterpart – the ACTIVIST- ventured over valley and dale to the back roads of Georgia in order to pay a visit to a man whom we count as an ally to Vital Awareness: Mr. Will Harris and his agricultural promised land White Oak Pastures. The praises and exultations she sang were nothing short of reverent. This of course meant that the cynic in me – damn you philosophy degree- had to see this for my self in order to make sure the glasses through which she viewed were not simply rose tinted.

A few weeks ago, I too prevailed the same terrain – with Gillian in toe- and was overjoyed in the discovery that the glass was crystal clear. Will and White Oaks Pastures is everything it is cracked up to be. I was greeted by a man whose demeanour was nothing short of radiant; a good ole boy with a heart of gold possessing a spark of piss, vinegar and ethic of hard work and firm love. Not bad for a first impression, eh?

Will is a gem of a man. Thus, since Gillian provided you with information about the operation of White Oak Pastures in such masterly detail I shall endeavour to conduct this blog upon a more personal level and talk about Will the man and the farmer, as it is his spirit that is the driving force behind White Oaks.

After exploring the new organic garden and both the Beef and Poultry processing plants –including the killing floor, an environment so efficient and sterile it was hard to believe it had been utilised only a day before- we clambered into Will’s trusty jeep and set off to venture the bountiful acres of the farm. The land that comprises White Oak Pastures is compelling. Will has ensured the environment is given full reign: nature is, as it would appear, as nature does.  What White Oak Pastures, and what Will subsequently stands for, is an affront against Big Agriculture, where the unfortunate majority of our current meat and dairy supply comes from. White Oak Pastures meat can be purchased and enjoyed at Whole Foods, Yeah! Burger, Buckhead Beef and Publix. White Oak Pastures is a model that stands up to Tyson, Perdue and Smithfield (the largest meat suppliers in the industry) and doesn’t only play with the big boys but can give them a run for their money. White Oak shows that common market consumption doesn’t mean cutting corners on environmental, worker or animal welfare. Instead, it is possible to produce on a commercial scale and still maintain the utmost of integrity: and that is why Will is my own personal hero.

So back to Will the man and the rancher. Why I love Will Harris is, that despite his confidence and charm, the humility towards his animals and the environment is apparent right out of the gate. He is a man who is not afraid to testify his weakness at the feet of Mother Nature. Passing the chickens- squawking, pecking and scratching at their leisure- I noticed a group of hawks circling scanning the field for a meal. I quizzed Will as to his stance on this and his reply floored me. I should probably tell you that Will isn’t some city slicker like myself wanting to rough it and make good, he is a famer from way back. His pappy and grand pappy and great grand pappy were all farmers, he knows the drill and he knows the trends and he ain’t ashamed to admit he is a “good ole’ boy from the south”.  However, during what Will describes as a midlife crisis of sorts he woke up to the realisation that perhaps the way he was doing things, they way his father and grandfather did things and the training he received through the UGA animal husbandry program, just didn’t feel right somehow.

This wake up call prompted him to radically change his farming practices… although Will admits it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Like anyone who suddenly has a eureka moment, one has a tendency not to think things through and Will was no exception. Apparently, it isn’t quite as straight forward as releasing the herd onto pastures green…especially when there isn’t much green there to start with. Thus began a long struggle with assimilating the herd and a nasty battle with Nitrogen Phosphate addiction – thankfully Will has been in recovery for a while now- as Will battled to move away from a lifetime of conventional agriculture and animal husbandry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ccDb6n5Wg&ob=av2etowards what he believes -and what proves to be- the only form of farming that truly stands for sustainable and ethical practices.  Yet, Will prevailed. He stuck to it and admits that farming is and always has been a journey and not a destination. After establishing his herd and his farm, Will began to bring more animals into his proverbial fold (pun intended).  Will practices the Serengeti method of farming: his pastures consist of large ruminants (cows), smaller ruminants (sheep and goats- the goats are a bit of a bug bear for our good friend: twice we were forced to begrudgingly herd them back into there assigned pasture; I suppose that is what happens when there are no fences) and fowl.  As the larger ruminants are moved to another pasture, the smaller come and graze on different grasses and then finally birds and fowl feed off the bugs and insects that remain. It is a rich and simple method of farming inspired, obviously, by the harmony of the African grasslands and the only method of livestock farming that Will would ever consider practicing.

Will has received a lot of flack for his growing selection of livestock. Folks misunderstand his intentions it would appear, chalking his enthusiasm toward increasing species variety to greed and a way to get his fingers in more of the proverbial pies. Now, don’t get me wrong, Will is a business man and is doing this for profit, but that is not why he chose the Serengeti method as his desired method. Will has a deep respect for his animals, the environment and the often times brutal truth of the natural order. In fact he stated that he would sooner go back to using chemical fertilizers before he would even consider reverting to mono-culture farming, and he ain’t gonna do that anytime soon!

Like I said before, Will –despite his larger than life personality and wit- has a deep humility for enormity of nature.

So back to Wills answer regarding the hawks and as to whether he worried about predation? His answer was that of a man with a profound respect for the omnipotence of the earth. Some chicks and chickens will be taken away by a hawk, but Will believes and hopes that those that do were weaker and perhaps would not have survived anyhow. He has this same faith when it comes to his waterfowl and the ‘gators who reside in the murky depths of his on site lake. For Will, Hawks aren’t his biggest problem; Hawks kill one single bird at a time, whereas the Coyotes who prowl the outskirts of the farm kill indiscriminately hence his need for the Great Pyrenees lounging the fields. The beautiful Great Pyrenees are a more preferable option to traps and guns.

