How Food Affects the Environment

Earlier this week was what we call “Earth Day” in the United States. Born from a growing concern for our environment in 1975, Earth Day is fifty-five years old. And while some things have improved environmentally, some have become much worse in the past 55 years. Human interaction with earth’s environment has a dismal track record spanning thousands of years. But mankind has been more effective at destroying the environment in the last hundred years than ever before in history—due to mechanical and chemical farming, along with unprecedented technological advances in other areas of human life. But let me focus, as usual, on food and farming. Deplorable Conditions – Decades-old hardwoods like Ash are dying and will soon be extinct. Soil conditions across the nation are going from deplorable to downright barren, and it’s not even mentioned in the media. In the course of the past eighty years, “feed-the-world” industrial agriculture has eliminated an unparalleled number of plant and animal species (many of which were beneficial in ways we don’t even understand). I’m not saying we shouldn’t strive to feed to world, but the mantra has been used as an excuse for ever-more-abusive agricultural practices, and is still used as such. The Rise of Environmentalism – As a result of this deplorable abuse and destruction, the environmentalist movement has grown exponentially, supported by a real concern for sustaining the environment. That can be expected when people realize that the environment we so enjoy and depend on is being destroyed. This concern is admirable in its own right and translates into growing memberships for environmental organizations like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and many others. While I can see why people express their concern by joining these organizations, I suggest it’s not the most effective means toward actual solutions for the environment. I would go so far as to say more often than not the donation dollars are vastly misguided and/or misused. Macro vs. micro - Environmental degradation is, for the most part, not caused by large-scale events, but by micro decisions made by many individuals on a daily basis. Things like how the farmer decides to use the land in his care—what products he decides to use, how he manages his animals, and so forth. And yes, what the eater decides to eat—where food is sourced and whom it supports. Yes, some or many of these daily actions are instigated or led by misguided government policy, less than stellar information, bad science, etc., but they are still carried out by thousands of people around the country. Modern day environmental organizations are largely focused on the macro level and pay little attention to the micro—or practical everyday—level of stewardship. What’s more, much of the efforts go to what I call “freezing the environment”, which is to say locking it down and making it inaccessible for farming, timbering, or any other stewardship-level of human interaction. There is almost zero effort to educate farmers and consumers—actually, food and farming often isn’t even a priority on environmental organizations agenda. Most of the agenda is about lobbying, changing laws, etc., and not about influencing people to make better daily decisions. Farming for Destruction – I believe food and farming affect environmental degradation in this country more than anything else. Yes, there’s pollution from burning fossil fuels for transportation and manufacturing. There is chemical contamination from commercial endeavors. There’s usurpation on the population level via unbridled consumerism. But wrongly applied food production practices top all of these—both in scale and longevity. Degradation caused by agriculture is not solely due to applying toxic chemicals to the land, although that plays a part. It’s not furthered only by the fact that agriculture is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the United States, although that is true. I suggest most of what has led to present-day ruin stemming from farming and food production is the lack of questioning the status quo. It’s plowing of fields that shouldn’t be plowed—causing erosion. It’s the mindless application of extremely toxic substances like broad spectrum glyphosate-based herbicides—killing soil biology and aquatic life. It’s repeated unmanaged over-grazing of grasslands—causing desertification. As an aside, I believe all the deserts in the world are manmade, and could be made productive again with proper stewardship, responsible management of cattle, and time. I don’t say this solely for the purpose of knocking farmers (I am one, BTW). The abuse of natural resources is caused by many factors ranging from a lack of good information and proper teaching, unquestioned farming tradition, bad government policy, and on and on. We all Eat - But ironically, it’s not merely a farmer problem. As Wendell Berry said, Eating is an agricultural act. If that’s true—and it is—then we’re all culpable for supporting bad agricultural practices in the name of cheap mass-produced food. Yes, we didn’t know. Yes, these things were largely hidden from us. But at the end of the day, we were all naïve and ignorant. We were distracted…unthinking, and were poor stewards. Whether we’re Bible-believing Christians or not, we all have a stewardship mandate. We all want the best for future generations. We want to leave this place better than before we came. And that in itself is a stewardship mandate. Stewardship is more than just farmers out on the land, or loggers, or fishermen. It’s anyone who has a dollar to spend, and how that dollar is spent. Ignorance vs. Responsibility - Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is responsibility. When our natural resources fail, we all suffer. Yes, breaking from the ultra-consumer mindset and making wiser choices is difficult, but we must ask, as a true steward, what’s the alternative? Poor health stemming from eating second-rate food? Dwindling yields when our soils are gone? Importing more and more food from abroad (we’re already at 20% - 1 out of every 5 bites) where we don’t know how it’s raised? Truth be known, there is a consequential tab when a nation usurps its natural resources, and not only is it unbelievably long and pricey, but it’s also not pretty for the population living through it. Let’s apply ourselves to stewarding rather than destroying, conserving rather and usurping, seeking wisdom rather than ignorance. And that’s the View from the Country.