Never have I had the good fortune to meet a man who has the deep appreciation and empathy towards the natural order. To talk with Will is to talk not only to a bastion of farming but a warden of the earth. Will works to maintain harmony with nature and honour her power.

Vital Awareness has no bigger advocate than Will Harris, and in turn he has no stronger supporter than Vital Awareness.  He his a man I hold in no higher esteem. When Farmer, Foodie and Vegan can work together in a cause that has such an impact on the welfare of this planet and its inhabitants, well it’s a beautiful thing baby!

So, shop ethically, shop mindful and do me a favour: give Will Harris a call. In short, stay true, stay real and stay humble… cos its all about good eatin’ y’all.

Love always THE EPICUREAN

Action Alert for Organic Standards

 Below is an action alert newsletter from the Georgians For Pastured Poultry - we need to take action to improve the organic standards in the U.S. - please read this and sign the petition which will go directly to the NOSB (National Organic Standards Board).

Action Alert!
Behind closed doors, the world’s two largest organic markets have entered into an ‘equivalency agreement’. This so-called equivalency means that organic farm animal welfare products from the US can be sold as organic in the EU, and vice versa.

What’s the problem? Put simply, they are not equivalent. As they stand, US organic standards fall far below standards with regards to animal welfare when compared to EU standards. The US standards as they stand allow practices that would not only be non-organic in the EU, but would in some cases actually be illegal on welfare grounds.

How can this be ‘equivalent’? We must take action. In a matter of weeks this agreement will come into effect.

This is a major setback for animal welfare around the world. However, there is the chance we can turn it into an opportunity. to make a difference. At the end of May, the US National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will be discussing revising these standards. We must urge the NOSB to raise the US standards to make them truly equivalent to EU standards. They need to put farm animal welfare first.

Compassion in World Farming will be there to urge for higher animal welfare standards. We will be demanding that urgent revisions be made in order to meet consumer expectations and farm animal welfare needs.

You can help us:
*   Please submit comments online directly to the NOSB voicing your concern by May 3. Ask them to strengthen the species specific guidance documents for assessing animal welfare. You need only complete the “required”fields on the contact information form and enter “citizen” in the Organization Name box.

Sample Comment:
     I am writing to comment on the Livestock Committee’s proposed guidance documents forassessing animal welfare. While we appreciate the efforts that have been made to date, we would like to strongly urge the Committee to continue its efforts of improving the standards so that they meet up to expected standards for organic production and indeed meet up to recognized good farm animal welfare practice.
     We are deeply concerned with regard to the recent equivalency agreement between the EU and the USA regarding organic standards. There are some very significant differences between the EU and USA organic standards with regard to farm animal welfare as the standards currently stand. While we appreciate improvements are being proposed,  USA organic standards with regard to farm animal welfare are by no means equivalent to the EU organic standards as they stand.  EU consumers will be very concerned when this comes into effect in June and may as such largely reject US organic farm animal products until they are truly equivalent.
     With this in mind, we urge the committee to continue to work to revise the national organic standard in order so that they meet farm animal welfare needs and the expectations of consumers.

In addition to the revisions that have already been recommended, we ask you to include the following in the guidance:


1.  Minimum indoor and outdoor space allowances for turkeys, geese and ducks should be increased, and geese should be given access to adequate water for bathing and head dunking.
2.  The guidance  should recommend gas stunning over electric stunning for poultry to avoid removal from transport crates, shackling and inverting of conscious birds.
3.  For the weaning of sheep, guidance should raise minimum weaning age to 45 days; current limit is 5 weeks (35 days). Weaning of bison should preferable be natural, or as a minimum 3 months of age.
4.  Sheep should not be allowed to be transported before one week of age.

Making these modifications will increase animal welfare and help bring the care of animals under the organic program closer to what consumers expect of the label, and closer to achieving true equivalency with EU standards.

To submit your comments online, click here.

Please share this with family, friends, and co-workers, and encourage them to submit a comment, too. Thank you!

~ THE ACTIVIST

West Wind Farms

One evening in the Tennessee hills a good 15 years or so ago Kimberlie and Ralph Cole were sitting on the porch of their newly acquired farmhouse surveying their land - one hundred acres of pasture, scrub and trees; a strong wind was blowing in from the west and at that moment West Wind Farms was born.

Exciting as this was, trepidation was not far behind.  Both Kimberlie and Ralph had  'day jobs' as environmental research scientists in the city of Oakville and here they were out in the boonies of TN about to embark on a life altering journey.

Photo from West Wind Farms' website

 West Wind Farms is set just outside Deer Lodge TN and according to a historical description of the town "The climate is charming. The water is pure and soft [and]...The wild lands are covered with an indigenous grass on which, cattle, sheep or horses thrive and fatten". 

...Perfect farming conditions.

The prompt to buy the farm and land came from a realisation - that working to earn money to pay the bills and buy life's essentials seemed to be an inefficient way of living - it began to make more and more sense to cut out the middle man, as it were, and provide their own necessities.  So...some land to grow vegetables and to graze livestock were what they needed, and this led them to cashing in their nest egg and buying the farm that has now become their homestead, their livelihood and their lifestyle.

Both the Coles maintained their jobs and spent a few gruelling years juggling jobs, farming and commuting, often getting by on only a couple of hours sleep.  I am sure there were many moments when nature didn't cooperate, when sleep seemed like a far distant dream, when animals were sick and needy, when they were scraping the bottom of the financial barrel, when their fixer-upper farmhouse was not getting fixed up that they thought "what the heck were we thinking of..."

But hard-work, sheer determination and their vision kept them going.  

They grew a few crops and vegetables to eat, raised chickens for meat and eggs, and kept a cow or two for milk.  After a while they were producing more chickens than they could eat and began selling their chickens to neighbours and friends in the locale.  It turned out that their chicken was really good and their small customer base just couldn't get enough. It seemed like they were rearing and producing  quality food and perhaps could eventually make a living out of this!! 

Their professions equip them to make use of the geology of the land and environmental resources, and it transpired that a wonderful geological nugget came with the land  - the mineral rights to a natural gas source.  What could be better for a couple of environmental scientists?  So harnessing their natural gas and solar power, West Winds is now almost energy self-sufficient.  I must admit for me it was a first, and a most impressive experience being taken on a farm tour by Kimberlie in their natural gas powered farm truck!  The Coles are thrilled that they can make their sought after deliveries and trips to farmers markets without making a dent in their carbon footprints.

So to the animals - pigs, dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep and chickens - all pasture raised in the Tennessee hills.

What at first seemed a daunting amount of land for the Coles to tend and care for is today simply insufficient for their needs and they have acquired extra pasture over the years. Some of which they have purchased, some they rent, and the remainder is on loan from the generosity of neighbours who allow them to share parcels of their land for pasturing their animals. And today the hogs have their own 100 acre wood for foraging and routing.  

As a testament to their commitment, efficiency, and responsible use of land and resources the Coles are able to keep a steady supply of meat flowing into markets in and around Tennessee.  From what I understand the farm is ready to expand into larger markets but is not being given the opportunity - I hope that opportunity comes knocking soon!

West Wind  produces excellent quality pork, beef, lamb, chicken, and milk. Currently there are 26 Jersey dairy cows on their farm, and as well as being the biggest producer of raw milk in the state (through the 'pet' milk and the cow share laws) WWF is also a producer of quality A2 milk, and its amazing how many wholesome pints one can get out of a small pasture raised herd. There is controversy around the healthy and unhealthy aspects of milk.  Milk in its raw state contains the most usable form of protein and minerals which have not been altered or destroyed by the intense heat of pasteurisation - the law varies from state to state as to the permissible retail sale of raw milk (this Raw Milk 'Map' was last updated in 2010 and I am assuming is still current).  But to add to that the talk now seems to be about A1 versus A2 milk!!  In a nutshell, A2 milk is considered better for one's health than A1.  The former comes from the older breeds such as Guernsey and Jersey cows, the latter from Holsteins - unfortunately Holstein milk is the most prolific in the U.S. because Holstein's are big milk producers: in other words you get more milk per pound from a Holstein than a Jersey. So if you aren't able to get raw milk or the thought of drinking unpasteurized milk scares you then I guess you should make sure the milk you drink is the A2 variety.  Guernsey cow's milk is the highest in A2 proteins, and Jerseys come in next.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of talk of it in the U.S. but check out UK and Australian websites if you want more information, or read my up-coming Dairy Blog.

 I keep going back to this point...but from a personal standpoint, for me THE ACTIVIST, the jury is still out as to whether the dairy industry can really be considered humane in view of the fact that the calves are taken away from their mothers within days or hours of being born.  This is a cyclical trauma for the cow and you can read about some of my concerns in my blog on Sweet Grass Dairy. I have been promising a dairy blog for a while now - honestly I will get to it, I just need to do more research (and a bit more soul searching, I guess).  Ralph Cole explained that at West Wind Farms they have tried various methods of breaking the cow/calf bond and in their experience they felt that the kindest 'cut' was to remove the calf within a few hours, rather than leaving baby and mother together longer than 24 hours.  But all that being said I believe that the dairy herds like those at Sweet Grass Dairy and West Wind Farms are treated as humanely as possible under the constraints of operating a viable dairy business.

WWF is a closed farm  - this means that the animals are born on the farm and stay on the farm till they die - of old age for the breeders/milkers/layers or taken to slaughter for the meat livestock.  Which brings me to another point - slaughtering. I have already touched on the inadequacies and often abusive conditions in USDA approved abattoirs in my blog on White Oak Pastures: The Stockman and The Vegan,  and the Coles (I am assuming sharing concerns similar to mine) have, after careful research, been unable to find any processing facilities in Tennessee or neighbouring Georgia that meet their high standards for slaughtering and processing.   Currently the chickens are taken to an Amish abattoir in Illinois a couple of states to the northwest, and the rest of the meat livestock to a facility in the neighbouring state of Missouri.  This is a sad reflection on the state of the slaughtering facilities in the U.S., no matter how humanely a farmer raises his livestock the end is for the most part out of his or her control;  and for the animals in many of the slaughter facilities in the U.S. it is often undignified and frequently cruel (and yes...if I can face it, a blog on the inadequacies of slaughter-houses will follow).  

West Wind Farms meat is available online, farm pick-up, Farmer's Markets in Tennessee and North Georgia, and 22 'host homes' - all the relevant information is available on West Wind Farms' website. We first came across WWF meat products last season at the Brookhaven Farmer's Market in Atlanta and we are happy that it will be available again this season when the market opens on May 5th.

As you will see from West Wind Farms' website although not yet available in 'mainstream' markets it is not too difficult to obtain their products and sample their delights.

Vital Awareness' visit to West Wind Farms was a rewarding experience: West Wind Farms is a wonderful model of what it means to practice humane and truly sustainable methods of farming, whilst maintaining an excellent quality of meat.  ~ THE ACTIVIST

"...lay a little egg for me"

I have often dreamt about waking up to the sound of the
cock crowing, and scrambling some eggs laid by either "Rosie" or "Ethel" who live in my back yard, with maybe a drop of milk from "Daisy" the cow or "Sally" the goat - a dream of pastoral bliss.