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Avian Flu

Today I will address Avian Flu. I’ve been following the saga for a while but was hesitant to write on the subject because of the vast array of talking points, narratives, and propaganda surrounding it. The waters around this subject are so muddied it’s really difficult to discern what is true and what isn’t, but I’ll present my views for what they’re worth and am willing to stand corrected if someone can show where I’m wrong. Join me in visiting some of the official talking points and I’ll address where I see holes in the narrative. Again, this is my opinion presented as factually as I know how, but some of it is theory and cannot be taken as hard fact. That’s the very problem with subjects of this caliber. They become so highly controversial because of the lack of actual fact, which opens it up to so much nonsensical gibberish and fearmongering that’s it becomes difficult to discuss it with a clear and open mind. The Wild Bird Origin Narrative – The official storyline surrounding avian flu—both the low pathogen strain first circulated 20-25 years ago, and the high-path strain circulating now is that it originates in wild waterfowl (ducks, geese, etc.). To me that sounds highly unlikely. Whenever the narrative places blame on wildlife or nature, I become skeptical, especially coming from conventional confinement agricultural circles, which is the antithesis to nature. My question is, where are the media images and records of dead wild birds. If wild birds are carriers bringing the virus to confinement poultry farms, it’s only reasonable that a considerable percentage of wild birds are dying as well. Interestingly, blaming wild birds fits well with the long-standing concern of biosecurity in confinement poultry production. Biosecurity is a real threat to large-scale confinement chicken facilities, due to the immune suppressing nature of raising so many birds in confinement—not to mention antibiotics and growth hormones, which flies in the face of all things natural and healthy. Suffice it to say that we raise thousands of chickens on our farm pastures, and we spend no brain energy thinking about biosecurity or worrying about wild birds potentially having access to our poultry. The Natural Virus Narrative– This one is highly controversial, but I’ll address it anyway. Avian Influenza—even high-path avian flu—is claimed to be a natural virus that is both highly infectious and highly transmissible. To my knowledge, that would be an anomaly. In nature, viruses are either one or the other. They either wreak havoc to whomever or whatever contracts it, and are not very contagious, or they are highly contagious but not lethal. I won’t theorize too much about this, but it’s known that avian flu viruses have been subject to gain-of-function research for at least a decade, both in the US and abroad. Let me be clear, I’m not saying this is a gain-of-function virus, because I don’t know that to be true. In my mind, though, it’s highly probable. The Cross Speciation Narrative – This is closely related to the previous paragraph but warrants attention of its own. This high-path avian flu is said to have the ability to jump from chickens to cats to cows to humans. As strange as that may sound, I didn’t make it up. Quite frankly, I don’t believe natural pathogens have the ability to cross speciate. It’s one of the checks and balances of nature where pathogens and parasites are specific to one type of host and do not thrive in a different host. Yes, there’s the storyline from the early 20th century of brucellosis (also known as undulant fever) jumping species from cows to humans via raw milk, but that story too, has its highly questionable characteristics. I don’t know enough about it to get into it, but believe it was used as a lever used to push mandatory pasteurization. I’m not saying the high-path H1N1 avian flu is not actually jumping species. I only know that it’s the official narrative and find it highly unlikely that it’s a natural pathogen and has the ability to cross speciate. To me, it’s either not a natural virus or does not jump species. I believe it must be either/or. The PCR Test Protocol – Yes, the infamous PCR test is being used to diagnose avian flu.  This test is the primary tool used to discover bird flu in milk tanks, dairy herds, live chickens, dead chickens, farm cats, and humans. Even the founder of the PCR test, the late Dr. Kary Mullis, was clear that it’s not designed to be used as a diagnostics tool. It was developed for genetic discoveries and research, not for finding disease DNA. I’m sure people smarter than I can tease out these differences but suffice it to say it's the wrong tool.  Even if it were the right tool, it's being applied incorrectly. Each cycle is like a microscope amplification.  Remember turning microscope lenses from 35X to 100X? Each cycle of a PCR test amplifies magnification to find additional material floating in the sample. The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture discounts any test at more than 30 cycles. To me, this is wise and implies recognition of the distinctions of this particular test. Meanwhile, the official USDA and FDA number of cycles is 45. The PCR test at 45 cycles is labeled fraudulent by a healthy contingent of scientists.  At that magnification, you can find bird flu almost anywhere. The nuance to this is, the greater the amplification, the more minute the particles detected. Any reasonable person knows our biological spaces are literally filled with floating molecular material. Pieces of cells, pieces of DNA, you name it, float in the air around us, in our bodies, in our nasal passages—accumulated from everything, everyone, and everywhere. To me, the fact that the infamous PCR test is being used for diagnosis of this flu supersedes every other angle of the discussion. I’m not doubting that the virus exists, or even that it affects poultry in the ways it is said to. But I am questioning whether we should be using this test at varying cycles to determine where it exists. The Extermination Protocol - Now we get into response when the virus is found, which as of now is still complete extermination of the flock in which one positive test is found. Yes, in a 50,000-bird factory chicken barn, one positive test is enough to warrant destroying the whole flock. Healthy birds, sick birds, no difference. All are exterminated. This flies in the face of everything we have ever known about natural immunity and genetic selection. In any given disease outbreak, there will always be individuals who gain natural immunity early. During Covid, there were people who were directly exposed to infected patients who never showed signs of illness (the notorious symptomatic vs. asymptomatic debate). The same applies in a flock of chickens or a herd of cows. Sound genetic selection always suggests that those not affected by a disease or ailment should be kept for breeding in order to build a resilient herd or flock. This is such a basic animal genetic principle it's not even debatable. And yet USDA scientific protocol is "kill the healthy ones." Wouldn't you want to save them to build a resilient flock? Even with these aggressive extermination efforts, the virus keeps spreading, which in my opinion calls for different measures. When something is obviously not working sane people reconsider. Especially if it involves taxpayer funded mass destruction of a resource, which chicken extermination certainly is. The 10-Mile Radius Protocol - Speaking of spreading, the oft-repeated narrative of “the virus is everywhere and spreads on the wind” is ongoing. I don’t know if it does or not, but if there’s one thing that sticks in my craw, it’s the 10-mile radius protocol. When a positive test is found in any given area, the official USDA or state department of agriculture protocol is to alert every known chicken farmer—regardless of the size of the operation—of it and recommend weekly testing. If the farmer or contract company complies, USDA technicians conduct weekly testing. In many cases where the farmer is merely providing housing and labor for a larger grower under contract, he does not have the wherewithal to refuse testing. Call me cynical of the government, but to me this is asking for trouble. I know farmers who strongly suggest that the virus was seeded by USDA employees, either unintentionally from their boots, clothing, or equipment, or intentionally. But you know, it spreads on the wind. Remember, these are usually special USDA veterinarians brought to the area as part of an avian flu task force. I try to err on the side of trusting people’s good intentions, but you can’t help but recognize that in some instances there are certain vested interests. Quite frankly, at Pasture to Fork we refuse testing, and plan to continue doing so even up to demanding search warrants if we’re pressured. This may sound completely off-the-rails rebellious and uncompliant to some, but our birds are healthy, they are outdoors, and I do not trust the USDA or PDA avian flu task force. The Official USDA Position – In the past week, the USDA addressed the bird flu and subsequent egg shortage in ways suggesting they are still on the same trajectory they’ve been on for decades, which is to say their first line of defense—aside from bio-security—is always vaccines. Or imports. For the record, vaccinating chickens is very different from vaccinating cows--giving millions of chickens a shot would be a logistical nightmare. As a result, the academic experts are hoping for a drinkable vaccine, which is merely in the discussion stage as of now. Who knows how far away that may be? Aside from the logistical challenges of vaccinating chicken, why does the agricultural community always turn to vaccines as a potential answer to these types of disease outbreaks? I believe it’s a worldview that develops from being in that system, where—because the production models tilt toward it—one begins to expect disease and pestilence to be a problem. Likewise, solutions are expected to come in a bottle or syringe. There’s very little thought going into how to cause the animals or plants to be healthier in order to resist whatever disease and pestilence comes along. Mischief, Conspiracies, or just things gone awry? … I could go on, but those talking points, protocols, and agency positions are what cause me to look at the current avian flu scenario with raised eyebrows. Like I mentioned at the outset, these subjects are so convoluted you can’t follow one thread without getting tangled in the jumble. With the USDA, state agencies, “experts”, conspiracy theorists, and pundits all weighing in, these issues quickly take on an aura of skullduggery and potential mischief. I want to believe everyone involved only wants what is best for the overall scenario from their unique worldview, which may differ from mine. But that becomes difficult to believe when counter-productive and anti-common-sense measures are resorted to. That said, I do not claim to know whether actual conspiracies exist here or not, and perhaps it’s not important to theorize to that end. At the end of the day, you and I have so little influence over large-scale agricultural policy and confinement factory farms that it barely merits further discussion. Are Truly Pasture Raised Flock at Risk? Research from alternative sources suggests that chickens living outdoors on grass are not affected by avian flu. I must say, this makes a lot of sense to me. I believe animals living in a natural production model who are not too crowded or stressed will have far more functional immune systems than their factory counterparts. Whenever a disease risk occurs, the first consideration should be whether anything can be done to mitigate the risk of infection naturally. And although we firmly believe in truly pasture raised poultry production, we have taken a comprehensive look at our systems in the past year. And I must say, we do not worry about the possibility of our flocks contracting avian flu. Sans the virus being introduced (which is why we avoid USDA testing), we’re not concerned about losing our flocks to this bird flu—or nervous that we indirectly infect cows, cats, or humans. I have always said the primary difference in our chicken (both egg layers and meat birds) is not merely the fact that they are outdoors. Rather, it hinges on five factors. They are fresh air, sunshine, exercise, fresh greens daily (moving to new grass), and low stress (flocks numbering 300 or less). May I point out, these five are the antithesis to the environment in confinement poultry housing. True, the entrenched chicken industry would pooh-pooh this, saying it’s not possible, practical, or efficient. Which behooves the question; is it practical, efficient, or humane to exterminate millions of chickens because of a broken production system that fosters illness? Or vaccinating millions of chickens? Or importing eggs? The Last Word – To wrap it up, I don’t pretend to know where this is going. In a sense it may be the market correcting itself—nature batting last for the abuse it has suffered. Eggs are one of the last remaining farm products that are unregulated, and smaller pasture raised producers are seeing a vast demand for eggs like we haven’t seen before. We—along with many other farms—had to limit eggs to x amount per customer this winter. If this is allowed to continue as a free market, I think this shortage will correct itself. Smaller farms will ramp up production, as we are. Many more homeowners will get backyard flocks or kitchen chickens, which I applaud. If we’re looking for healthy chickens to supply us with eggs and meat, smaller flocks managed in more of a chicken friendly manner is where we must look, and this is not likely to happen in the greater poultry industry. Thus, we must look to smaller farms and backyard flocks, and not imports, vaccines, or taxpayer funded extermination of survivors. And that’s the View from the Country.