Today my story is not about Daisy and Sally, their story will come later, but about Rosie and Ethel the hens (who in my scenario of pastoral bliss are the lucky ones) and their 280 million cousins living in the U.S. (who are not so lucky).

This story begins with "the birds and the bees", and a brief overview of the what, why, and how of eggs.  An egg is a hen's external ovulation and whether it turns into a chick depends whether it is fertilized by a cock ('rooster'). So generally speaking if you are keeping hens for eggs you need to keep the cocks well out of the way until you want some babies.  A hen does not necessarily lay every day and, without going into too much detail, the frequency of laying is due to the time it takes for the hen's yolk to make its way down the oviduct, go through the various processes of being encased in its protective membrane, and finally enclosed in its hard shell before it is laid.  As a guiding average a hen will lay two eggs every 3 days so that's why you need a few hens if you want your daily scramble.  A hen likes to lay her eggs in 'clutches' (batches) and clutch sizes can vary on average from around 12 to 20.  In the natural world a hen will become broody when she has sufficient eggs in her nest and will sit on the clutch to incubate the eggs, whether they have been fertilized or not.  Some breeds get more broody than others and farmers will discourage an overly broody hen as she will not be an efficient layer. On the flip-side of the natural v. unnatural world: as a consequence of genetic engineering in industrialized farming, 'factory' hens have had all the broodiness engineered out of them.  As a farmer friend said to me recently, chickens in factory farms don't know how to be chickens any more.
Now, from time immemorial farmers have been practicing selective breeding and cross breeding to produce the best hybrid hen that is a great layer, adaptive to its climate, and a good forager (this keeps the food bill down and the hen and her egg healthy) - this is part of animal husbandry. Farmers and backyard chicken raisers have used many methods to increase and maintain a good yield of eggs.  Going back to our hen biology lesson: egg laying is part of the reproductive system and is therefore stimulated by hormone levels; hormone levels are influenced by the pituitary gland (the master gland), and the pituitary's efficiency is stimulated by sunlight -  so to cut to the chase - the more daylight a hen gets the more she will lay.  This means that in the summer her laying is higher than in the winter months when the days are shorter. Farmers have been manipulating this fact for decades to ensure a steady annual flow of eggs and have provided 'daylight' lamps in hen coops, probably since the invention of electricity.
A hen's diet is important for peak health and peak laying conditions and she is an omnivore by nature, and will balance her diet naturally when she is allowed to forage, scratch and peck for grass and insects...and all the stuff that the bigger foragers leave behind.  Depending on the quality of the land and time of year, pasture raised hens may need some chicken feed - but this is supplementation and doesn't constitute the full body of the birds' diet.

So we can see that to get the most desirable qualities out of his hens a farmer has a few tools at his disposal.  He can pasture his chickens thereby keeping the chicken food bill to a minimum, rely on selective/cross breeding to produce a chicken that is going to be a good layer, maintain 14 hours of daylight year round to ensure a more consistent supply of eggs, and most importantly be cognisant of the health and welfare of his birds.
A humanely raised hen will provide a good number of eggs each year - 200 -300.  Just a few chickens will provide a daily egg or two, enough for friends and family, and a decent size flock will ensure a commercially viable egg business - all from happy hens.

Now over to the industrialized cousins, the breed known as "the layers".  A very different story (and a very different egg).

The factory-farmed layer has a more miserable existence than its industrialized counterpart - "the broiler"  - impossible as this may seem (check out the plight of the broiler chickens in "Finger Lickin' Good")

So how can this be?  Answer: the hens in the egg industry are simply vessels for the final product - their welfare is of absolutely no importance, and veterinary care is non-existent as the birds are cheap and expendable.  "They suffer from blisters, tumors, foot and leg deformities, Fatty Liver Syndrome, Swollen Head Syndrome, heat stress, mold toxins, mouth ulcers and many other diseases. 

Birds too sick to lay eggs are thrown onto the "dead-pile" and sometimes in the manure pit - dead or alive.
Currently there are more than 280 million laying hens in the U.S. living in these unsanitary, inhumane and cramped conditions inside metal cages; ninety-five percent of the eggs available in the U.S.  come from these "houses of horror".  Hens are squeezed between four to six in a cage, with each one recieving a space just half the size of an A4 sheet of paper.  The hens stand on the thin wire of their cages their whole lives, the metal often cuts into their feet and it is not uncommon for their claws to grow around the metal wire.  The hens can barely turn around and certainly cannot stretch their wings, and they must stick their heads through the wire mesh of the cage to reach water and feed. The cages are stacked one on top of each other and their bodily excrements pass through the cages into manure pits at the bottom of the tiered cages.

 Toxic ammonia fumes rise from the decomposing uric acid in the manure pits beneath the cages resulting in eye problems and chronic respiratory disease in millions of battery hens, and from a human health standpoint studies have shown that even at low concentrations significant quantities of ammonia can  be absorbed into the egg. A day in the life of an industrialized laying hen is the same as it was yesterday and the same as it will be tomorrow - cramped, uncomfortable, boring at best and excruciatingly painful at worst.
 A Day in the Life of a Battery Hen: "It is summer, and the hen feels too warm, and uncomfortable. Her instincts tell her to scratch out an area of fine, dry soil and dustbathe in it to keep cool. She is so desperate to do this that she goes though the motions on the bare wire floor of the cage lying on her side, scratching the cage floor, rubbing her head and neck on the floor, opening her wings and damaging her feathers. But she cannot dustbathe, so she simply pants to dissipate heat and takes out her frustration on her four cage-mates by pecking them" -
Naturally the hens become bored and aggressive - who wouldn't - cooped up in claustrophobic cages; and so industrialized chicken producers have chosen to minimize the problem of fighting by debeaking and toe trimming.

These mutilations are carried out without the use of anaesthetic and are extremely painful procedures for the chicks, and the birds continue to suffer pain and problems with their shorn beaks for the remainder of their lives.
A factory farmed hen is genetically engineered and environmentally manipulated to lay many more eggs than nature intended. A hen starts life with all the makings of thousands of undeveloped eggs inside her body - more than she will ever lay: (now, to my unscientific brain, I wonder - is this is one of the aspects of hens' biology that the scientists harness when they genetically engineer hens to lay more than they would in natural circumstances?)  Whatever/however, it goes without saying that this excessive laying creates untold hardships on the hens. Shells are made up of calcium which the hen provides from her skeleton, but her expenditure of calcium far exceeds her 'income' and factory farmed hens suffer from osteoporosis, with their legs becoming "so brittle they snap like twigs".

When a hen's egg production slows down it is often forced into a laying bonanza through a cruel system known as 'forced-molting'. A system so cruel that it has been banned in most European countries for the last twelve years. To explain what forced-molting is I need to go back to the biology lesson.  Like other birds the hen goes through a molting period once a year. During molting the hens will stop laying, then, when the lost feathers have been replaced the hen will resume laying with vigor. So industrial chicken producers capitalize on the post-molting period by tricking the hen's body into a non-seasonable molting through manipulating her hormones. How do they do this? Answer: through food deprivation (average 12 days) and water deprivation (3 days - any longer and they would die).

 The vigorous post-molting laying eventually slows down and so the hen can be put through this procedure more than once until the producer is sure she is spent, then she wil be slaughtered and what little flesh is remaining on her frame will most likely end up in baby food. Needless to say 'forced-molting' causes tremendous stress and suffering for the hen, and the United Poultry Concern has campaigned long and hard to get a ban on this practice. Fortunately the USDA has enforced some changes to this practice, but unfortunately these changes have not gone far enough - rather than being completely starved the hens are now semi-starved through an administration of minimum amounts of nutrients and a little water. Still extremely undesirable but hopefully a step in the right direction toward a total ban on the practice.

As I pointed out earlier a hen's laying cycle is dependent on daylight and  farmers provide lamps to maintain 14 hours of daylight steadily throughout the year to maintain a regular supply of eggs.  Being concerned about the welfare of the hens we asked Matthew O'Hayer from Vital Farms how demanding was this 'year-round summer' to the hens. He assured us in an email that from an "animal welfare standpoint...I have not observed a difference between hens that are provided with supplemental lighting and those that are not...Also organizations like Certified Humane and Global Animal Partnership...have not noted any issues pertaining to such small amounts of extended lighting".  During the hours of darkness, the hens reproductive system slows down and results in the average 2 eggs every 3 to 4 days that I mentioned previously.
The difference for factory-farmed hens is that for them the lights never go out, and the hens' "reproductive organs [are] ravaged by the continuously burning light bulbs in the [sheds] to which hens' bodies respond involuntarily by trying to form eggs [in this permanent 'daytime']" - United Poultry Concerns.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the male chicks that are born in the industrialized egg industry? Only a very small number are needed for their semen supply; so being superfluous to needs, day old male chicks are thrown live into a grinding machine and macerated for fertilizer (picture a wood chipper and you get an idea), or else they are dumped into plastic bags and allowed to die of suffocation or dehydration in dumpsters.

Leaving aside the animal welfare aspects of factory farmed 'layers' for a moment,  what about the end product of all of this - the eggs themselves?  Eggs have been given a bad rap over the years because of their purported high cholesterol content, however, eggs produced by naturally pasture-reared hens are healthy and have the right balance of the essential fatty acids of omegas 3 and 6. The health problems arise from eating the unhealthy eggs produced by hens raised on unnatural diets in an unnatural habitat. Factory eggs are much higher in omega 6 and because the Standard American Diet is already too high in omega 6 (15-20 times higher than it ought to be) there is a serious imbalance that can lead to heart disease, high cholesterol, and many of our degenerative diseases.

So whatever our concerns are - animal welfare or a quality product - we have to change the way our eggs are produced. So what can we do to help change the face of the egg industry? Change begins at the grass roots level with the consumer.  Consumers can demand ethically and humanely raised eggs with their food dollar by buying pasture raised eggs from supermarkets and farmer's markets. Consumers need to get to know their local egg farmer, research egg suppliers and find out the farmers/producers who are pasture raising their flocks sustainably and humanely.  This information is available from websites such as Animal Welfare Approved,   Eat Wild,  American Grass Fed,  and Local Harvest.  One national supplier who has a top billing from the Cornucopia Institute and Wholefoods 5-Step Rating System is Vital Farms. Whenever you see Vital Farms stamped on the egg carton you can be rest assured that you are buying a quality product that has been humanely and sustainably produced.
Buy pasture raised eggs, and support animal welfare groups such as Compassion In World Farming and  Vital Awareness to help us in the campaign to change the way our food is raised and produced.

Producers such as Vital Farms have proven that ethical, humane and sustainable egg production on a larger scale is possible, and can still be a viable and profitable business. With the right farming practices everyone and everything benefits - from the farm animals to human and environmental health.