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Is Uninspected Food Safe?

If you've been to our website or farm store, you probably know we’ve chosen to circumvent governmental oversight rather than comply. If the state and county food oversight bureaucracies had their druthers, we would have a raw milk permit to sell raw milk, a licensed and inspected kitchen in which to make homemade canned goods, an inspected processing facility to process our pastured meat chickens, a retail food facility license in order to sell to you, and all our red meat would be processed in a USDA facility.  Fortunately, we’ve been able to circumvent the food police to where they allow us to operate as a private farm who only caters directly to consumers (no restaurants, hotels, or retail stores).  That said, our stance could be interpreted as careless, lackadaisical, or, depending on your view of governmental food oversight, straight-up foolish. But there are two sides to the coin. Here’s why we take the position we do: We, more than anyone, want a safe food system, but in our view, all of the above-named licenses and permits do not necessarily serve that cause. Rather, they incentivize centralization and corporate-scale food establishments. A centralized food system is by nature unsafe. It is unsafe food-safety-wise because far more animals and crops are amalgamated to central processing mega-facilities where, if you have a pathogen outbreak, it quickly spreads out of control. But it’s also unsafe nationally, because—as it now stands—if someone wanted to cripple America, they could, for example, destroy or disable 4-6 industrial meat plants and we would have meat shortages for at least eighteen months and a doubling of meat prices—similar to what we saw in the spring of 2020. At Pasture to Fork, we want a safe food system, but compared to the current food regulatory authorities, have a very different vision of how to get there. They vie for centralization, control, and a big-business conglomerate food supply. We advocate for decentralization, freedom, and small-scale direct-to-consumer food acquisition.We care passionately about food safety but just don’t think government inspectors looking at thousands of chickens whizzing down an industrial processing line makes the chicken any cleaner or safer. Or that having a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture inspector come in once a year to measure freezer temperatures and eyeball our poultry processing room will help us to produce cleaner food.We’re more than willing to participate in a clean food system, if only the USDA or FDA were willing to set a threshold for what clean food is. We would love to submit our chicken for swabbing and compare it with chicken from the supermarket, if only they were to set a threshold (bacteria parts per million, or whatever). Please, just give me a threshold! We know we’ll far exceed it because to set a threshold would require a bar set low enough to allow industrialized processors to meet it. But the entrenched notion of food safety is whether or not one of USDA's own has seen the process, which we think is an illogical determination.Those of us who are small producers in a branded product take food safety very seriously, in part because we don’t have a bevy of Philadelphia attorneys on retainer to protect us from a bad food situation. We actually take it more seriously than the industry that has both the bureaucracy of inspectors and attorneys on retainer whose skirts they hide behind. For us, the direct relationship with the eater of our food creates a real-time daily audit, if you will. The direct connection with the people who actually use the food we produce invites direct blowback if the product is less than stellar. In the era of social media, we know producing an unacceptable product quickly smears our reputation when an unhappy customer posts it online. By catering to the end user, we make ourselves vulnerable, in a sense, but we welcome and desire that direct interaction.If we want people to exercise their discernment muscle to make better food decisions (yes, discernment is muscle that must be exercised just like your biceps or triceps) a direct relationship with the farmer or food producer is paramount in order to have a scenario in which to exercise discernment. In the supermarket setting—because everything has the official stamp already on it and the producer is a nameless faceless entity that may be thousands of miles away—that discernment muscle remains lethargic.If the only decision is whether or not it has the USDA blue check mark on it, there’s no decision going on. Because of this, society has become extremely ill-informed and lethargic in its ability to determine whether the food is any good or not, or whether it’s trustworthy or not. Nobody asks because government bureaucracy has essentially taken away the ability to weigh options, and it has not been for the betterment of food or society. As a nation, we no longer know how to actually vet our food and are at the mercy of a few bureaucrats making food decisions for us. I’m not saying direct-to-consumer producers want to pass the buck to the eater when bad food is produced, rather that if we depend on the government to tell us if our food is safe, we’re in a very precarious position due to the empirical nature of top-down regulation that is swayed by lobbying influence from the industry itself.If the goal is an educated savvy consumer, how do we get there? I suggest we get there by circumventing the plethora of federal and state regulations and allowing people the freedom to look around, sniff around, and ask around on real farms to see if they’re comfortable with what’s being offered. Food production should be aromatically and aesthetically pleasing, and even relatively uneducated people will quickly know whether or not what they’re seeing and sensing is pleasing or not. Let's be honest, the current plethora of regulation surrounding food production does nothing to improve the quality of the food aside from a supposed assurance of cleanliness. And even that is largely a myth when you look at where the biggest contaminated food breakouts occur, which is from the largest processors in the industry.  Food regulation, for the most part, does not address antibiotics in animal agriculture, or GMO's in crop production, or consider the environment in which the animal or crop was raised. It simply comes down to whether or not the process and/or facilities were seen and approved by whatever bureaucratic agency is set to oversee that sector of the food supply. We beg to differ with this simplistic approach. We think it matters how the animal was raised or what the vegetables were sprayed with. We believe scale matters in processing. Dressing two hundred chickens one day out a week is vastly different than dressing five million chickens every day of the week operating around the clock. We believe food and farming is an inherently biological process regardless of how bent the industries have been on reducing it to science and widgets-in/widgets-out. And in biologics, scale matters. Interestingly enough, the FSIS (Food Safety Inspection Service) has been known to brag about the efficiency of the largest meat plants they oversee, using pounds of meat processed per inspector hour as a measure. To me, this mentality is damning on its face. I should think the inspection service should be more concerned about whether or not something is overlooked by the inspector, but instead they measure their success in terms of how fast the process goes. By that measure, the speed of the chicken processing line should be increased even more, which is to say the 5 million-chickens-a-day are whizzing past the inspector even faster. At Pasture to Fork, we believe animals raised in their natural outdoor habitat will produce healthier meat or milk than their confined antibiotic-ridden-hormone-driven-GMO-fed counterparts. The same is true for produce in terms of compost grown versus chemical laden. When one arrives at this conclusion and puts effort into raising only the best of food quality, to subject it to the dumbed-down regulatory standards of the conventional food industry seems foolish. Even more so when you have a patron base who shares your values and harbors a growing distrust for the regulatory establishment, largely because the establishment has proven itself incompetent. What's more, to attempt compliance with this plethora of regulation robs one of the energies that could otherwise be put to good use in ensuring food quality, animal welfare, and soil building, not to mention customer relations or sales. To sum it up, we advocate for a food system that is regenerative in nature—in other words, farming and food production that leaves our nest better than we found it. One that is aromatically and aesthetically pleasing for both farmer and visitor.  We believe food and farming should be decentralized—many family-scale farms and processing facilities across the nation in every town and region, serving savvy eaters wherever they may be. In order to have a readily accessible food supply we need thousands of farms who open themselves to an increasingly aware populace. And finally, we advocate for a food system that is relational in transaction—the eater has a direct connection with the producer and vice-versa, which creates a win-win for both eater and farmer. And that, is The View from the Country. Do you have a safe food supply? If not, how do you propose to attain one? Quotes worth Re-Quoting –“We don’t need a law against McDonald’s or a law against slaughterhouse abuse–we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse.”― Joel Salatin

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The Folly Of the Calorie

At Pasture to Fork, we have plenty to say about Corporate Food’s sleazy labeling tricks. Labeling tricks that magically turn the pseudo food produced in corporate laboratories and food factories out to be not only desirable, but quite healthy as well. And I must say, even for a real-food-passionate person like me, a walk down grocery store aisles—especially at mealtime—instigates a level of desire for even the most processed items on the shelf (I too, grew up consuming these food-like substances and developed a palate memory for their allure). The greatest advantage Big Food enjoys—which allows their hiding behind glitzy labels and wordy claims—is the disconnect between the farm and the eater. While this is convenient and desirable to many consumers as well as farmers, more and more people are waking up to the fact that their food may be vastly compromised, and that increasingly we’re a weakened species for consuming it. Convenience is addictive, however, and determining to source food locally and directly requires dedicated effort, although I would suggest it also brings considerable satisfaction and empowerment. Direct-to-consumer farms like us, on the other hand, have little use for fancy labels. Perhaps the number one reason being that the consumer—in most cases—either visits the farm in person or browses our website seeking a trustworthy source. These are people who want to connect with the producer’s vision and philosophy. Food produced and marketed in this manner doesn’t need much of a label, only true in-person representation and quality packaging in order to preserve freshness and quality. Given the attitude of acceptance among many Americans, I continue to be amazed at how few years have elapsed since the advent of government control in the food sector. Most mandatory food laws in this country are quite young and have not proven themselves capable of adding value or benefiting society. For example, the Nutrition Fact label we now take for granted was not required until 1994. With this being 2024, that makes ’94 exactly thirty years ago. Not a long time! How did people possibly know how or what to eat prior to ’94? I’m sure people did know, and maybe, just maybe, were more in tune with their food for the lack of labeling and government direction. We believe most so-called “nutrition labeling”—especially the Nutrition Facts graph—offer less value than most of us know. For example, the measure of calories has almost no relation to real nutrition and may cause more distraction than assistance. Yet calories are listed first on the Nutrition Facts label, in bold print. If tracking calories is of such utmost importance—or of significant value—why are 2/3rds of Americans now overweight or obese? Clearly, this exemplifies how the count of calories does not equate food quality, with Americans being more overfed and undernourished than ever. But the food police are doubling down, with a new law enacted in 2018 where the FDA requires any restaurant with more than 20 locations to provide customers with a calorie-count on their menu items. Is this anything more than a perpetuation of nutrition distraction? As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” As you may know, I’m not a fan of government attempting to influence societal behavior. But what really bothers me about the government-mandated caloric rule is the fact that it assumes “a calorie is a calorie” regardless of its origin. If you ate 500 calories of soda and 500 calories of broccoli, would your body respond similarly? Of course not! They may be calorically the same but are a world apart nutritionally. Don’t think your body doesn’t know the difference. So, how is a calorie determined? Number one, it’s a unit of energy—the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a gram of water one degree Centigrade, to be exact. Or the modern version is simply 4.1868 joules of energy. That’s all, merely energy. Obviously, a calorie of gasoline energy will not serve my body like a calorie of pork chop will. Perhaps the foremost reason is because a calorie of pork chop also provides a lot of other value besides X amount of energy. Which brings home the point of the discussion; calories are such a tiny portion of the measure of food item that it’s practically unimportant. Perhaps the most disturbing part of all this is that it’s the best we can do in modern America. Is this really the brightest and best in food science? Please tell me it’s not. As a matter of fact, we know it’s not. Private sector doctors and nutritionists—and perhaps everyday people who take an interest in food and how it affects us—now know far more about food and nutrition than anything coming from the ivory towers of government. Or at least are willing to have the discussion and/or publish their findings. Goodness, we’re still using a nearly 150-year-old method to determine caloric content. Besides, are we as humans not more than test tubes? Do we not break down food in a far more complex manner than a bomb calorimeter, which is how calories per gram of food are determined? We digest food efficiently or inefficiently depending on stress, nutrient deficiency, digestive enzymes, composition of gut flora, timing of previous meal, and on and on. One day you may be able to digest 300 calories from a meal but only harness 200 calories from the same meal the next day based on your environment and individual state of being. There are so many different diets on the market because no one really knows what you should eat. There’s probably as many opinions and disagreements as there are dieticians and nutritionists. However, one thing almost universally agreed upon in the diet world is whole foods raised without chemicals and antibiotics. Eating clean whole foods come with a lot of advantages, and literally no disadvantages. When you switch from a processed food diet to whole foods, you don’t have to worry about counting calories because your body self-regulates. It works the way it’s designed to work. You stop over-eating because you are no longer blocking the hormonal signal that tells your body you are full. When I say whole foods, I’m not necessarily saying raw food—although that can be included. I'm saying food that has nothing in the ingredient list except that food—or very few other ingredients. Do yourself a favor and simply stop counting calories. Stop listening to governmental guidance as to what foods you should or shouldn’t eat. Don’t choose your food based on an inaccurate label that perpetuates the myth that all calories are the created equal. It’s simply not true.  Let the stress of calorie counting go from your mind and body. Instead, invest in and enjoy clean whole foods—the food God intended for you to eat, and enjoy eating in a guilt-free state of mind without being all wound up about the number of calories you’re consuming.  Your body recognizes whole foods and knows how to digest and metabolize them for your health and benefit. And that’s The View from the Country.