Make sure that your morning 'sunny-side up' is truly the sunny-side up.

                                                                                                                                 - THE ACTIVIST

Sweet Grass Dairy

I can't believe that it is a year since Vital Awareness visited Sweet Grass Dairy in south Georgia.

Sweet Grass Dairy is an artisanal producer of wonderful cow and goats cheese, and is a fine example of a successful cottage industry, proving that big is not often better.  We first came across Sweet Grass cheese at WholeFoods Market in Atlanta and wanted to see first hand the animals and the dairy and meet with the farmers and cheese makers. The milk which goes into the cheese is taken directly from their own herds - the goats at Sweet Grass and the cows at Green Hill Dairy just a few miles away.

The dairy is operated by Jessica and Jeremy Little with Jeremy as master cheese-maker; the cows are raised by Jessica's parents Deisree and Al Wehner at Green Hill Dairy.

LaMancha: especially suited to the
heat. Its distinguishing feature his its small ears

We arrived at the dairy on a cool and grey day in March 2011 just around milking time and were immediately impressed by the calm and what appeared to be a stress-free milking procedure for the does.  Approximately 150 goats live on 140 acres of pasture and woodland and the herd is rotated frequently so no one area becomes barren.  The coolness of that March day is far removed from the blistering heat of Georgia summers and because of this and the sandy earth of the local terrain there is insufficient protein and nutrients in the grass and scrub and so the goat's diet is supplemented with a mixture of corn, citrus rind, molasses, and vitamins and minerals.  However, 80 -90 % of their feed comes directly from the land. The goats are milked twice daily and usually have a dry spell between November and January when the goats can rest and recoup.

Green Hill Dairy Cow

Over at Green Hill Dairy there are around about 500 jersey cows sharing 260 acres of pasture - considerably more space than their factory-farmed counterparts kept in cramped, unhealthy, and unnatural conditions, often with the dairy producer operating on a zero-pasture protocol.
This picture of pastoral bliss that you see on the right was not always the picture at Green Hill Dairy.  The Wehner's were conventional dairy farmers, that is, they conformed to the industrialized methods of dairy production.  Then in 1993 Deiree and Al Wehner did a 180 degree shift and changed their lifestyle, AND their farming methods to a more humane and sustainable method of farming. One thing that Desiree realized was that quality milk and dairy products begin at grass roots level i.e literally right in the soil. So they began to focus on organic methods of mineralizing the soil which led them to the New Zealand method of allowing earth to rest through a system of rotational grazing, with a 60 day resting period for the animals.  According to SSAWG (Southern Sustainable Agricultural Working Group) Desiree once said that "[their cows] could stand belly-deep in...beautiful pasture [and still be] bellowing with hunger" - hence the focus on good healthy soil producing good healthy grass.
Because of the temperate climate in southern Georgia the herds at Sweet Grass and Green Hill Daires are pastured 365 days a year.
In the conventional farrming system low producers and spent cows are turned into hamburger meat, and usually the arduous life of a dairy cow means that the animals arrive at this stage at around four years old, having spent a life living on concrete and having been literally milked to death. Pasture/humanely raised dairy cattle like those living at Green Hill, can live into their teens. This leads me to a point of difference between Jessica and me as she believes that it is only the industrialized cows treated with rBHT growth hormones that are milked to death - however my research leads me to believe that all factory raised dairy cows are pretty much "milked to death" - they become 'milk machines', through genetic modifications, intense farming practices and high energy fodder.  In conventional (industrialized) dairy, the cows get a period of rest but only for the last couple of months of pregnancy which means that for the first 7 months of their pregnancy cows are still being milked despite carrying a calf. Jessica disagrees with me on this point and believes that cows would not be able to attain the required weight if they were milked during pregnancy.  My research continues...however,  the fact that the life expectancy of a factory raised dairy cow is a quarter of its pasture raised counterpart speaks volumes.

Sweet Grass keeps about 10-20% of its kids (and only the does) and the bucks go to goat farms and are raised for meat. I believe that because goat farming is not part of the industrialized farming system and, although natural farming is no guarantee for humane treatment, one hopes that it has to be considerably better than the unatural and inherently cruel methods of conventional factory farming. Nicolette Hahn from Niman Ranch Farm wrote "one advantage to eating goats meat is that this is a non-industrialized part of the meat sector...goat is probably the most environmentally friendly of all meats".
The calves at Green Hill Dairy are not raised for veal but are most likely 'finished' for beef but until that point they are raised in social groups out in pasture (socialization is very important for cattle).  In industrialized dairy the fate for male dairy calves is either to be killed shortly after birth as 'bob' veal or to be raised in confinement for 28 weeks then slaughtered for their soft white meat.  This "soft white meat" comes at a price but this is for a later blog "Samuel": the Forgotten Story of Industrialized Dairy.
I have spoken with dairy farmers outside of the industrialized sector and the consensus is that to be commercially viable the mothers cannot suckle their young whilst at the same time providing milk for the dairy business. This means that the babies are taken away from their mothers shortly after birth - from hours to a few days. Reasons? From what I understand I don't believe that it is solely from a quantity point of view as calves and kids are bottle and bucket fed milk directly from the dairy.
These are a couple of the arguments which have been put forward:-
- that mothers will hold onto their milk for their young and are reticent about letting it down for the milker.
- that the calves can be sometimes quite rough on the mother's teats and blood can can get into the milk supply from minor wounds.
Some farmers believe that it is less distressful if the calves are removed from their mothers within hours as less of an attachment is made between mother and baby, this was the comment from a farmer I met recently who had tried several different separation methods - hours, days and a week, and he believed that the first of these methods appeared to be the least stressful. Cows make very good mothers and very strong bonds are made between mothers and babies immediately after birth. So my concern at this juncture is - even in a sustainable and humane system how humane can dairy farming actually be?
However this is a blog about the cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy and the blog about dairy will be forthcoming.
So back to Sweet Grass - despite my final point of consternation our visit to Sweet Grass Dairy was a most positive and rewarding experience. Aside from producing an exceptional product, it is a place of compassion - an example of how in farming mutual respect can exist between beast and man. It inspired hope that there are farmers and food producers who care about the integrity of their product and that it doesn't have to be a choice between a healthy product or a healthy bank ledger. It inspired hope that more farmers are becoming disgusted or disillusioned, and are turning away from agri-business: and are returning to the animal husbandry and the centuries old methods of farming. It inspires hope that, albeit in the distant future, "conventional farming" will no longer refer to factory farming - which is detrimental to our health, the well-being of animals and the health of the consumer and the environment - and will refer to 'real' farming that is healthy for all.