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Climate Change

While we try to stay out of politics, occasionally we come to the point where a hot-button issue just needs to be talked about. Today, climate change is one of them. Because of the esoteric ideas surrounding this subject, much of the language used in political circles is lost on many people, which creates a vast demand for it to be discussed from an everyday common-sense let’s-solve-the-problem-realistically approach. Here’s where we are, the way I see it; the political left seemingly blames climate change for everything. From inflation to an unreliable supply chain to the price of gasoline, climate change is thrown into the word salad at every turn. It’s the burgeoning apocalypse that justifies massive spending plans (often with additional legislation silently piggybacked into it). At the same time the political right seems to completely downplay—even scoff—at the potential for human-induced climate factors and/or attempts to address it. Who’s right? I suggest somewhere between these two positions is where the truth resides, and that nuances to the discussion exist that are completely ignored by both sides in the scuffle for political power and influence. I’m not a scientist or any sort of climate change expert. What I am, though, is a farmer who studies nature, keeps his ear to the ground for truth and alternative opinions, and endeavors to find common-sense middle ground. Moving forward we’ll talk about the flawed science surrounding climate change, discuss some of the angles not mentioned in the over-politicized conversation, and how human activity affects the climate. Here goes: Flawed Science – None of the computer models used have been able to function in reverse. In other words, if the models used to measure the timeline until the apocalypse are run backwards, we’re all extinct 200 years ago. This, of course, raises questions about the ability of the models to make accurate predictions for the future. Perhaps it’s a reminder to pause in our hubris and remember that technology can only lead us so far. We must recognize that systems dependent upon information plugged in by fallible humans can come to flawed conclusions. That said, we know that some of the arctic glaciers are receding. For example, in Alaska there are now interstates where glaciers were only 40 years ago. The question, however, is whether or not it’s new. Has it ever happened before? We don’t know. And then there’s the argument about cows inducing climate change. We have literature suggesting—with some certainty—that the planet carried far more animal weight 1000 years ago than it does today, even with factory chicken houses and multi-thousand-cow feedlots. It should give us all pause to realize that earth’s abundance is not tied to modern machinery, thousands of acres of annual crops, or 10-10-10 fertilizer. It must be tied to something else. Is there a way we can resurrect—domestically regeneratively resurrect—that abundance? The herbivores that were here 1000 years ago only ate plants. They didn’t eat corn or soybeans (monoculture), and they didn’t eat fermented plants like silage or rendered processing waste (such as man have devised for feedlot cattle). Herbivores—having more than one stomach—essentially have a fermentation vat in their gut and when fed fermented feeds it acidifies the gut and doubles the methane produced. As you may know, cow farts—or burps (they haven’t decided which yet :)—are blamed for causing climate change, which many of us think sounds far-fetched. If indeed it does, feeding concentrated grain diets to herbivores exacerbates the problem. Viewpoints Climate Extremists Never Mention (and perhaps don’t know about) – A diversified plantscape (prairie) stimulates the production of a methanotrophic bacteria (yes, it’s real; you can look it up). This bacteria—in a healthy diversified ecosystem—absorbs methane equivalent to that which is produced by over 1000 cows per acre. The problem is, today very little acreage devoted to herbivores (livestock) is a healthy perennial prairie ecosystem, where herbivores prune and move according to the template provided in nature (wild herds chased by predators). Methanotrophic bacteria doesn’t grow under corn or monoculture, it doesn’t grow under overgrazed land, it doesn’t grow under asphalt, it doesn’t grow under feedlots or factory farms. It requires a diversified perennial landscape. This, once again, speaks to how nature always provides checks and balances in the ecosystem, if only we lay down our hubris long enough to notice. The problem is that the scientists who study these things study extremely dysfunctional ecosystems, and then extrapolate data based on this completely inappropriate dysfunctional database. Science often is not objective, but is approached with intent to prove a viewpoint. The Australian scientist, Walter Jennings—along with scientists around the world—have determined that the temperature regulator of the planet has little to do with greenhouse gases (GHG’s) which is what climate change “experts” have been fixated on for many years. Rather, it’s about water condensation. The truth is, only 5% of planetary temperature is regulated by GHG’s. 95% is the energy it’s takes to condense water. In order to condense, water must have a particle to condense on—it can’t just condense on nothing. The main thing it condenses on is bacteria, specifically the bacteria that’s an exudate from foliage. Have you ever noticed that in areas of heavy foliage—such as mountainous or heavily wooded areas—how in the early morning this cloud, or mist, rises and hangs heavy during the time of temperature inversion as the sun begins to heat the atmosphere? This is water, after marrying to bacteria, that’s now condensing and vaporizing into the atmosphere, which in turn creates clouds that bring rainfall, which cools the earth. This explains why in climate change the dry areas are getting drier and the wet areas are getting wetter. Even climate scientists are bewildered by this. But in Jennings’ condensation theory the planet is essentially a big radiator. The physics of the planet is that it wants to be balanced. So, if agriculture destroys vegetation in one area (via plowing or overgrazing) the planet must cool itself somewhere and does so in places where vegetation exists. There the moisture can condense because of the presence of bacteria from foliage, which vaporizes to form clouds and precipitation. In other words, the moisture is concentrated there. Does Human Activity Affect Climate (if so, how)? – In my opinion, it’s no longer a question whether or not if humans are affecting the climate. Allen Williams from the regenerative farming consulting group Understanding Ag, relates their experience in working with the 30,000-acre Las Damas ranch in the Chihuahuan desert of Mexico. The area gets only about 8 inches of rain a year—and still has horrible erosion. For as long as any living generations remember, the desert has grown rather than receded. Starting in 2010, Understanding Ag worked closely with the ranch to develop cattle water and fence in some of the worst areas of the ranch, essentially to expand the areas where vegetation exists. At the conference where he and I met last winter, Allen showed pictures of a decade of progress since they began working with this ranch. Not only has the amount of plant material increased dramatically—what was large areas of desert devoid of grass is now a sea of green. But more importantly, after only ten years they’re seeing changes to the micro climate to where Las Damas now gets rainfall that seems to follow the property line. In other words, they get more rain than the neighboring ranches do. This is due to the amount of grass and other plant material (think bacteria exudates from green foliage) on the ranch compared to their neighbors who are not using regenerative practices. I suggest that if the micro-climate can be influenced in a 30,000-acre region in a decade, then little doubt remains whether or not human activity can affect the overall climate of the earth. As of 2019, the USDA had recorded 897,400,000 acres of farmland in the US, which is nearly thirty X the acreage at Las Damas. Most of these acres are either in monocrop or in miserably mismanaged grazing land. Monocrop, by design, requires either tillage or heavy applications of chemicals—both of which destroys soil. The same is true for unmanaged grazing land—meaning not managed to prevent overgrazing or under-grazing, both of which have negative effects on the soil and water cycle and cause desertification. In the span of about 200 years, the soils of the American Midwest went from what we think was about 8% organic matter (which is carbon), to an average of 1.5%. Where did the carbon go? By and large, it was released into the atmosphere because humans uncovered the soil via tillage in order to grow annual monoculture crops. Not only are our soils down to bare bones, but our air is polluted with carbon that needs to be returned to the soil in order to have a healthy ecosystem. Never before in history have humans had the means of raping the soil to this extent—made possible by mechanically tilling the soil as well as chemical technology. What if all climate change funds and efforts were channeled into growing a managed diversified perennial plantscape on 70 percent of these nearly 900 million acres? Imagine how much carbon could be sequestered from the atmosphere, not to mention methanotrophic bacteria produced to sequester methane from the air. This may sound like a pipe dream. But maybe it isn’t in light of the fact that 70% of all grain grown in the US is to feed herbivores who are not designed to metabolize them. Although human induced climate change is a very real possibility, I don’t see it as a burgeoning apocalypse. However, it’s a very real threat to our domestic ability to feed ourselves. This is not a problem government can fix via massive spending bills. Yes, they could stop throwing taxpayer money around in the form of crop subsidies, which would take away the incentive for the overproduction of monocrops such as corn and soybeans. But government will not stop or even slow climate change by limiting the use of fossil fuels or eliminating animal agriculture. The solution must come from the people. Each of us has a responsibility to decrease or eliminate our own portion of the demand for annual-crop-based foods and create demand for regeneratively produced perennial-crop-based foods. If humans have created this problem, then humans will have it to fix. We don’t have to look to the ivory towers and the “experts” to do it. And that’s The View from the Country.

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No Antibiotics!