- THE ACTIVIST

Finger-Lickin' Good ????

Once upon a time.... there was a chicken and it looked like one of these...

 The chicken was one of many breeds: Rhode Island Whites, Plymouth Rock, Sussex, and many more.  It would run free in the farmyard or pasture, forage, peck and scratch at the earth with its claws and beak, dustbathe, sunbathe, preen itself, perch, stretch its wings, nest, walk and run.  Busy birds, these chickens!

Today for the most part there are just two kinds of chicken: broilers and layers, and they look something like this..

Both the broiler and the layer have been genetically modified, one to produce large meaty breasts; and the other to lay excessive amounts of eggs. Both have as miserable a life as the other.

This blog is going to look at the 'breed' known as broiler, and at three major problems relating to factory farmed chickens: - animal welfare; human health; and the health of the environment.

So first the broiler chicken and animal welfare. 

Unlike its naturally raised counterpart the broiler is unable to perform its natural behaviours because of the mutilations that are administered to it, and it's constricting environment. Its wings have been clipped, often its toes have been cut, and its beak trimmed.  Debeaking does not in any way equate to nail trimming for humans, it is an extremely painful procedure and can cause pain for the rest of the bird's life. 

The broiler is confined to a windowless shed that is designed to house thousands of birds at one time. This is a KFC chicken supplier and there will be between 30,000 to 40,000 chickens housed in this particular shed and others like it.  

There is only artificial light, no fresh air, and huge fans circulate the stale ammonia filled air. Chicken meat is perfect for our fast food culture.  A producer can 'grow' a chicken within a few weeks with super large breasts, and minimizing overheads through economies of scale (a.k.a. animal abuse) and remitting very poor wages to his/her unskilled employees.

Chicken meat became popular during WW II when availability of beef and pork was scarce.  According to a USDA government fact sheet, in the 1950s Americans were eating an average of sixteen pounds of chicken per person per annum; in 2006 the average American consumed 73lbs of poultry, 60lbs of which was chicken.    Today approximately one million chickens are killed every hour in the U.S. for food - that’s a lot of miserable chickens!!  "In the United States, ten billion land animals are slaughtered for [the food industry].  Four out of five of those animals killed are chickens…A total of eight billion birds". 

So what does a day in the life of a factory farmed broiler chicken look like - as with all industrialized farm animals it is a sordid, ugly and abusive picture.  As I mentioned earlier broilers have been genetically engineered to produce abnormally large breasts at a reduced 'fattening-up’ time - in other words the birds are at their oven-ready weight in half their normal growth cycle.  To put the growth rate of today's chickens into perspective, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture reports "If you grew as fast as a chicken, you'd weigh 349 pounds at age two".  Aesthetically these chickens are mature (lots of plump breast meat) but physically they are still young chicks: their immature organs have a hard time coping with this abnormal weight, and as the birds grow their ability to stand diminishes. Structurally they are unable to support their own body weight and the chickens are forced to spend 76-85% of their lives lying down (watch a pasture raised chicken for a while and see how many times it lies down: not very often).  Usually they become lame, their legs collapse under the strain of the weight and splay into excruciating painful contortions and they will stay like this until they are thrown (quite literally) into packing cages to go to slaughter. 

Crippled Chicken

The fact that the overweight birds spend so much time lying down means that the chickens also suffer skin problems - breast blisters, dermatitis and burns from lying in ammonia rich chicken faeces ('feces' U.S.). Replacing the faecal (fecal) infested chicken litter with clean litter is not a priority and is usually only performed annually. The University of Maryland in a study paper of chicken manure stated that providing the 'caked' litter which accumulates around the water bowl is removed, the 'dry' litter can remain in sheds up to 3 years before it needs to be cleaned out - that's an awful lot of chicken poop resulting in an awful lot of ammonia fumes which leads to blindness for a good number of the chickens kept in these unsanitary conditions.

By the way don’t be fooled by food labels such as “natural” ,“cage-free”, and the like: labelling can be coercive and is very misleading – I will be throwing the light on labelling in a later blog.

Consequences to human health.

Because of their unnatural and unhealthy lifestyles factory broilers carry a plethora of diseases and bacteria.  The birds are so sick when they go to slaughter that the carcasses are treated to a chlorine bath in an attempt to clean up the bird.  However, despite the chlorination 99% of birds reach our supermarkets contaminated with 'poop' and, according to USDA findings, have detectable levels of E. coli; and 60% of industrialized chickens sold in the supermarkets are contaminated with bacteria. According to the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) these bacteria along with other food borne pathogens (generally from other types of diseased factory farmed meat) infect over 3 million Americans every year.  All processing facilities (slaughter-houses) have USDA inspectors on duty whose job is to inspect the birds to ensure that they are safe for human consumption.  Realistically this is a non-starter as a USDA inspector has approximately two seconds to examine each bird inside and out for more than a dozen different diseases and abnormalities.