At Pasture to Fork, we like to point out that we don’t use antibiotics in the production of the foods we raise. Why is this important? Weren’t antibiotics deemed a miracle drug that proved to be a powerful life-saving tool when they first became available? Yes, that is true, and I’ll even go so far as to say they are still a major lifesaver in human medical care eighty years later. However, today we’ll talk about how they have been abused and why it’s crucial that we limit their use to human medicine. The first known antibiotic, dubbed penicillin, was discovered accidentally by a researcher named Alexander Fleming in 1928.  Though discovered in the twenties, it wasn’t widely propagated until the 1940’s when—after saving lives miraculously in instances like the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire—the US government invested in its production to be used on the war front in WWII. It’s hard for us to imagine a world before antibiotics. Everything from paper cuts to childbirth had the potential to kill via bacterial infection. Even minor wounds to soldiers in warfare—upon becoming bacterially infected—were cause for amputations, extreme illness, and death, which is why the government had interests in the mass production of penicillin. Penicillin was quickly followed by other antibiotics such as aureomycin, tetracycline, and the like—and it quickly became a race between pharmaceutical companies in the late 1940’s to develop the next family of antibiotics that could then be patented. The formula for penicillin was proprietary from the beginning—being seen as a product for the greater good of society—but pharmaceutical companies, of course, each wanted their own piece of the pie. In 1948, a researcher named Thomas Jukes, who specialized in animal nutrition working for Lederle Laboratories, discovered (again, by accident) a ground-breaking new twist to antibiotic use. In an effort to find new ways to cut costs for poultry farmers following the sharp decrease in demand post-WWII,  research entailed using laboratory waste used in making antibiotics as a supplement in chicken feed. Having had indications suggesting growth-promoter properties, Jukes performed one of the first controlled research projects on chickens and found the group fed antibiotic waste to be markedly bigger at the end of the 25-day feeding trial, discovering the growth-promoter properties of feeding antibiotics to animals. This discovery opened a whole new frontier for the pharmaceutical industry and a tremendous new market for growth promoters in animal agriculture. It also made for an unprecedented hubristic attitude in the world of animal agriculture, which in turn, led to the confinement animal feeding operation (CAFO’s) of today. But, the chicken had yet to come home to roost (pun intended). In the early years of antibiotics as a growth promoter the common mentality among both manufacturers and farmers was “if a little is good, more is better”, and growth promoter antibiotics were largely unregulated which resulted in heavy use, inexact dosages, and the like. Regulators, being enamored along with the industry, looked the other way and didn’t interfere. For context, let's remember this was the era when the chemical DDT was considered a marvelous and life-changing invention, only to be banned later. Even early on there was concern among a few (only a few) scientists about the prospect of antibiotic resistance. In his 1945 Nobel prize acceptance speech, Alexander Fleming warned that the development of resistance had the potential to ruin the miracle of antibiotics. Resistance is the term used to describe the ability of bacteria to mutate and overcome the proficiency of antibiotics. The thesis is that an application of antibiotics never kills all the bacteria, allowing the survivors to gain genetic resistance not only to that particular antibiotic, but other antibiotics as well. Throughout the sixties and into the early seventies, although there was little warning of antibiotic resistance, already cases of mass bacterial outbreaks occurred where antibiotics proved ineffective, including a 1967 stomach bug in Yorkshire, England where 15 babies and young children died for lack of effective and timely antibiotic treatment caused by resistance. Thus far, little to no effort was put into measuring how quickly resistance is built. Until 1974, when an independent study took place that even today is under published. Participating in the study was the Downing family from Boston, who had ten children and a small farmstead. The researcher in charge of the study, Dr. Stuart Levy, designed it to include six batches of young chickens, half being fed antibiotic-free and half fed growth-promoter antibiotics. The oldest Downing child, Mary—a sophomore in college—cared for the birds, which were housed in the Downing’s barn in separate pens 50 feet apart. A precise chore routine was adopted where the antibiotic-free birds were fed and cared for first, then the flocks fed growth-promoters, after a change of boots and washing of hands. Birds from each flock were swabbed once a week, as well as fecal swabs of each of the Downing family—and a number of neighbors as well—with the objective of learning how quickly antibiotic resistance spread through the flocks, as well as the people participating in the study. The results came quickly. Samples taken at the beginning of the experiment showed very few bacteria in the guts of the chickens, family, or neighbors containing defenses against tetracycline (the drug used in the chicken feed). That was to be expected, given the random roulette of mutation. But within 36 hours, those bacteria multiplied in the antibiotic flock, but the drug-free flocks remained clean for a few weeks longer. Then things changed. First the bacteria in the antibiotic-fed flock became resistant to multiple drugs, including other families of antibiotics like sulfas, streptomycin, etc. Then the multidrug-resistant bacteria appeared in the flocks that never received antibiotics and had no contact with the birds that did. And soon after, the same multidrug-resistance showed up in the Downing’s fecal samples. To the disappointment of his sponsors, Levy had demonstrated what they had hoped to disprove. Even though the feed contained just tiny doses of antibiotics, those doses selected resistant bacteria—which not only flourished in the animal’s systems, but left the animals, moved through the farm’s environment, and entered the systems of other animals and of humans in close proximity (but did not spread to any of the neighbors—which served as the control group). This served to reinforce some of the early scientists concerns that these altered bacteria were an untrackable, unpredictable form of pollution. In her comprehensive book, Big Chicken, Maryn Mckenna (where I learned much of what is written in this article) eloquently relates not only the facts given above, but also tells the story of years and decades of industry and regulator pushback against the idea of restricting farm-use antibiotics—even into the 2000’s. She shares stories of horrible illnesses and epidemic-proportion bacterial outbreaks costing the lives of people who were unknowingly harboring antibiotic resistance being quietly transmitted from farm to food to consumer. Stories even of outbreaks traced backward by epidemiologists from the victims to the farms on which the meat was produced. The resulting reports and database entries, by the way, were then ignored and buried by regulators and industry leaders. In the book, Mckenna does an outstanding job of presenting antibiotic resistance for what it is, a silent threatening contaminant that moves through a largely unaware society, looking for its next victim or victims. Even today, it’s not a subject well-covered by the media, largely due to the pharmaceutical interests in keeping it hush. And this is where we find ourselves today, fifty years later. Although farm and food related antibiotic use has garnered a far more attention in recent times than anytime in history, they are still being widely used in the poultry, pork, and beef industries, both as growth-promoters and as preventative doses to prevent illness on factory farms. Several years ago, some of the major poultry providers—including Perdue—made a PR effort in the direction of “antibiotic-free.” The reason I say a PR (public relations) effort, is because it was driven, at least in part, by an increasing concern among the people regarding human-medical-use antibiotics used in agriculture and the subsequent risk of antibiotic resistance. Borne out of that effort—which was also driven by recognition within the industry that growth-promoter antibiotics were losing their effect—came a family of drugs called “ionophores”, which were not quite the typical antibiotic, were not classified as an antibiotic (conveniently?), but were essentially an industry antidote to traditional antibiotics. However, it allowed the meat industry to advertise their product as “antibiotic-free” without taking the risk of losing production due to the loss of both growth-promoter and preventative antibiotics. Granted, ionophores were not used—at least not as heavily—on humans, but that doesn’t change the farce of “antibiotic-free” in the meat industry. Vaccines have also been adopted in the meat industries as a sort of replacement for sub-therapeutic antibiotics. Modern vaccines—including mRNA technology —has been used increasingly in recent years as a solution to the rising pushback—and loss of effectiveness—against antibiotics used in meat production.   To summarize, the discovery of antibiotics changed life as we know to a degree we cannot imagine, mitigating risk of bacterial infection astonishingly. However, the advent of antibiotics used in animal agriculture quickly threatened the efficacy of human-use antibiotics due to rapid rise of resistance to early antibiotics—and even faster, to other families of antibiotics. From the mid-1940’s into the 2000’s the meat industries, pharmaceutical companies, and even regulators ignored and repressed concerns involving the threat of antibiotic resistance. Despite attempts and posturing of certain players in the meat industries, even today it appears as if the mass-producing meat purveyors are unwilling and/or unable to completely absolve themselves from antibiotics in the production of human food, which only furthers the hazard of superbug infections that are resistant to nearly all common medical-use antibiotics. Until the industry becomes willing to abandon its intense confinement production model, I don’t see the antibiotic story changing. However, the upside to this is that farmers who are willing to adopt a more natural template like the outdoor pasture-based model can completely eschew antibiotics, which is the grassroots future to clean eating for those who know and care about the antibiotic issue. At Pasture to Fork, we are unwavering in our stance against using antibiotics to produce your food, even making "No Antibiotics" one of our stated protocols. While we believe the risk of regularly consuming antibiotics is great enough for adults, it’s even greater for children, and investing in future generations is paramount in our opinion. And that’s The View from the Country. P.S. I highly recommend reading Maryn Mckenna's book, Big Chicken. This article does not do her work justice but is a mere sneak peek.

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Can the Food and Farming Crisis be Resolved?

Given the modern worldview that independence of the individual is everything, it’s probably a bit of a shocker when I say I view human independence as an illusion—a mirage in the distance that will always be that—in the distance. Yes, we have an aura of independence given that we have mechanized transportation that’s as easy as getting in and turning the key, we have devices in the palm of our hand that literally give us access to the knowledge of the world in milli-seconds. And that creates an impression of independence in the sense that we can go places, do things, and know things that were impossible for most of human history. But even with these modern technologies, we are dependent on other people. No man is an island. And I’m not even referring to the psychological aspect of human nature that wants to be connected to other people. It’s just an irrefutable fact that humans have always been dependent on each other—community and kin—as well as the surrounding eco-system for survival. But as life became easier due to industrial and technological advancements, many of us are at least a little obsessed with the idea of being our own person apart from others. That in itself may be ok, but I’ve come to agree with Stephen Covey in his The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People where he says: Independence is the paradigm of I—I can do it; I am responsible, I am self-reliant, I can choose. [on the other hand] Interdependence is the paradigm of we—we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine talents and abilities and create something greater together…. A little later in the same chapter he writes: Life is, by nature, highly interdependent. To try to achieve maximum effectiveness through independence is like trying to play tennis with a golf club—the tool is not suited to the reality. Interdependence is a far more mature, more advanced concept.      Granted, the book Covey wrote is about effectiveness, and that may not be the goal of some people today—although I say it should be. What greater aspiration could we have than to be effective in our lives. Whether it be in our work, with our family, or even in our faith, we should aspire to be effective, which is defined as “adequate to accomplish a purpose, producing the intended or expected result.” Like always, I would like to turn this discussion to the food arena. How does it apply? Number one, due to the industrialization of human food within the last fifty to seventy-five years – not the least of which is the emergence of a food processing industry who brought a great many convenience foods into existence, distributing them to every local grocery and supermarket. Foods that traditionally were sourced directly from local farms and home gardens now come from nameless, faceless entities and conjure a fantasy of not only human independence from the natural elements man has always relied on for sustenance, but also the false resemblance of food security and independence. Modern society forgets that food and farming is inextricably linked, regardless of whether it comes from the supermarket in a plastic package, from the garden in the back yard, or from a local farm. That man would no longer be bound – yes, helplessly dependent – to the natural elements of soil, air, and water is one of the biggest myths of all time. In his writings, Joel Salatin often refers to our interaction with the earth and our dependence on its fruits as our ”ecological umbilical.” At first I thought it to be too strong a term, but I’ve changed my mind. Our dependence on the earth and its natural elements is not unlike the utter reliance of an unborn baby on the continuation of nutrients through the umbilical connection with its mother. In the foreword of Forest Pritchard’s excellent book, Gaining Ground, Joel penned these words; “We cannot escape our responsibilities to, nor our interactions with, soil, air, and water – the basic ingredients in the farmer’s alchemy….. Unlike other vocations that are arguably more or less necessary, farming is basic to human existence. Because it is at the root of civilization, it has the greatest capacity to either heal or hurt humankind’s planetary nest. As co-stewards of this great creation, we all owe future generations the benefit of knowing something about farming, food production, and land care. Few intellectual journeys could be this necessary and far-reaching.” Isn’t that an irrefutable truth? As the farmer population continues to decline – largely due to either age or bankruptcy – it will become more obvious than ever how dependent society is on farming and food production. Agricultural statistics are concerning in terms of farmer age, although it’s a little-known concern in society and is not touched by the mainstream news. One of the most abnormal aspects of modern America is the fact that many regions are literal food deserts, meaning there’s no food being raised in the vicinity. This is true not only in cities and urban areas, but in many rural areas as well. To be sure, rural areas may have farms – even active working farms, but they are usually in the commodity business and are not raising actual food for local sale to the local populace. Whether they have corn, soybeans, wheat, or hay in the fields, it’s a commodity that goes for animal feed. They may have hogs, dairy cows, beef steers, or a barn full of chickens, but there’s no food to be obtained from the farm. In this country by and large, food is acquired from grocery stores or supermarkets, not from farms.  Most farmers today contract with a grain, meat, or dairy processor, and are merely producers of commodities—feudal serfs who dance to a corporate whistle. Major multi-national corporations like Cargill, ADM (Archer Midland Daniels), Tyson, and Purdue purchase the majority of raw materials entering the food production stream. Rural farming communities throughout the United States have dwindled to near ghost towns, and most farm commodities are subsidized with tax revenue to support less-than-sustainable farm income streams, which in turn benefits the corporate buyers of raw farm commodities because they can purchase at cost of production or less.  New census data released by the USDA in February provides reason for concern, again. The number of farms operating in the US and the number of farm acres have both fallen significantly. There were 141,733 fewer farms in 2022 than in 2017. The number of farm acres was reduced by a whopping 20 million acres in the same five-year period. This is very disturbing! Yes, we can shrug our shoulders and say there’s still plenty of food in the supermarket, and that’s true. But that food is increasingly not produced domestically. As a nation we now import 20% of our food. That’s one out of every five bites. If that doesn’t pose a national security concern, I don’t know what does. What’s the solution to this? While it’s a complex problem—particularly on a national scale (I happen to think most large-scale problems are best solved on a local or regional level) I believe number one is to de-corporatize farming and food production. While there are a number of small farms that have effectively exited the corporate commodity system, they are few and far between, and we need many more to make this move. The problem with being in the commodity system is that the corporate aggregators who buy raw farm commodities hold farms and farmers hostage via price. Given that most farmers have little to no control over the price they’re paid for their goods, farming has become the hard-scrabble vocation it is, which then turns the next generation away. Thus we have an unprecedented aging farmer demographic, which means that in the next 15-20 years, over fifty percent of our privately held farmland will change hands not by choice, but by death. Who will take it over? Will they know how to manage it? If this land is not taken over by people who know how to produce food from it, we’ll undoubtedly import even more food from foreign interests. Throughout history, people—individuals—have always teamed up to instigate change. And they still do.  Such as small-scale food producers who take the path of lunatics and are driven to a different system by producing real food for real people within their region. That’s us. But more importantly, change is being instigated by people who are sick (literally) and tired of being victims of Big Food and their unpronounceable ingredients, empty claims, and tasteless pseudo-food, and opt out to find real-time food producing farms in their region. That’s you. This food partnership is the crux of interdependence. Small-scale farms like us cannot be independent, no more than today’s society is independent in food acquisition. To me, the folks who recognize the reality of this opportunity—and leverage it—portray quite well the irrefutable law of interdependent community and become the solution to one of the foremost threats facing us as an independent western nation. As always, the people hold the solution in the form of a food revolution. Let's hope it comes quickly. And that’s the View from the Country.

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Do you trust "Certified Organic"?