Journalist Scott Bronstein ran a series of articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution relating to the chicken industry and, after conducting interviews with USDA inspectors from thirty seven plants, reported that "Every week, millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors, or skin conditions are shipped to consumers".   Men's Health magazine ranked supermarket [industrialized] chicken number one on their "10 Dirtiest Foods".  

                                                                                                                 

But before I finish this section I want to point out one very important factor - relatively speaking we are still in the early years of genetic engineering - only time will tell what the far reaching consequences will be of messing around with the genes of an organism. Every time you eat a factory farmed chicken you are taking part in a scientific experiment.  Still fancy that KFC bucket of chicken for lunch?

So what about the damage to the environment  caused by these intense chicken factory farms?  Factory Farming concentrates animals into small areas resulting in extremely high levels of manure in a very limited space.  In the case of broiler chickens, just short of half a million chickens can be housed in less than a square mile. According to Factory Farm Map there are 205 million industrialized chickens in Georgia (that equates to 22 chickens for every one person living in the state).   In Georgia alone industrialized chickens will produce twenty times more untreated manure than the sewage produced in the Seattle metro area.  So what happens to all this manure, where does all the chicken litter go?  Well some of it goes into industrialized cattle fodder (but that is a whole other blog!!!!); the remainder is piled and stored and eventually spread onto the land to use as fertilizer.  

Now apart from the obvious what else is in the chicken litter that is used to fertilize crops for human consumption (and remember that whatever is in the growing soil gets into the heart of the plant and can’t be washed off)?  An arsenal of drugs gets into the growing soil from those that have been fed to factory chickens – some of these include antibiotics to prevent the sick birds from dying before they get to slaughter, and an arsenic based drug to promote growth and give it a ‘healthy’ colour.  Arsenic is arsenic whichever way you look at it and is definitely not good for a person’s health!  However, the good news is that the FDA has finally agreed that feeding arsenic to our chickens is not a good idea and its use was scheduled to be banned in June 2011 (how sick does our nation have to get before the FDA bans the use of other drugs and additives in the food chain?).  So back to our piles of chicken poop: before it is utilized these mounds can reach the height of a three-story building - this means that when it rains, the run-off gets into streams, rivers and ditches polluting our water supply, "Water samples taken from streams and drainage ditches near many poultry CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation] contained high levels of arsenic, E. coli, faecal coliform bacteria, nitrogen and phosphorus".   Tyson et al have been fined millions of dollars for river pollution (but I guess the fines are not much more than a slap on the wrists - otherwise why else would they keep on doing it).

To end this section - ask anyone living near a CAFO, whether it be for chickens, hogs or cattle, and they will tell you that not only is the stench sickening many folks suffer from a host of illnesses including respiratory problems, headaches, dizziness, gastroenteritis, persistent nausea, and a general malaise.

Now here’s the thing: you only need to be concerned about JUST ONE of these three items to take a stand against industrialized farming. Whether it be animal welfare; human health, or the health of the environment FACTORY FARMING IS DEVASTATING AT EVERY LEVEL.

SO, what is the solution?  The large producers/retailers of chicken (e.g. Perdue and Tyson) need your dollars to survive, as do the fast food chicken restaurants such as KFC and Chick-Fil-A (and don't be fooled by the standards set out by the National Chicken Council on the Chick-Fil-A website, they are hardly worth the paper that they are written on).   So we need to use our hard earned dollars to demand change - this is how we speak out collectively. Use your dollars to demand higher standards in food production - support humane, sustainable, and responsible poultry farmers and end your support for the industrialized chicken producers. When we stop supporting them with our food dollar these companies will be forced to change… or go under! 

So how do we support sustainable and humane chicken farmers,  how do we find them? There are a number of websites that provide information on pasture raised poultry farms; these include Animal Welfare Approved,  Eat Wild,  and American Grassfed Association. 

For Georgia folks we have a chance to make a change through the work of Georgians For Pastured Poultry.  In a detailed expose the devastating destruction of Georgia's industrialized chicken production has been revealed, and the findings of GPP is available on their website.  It is the combination of months of work from a team of experts – including amongst its eminent panel, Compassion In World Farming, pastured poultry farmers Will Harris White Oak Pastures and Daniel Dover from Darby Farms, along with legal expertise from GreenLaw  Sign the pledge proffered on the website for GPP and help them make a difference in how poultry is raised and produced.  

For those living outside of Georgia (and for Georgians too!) you can keep abreast through this blogsite and our posts on Facebook.

Make sure that the poultry you buy has been pasture and humanely raised; check out the above websites, and visit your local farmer's market and get to know your farmers.

 Together we can make a difference.  – THE ACTIVIST

References 

-Weeks CA, Danbury TD, Davies HC, Hunt P, and Kestin SC, “The Behaviour of Broiler Chickens and Its Modification by Lameness,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 67 (2000): 111-25

-http://www.chickenout.tv/about-campaign

-Poultry Diseases, Ed. W Jordan, Baliere Tindall 1990

-http://ezinearticles.com/?Supermarket-Chicken-Found-to-Be-Grossly-Contaminated-With-Illness-Causing-Bacteria!&id=3942124

-http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/foodborne_illness

- http://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html