The birth of organic food is one of humble beginnings and grassroot effort in an attempt to regenerate farmland and provide clean food for those who sought it over sixty years ago. In the mid-1960’s, the moment was ripe for turning back to nature; DDT was in the news, an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara had blackened California’s coastline, and Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River had caught fire due to chemical pollution. “Ecology” was on everyone’s lips and was closely followed by “organic”. Early on, “organic” carried connotations far exceeding mere chemical-free food production. It implied a disdain and rejection of the war machine (also a hot button issue of the Vietnam era), since the same corporations—Dow, Monsanto—that manufactured pesticides also made napalm and Agent Orange, the herbicides with which the U.S. military was waging war against nature in southeast Asia. This correlation was very real in the minds of the early adopters, which was largely made up of young people who decried the war.  The early efforts at growing food organically was trial and error by scattered amateurs who were poorly connected and had almost no support network. In fact, the USDA was actively hostile to these efforts, viewing it as a critique—which it was—of the industrialized agriculture it promoted. Largely due to these factors, the organic food and farming model stayed relatively small and obscure--compared to the industrialized food sector--in the twenty-five span from the mid-1960's until about 1990. It did, however, grow in a sort of behind-the-scenes manner driven by increasing consumer demand. Because of this burgeoning consumer demand, by 1990 organic agriculture caught the eye of some of the largest food corporations in America—and subsequently—the eye of food governance. A bill, called the Organic Food and Production Act (OFPA), was passed in Congress. Ironically, it instructed the Dept of Agriculture—the same agency who had treated organic agriculture with undisguised contempt—to establish a set of national standards. Even today, many of us in the beyond-organic food world look back on that moment in time and see that move as a grave mistake. Since the early ‘90’s—and even more in the 2000’s, the organic food movement has seen consistent growth, and is lauded by many as the complete answer to corruption and fraught industrialization in the food industry. From a marketing standpoint—as well as from a consumer view, organic was the unalloyed good in a food world gone awry. But what many people don’t know is that the growth was fueled by corporate buy-in (from the largest food corporations in the world who wanted a piece of the pie), who viewed organics through a dollars-and-cents lens rather than the pure-food-and-farming vision the early adopters had. In my view, corporate buy-in is what gave rise to the organic food movement. However, it also caused it to become corrupted. Consequently, the organic food movement—like its cousin Industrialized Food—has become riddled with fraud and deceit. In an effort to maintain purity and consumer trust, the National Organic Program (NOP), which was the result of the USDA's "national standards", set up a third-party review board that allows or disallows materials (products used in both production and processing) into the NOP. This review board is called the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). Over the course of the past 20-30 years, as more large-scale growers seek entrance into the organic marketplace, OMRI has been pressured—and I suspect bribed and bought—into allowing more and more questionable materials into the NOP. As a result, a number of “organic version” pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides (cides=“death“ in Latin) are now allowed in the organic program that would certainly have been shunned by the early pioneers. But they are a necessary ingredient to the industrialization of organics. Similarly, certifiers are localized third-party groups, with usually several in each state, although they are allowed to certify in other states as well. For example, here in PA one of the certifiers is PCO (Pennsylvania Certified Organic), who is known to adhere to stricter rules and regulations than some certifiers. For this reason, some organic farmers choose to certify with the less rigid certifiers (which is always the result of a pass/fail system). You see where this is going, as organic became mainstream and therefore, mass-produced, it becomes increasingly similar to its conventional counterpart in that it's a race to the bottom in terms of quality. The only difference being that little green “USDA Organic” logo to buoy consumer confidence. Perhaps one of the most glaring cases of fraud in the organic sector involves imported grain. In most areas the world over where organic agriculture is practiced, there’s a deficit of organic grains. For example, here in the US we only grow 20% of the organic grains we use, and import 80%. To make up this deficit, the “Stan” countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc.) of central Asia have stepped in to fill the void. The grain from this region is largely exported through the port in Istanbul, Turkey. In March 2018, a shipment of “organic” grain from these countries was found to be fraudulent and 25,000 metric tons of corn was refused entry into the U.S. Although the NOP issued a memo four months later (in July 2018) to organic certifiers to be wary of these high-risk countries for grain fraud, no more action was taken to limit imports from the "Stan" region. There’s evidence of domestic fraud as well, as one can well expect given the significant price hike from conventional to organic. In 2019, an Iowa commodities broker, Randy Constant, admitted to more than $142 million in “organic” grain sales, the vast majority of which were fraudulent. During the years of 2010 to 2017, he sold over 11 million bushels of grain with more than 90% of it falsely marketed as organic, some of which included grain grown from genetically modified (GMO) seed, which is banned by the NOP. While there has been some action taken to bring the perpetrators of these fraud schemes to justice—especially here in the states, much of it has been slow and complicated, with almost a sense a reluctance from the NOP. Which begs the question; “How much “organic” grain has been both imported and sold domestically since the above cases have been uncovered?” And that of; “How many crops are entering the organic food and feed sector daily that are not truly organic?” Given the fraud that’s has taken place, not to mention the host of questionable material “cides” allowed in the organic sector, the “certified organic” food movement is something of a house of cards in terms of consumer confidence. I purposely say the “certified organic” movement because I believe the original vision for food and farming that’s natural and chemical-free is still alive among many farmers and eaters alike. Truly organic food (even more if it's beyond organic) in the marketplace is still the most viable alternative to mainstream food, which is to say the alternative to GMO’s, glyphosate (a known carcinogen), synthetic fertilizers, antibiotics, growth hormones, and the like. But “certified organic” has become a mere shadow of what it was meant to be and may be the most misleading label out there today, given the fraudulent activity found in many corners of the program. Some of the early pioneers in the organic movement suggested that the organic food chain couldn’t expand into America’s supermarket and fast-food outlets without sacrificing its ideals, and it appears they were right. The industrialization of organics has sparked a dramatic shift away from the founder's vision for small locally oriented farms producing high-quality food to what is now a subset of Big Industrialized Food procuring pseudo-organic food on a large-scale globally oriented business model. When organic food appeared in big-box stores, it became just another label designed to bolster the confidence of eaters who were distanced from the producers of their food. As always, distance obscures transparency and accountability. With transparency and accountability missing, deception is easy—because regulators are easily bought and sold on the corporate level. And then, it’s only a matter of time before consumers see through the illusion and trust is lost. The good news is there’s a rising revolution of farms and food producers who are serving the “brightest and best” in the consuming populace with “beyond organic” vegetables, meat, and dairy products. It’s a revolution of sorts that includes small-scale direct-to-eater farms and clusters of concerned, educated consumers. Bypassing the need for organic certification with direct consumer relationships, this growing know-your-farmer know-your-food movement is the future to trust and transparency in the food supply. At Pasture to Fork, we place little to no emphasis on organic certification, mostly because all our production models far exceed of the requirements of the NOP. We do, however, emphasize producer/consumer relationship, localized foodscapes, full transparency, and optimal food quality and nutrition. What’s more, we believe truly organic food production is more about the producer’s beliefs, thoughts, and worldview than it is about a pass/fail certification process that can be fudged on or a set of rules that can be bent. Which is to say you can learn more about me by seeing my reading material (which indicates my interests and worldview) than having me fill out a bunch of certification forms. And that’s the View from the Country. This image depicts the books that have had the most impact on my views in farming and food production, health, and business, but not only that, on my life and worldview overall. Or see our short essay dubbed "Beyond Organic", for more outside-the-box views on the "organic" discussion.

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Be The Change You Wish to See

For the past several decades, multi-national corporations have gradually corrupted the once-local food sector with cheap unhealthy ingredients and mass-production of highly processed food-like substances. Once upon a time this was only true in the conventional food arena, but as always, much wants more. As the organic sector garnered attention, the food giants of the world eyed it as a new frontier, and only a few years later we see it eroding as big box stores become the principal purveyors of now faux organic food. As if corrupting the quality of food were not enough, the agenda also includes undermining the craft-food sector in a continual price war (made possible by tax-dollar subsidies, of course). Not to mention wining and dining politicians and regulatory agencies to effectively eliminate food choice. For nearly as many years, the integrity food movement has complained and griped about all of the above. When GMOs quietly began appearing in food over 25 years ago, we essentially lost that part of the battle. And ever since, the craft-food crowd has been grousing about the experiment on an uninformed society and how children are being poisoned with toxic glyphosates and noxious ingredients. They call for legislation and beg for contributions to our lobbying efforts. Stand up to the pernicious industrial food complex, they say, and give us your money to help exposure efforts and non-profits fighting for the cause. And what you get for your money is more losing and more complaining. Lobbying efforts and exposé endeavors cost the offending companies virtually nothing. Legislative reform—if anything is won—becomes so watered down by the time it’s passed that it’s virtually meaningless, and the exposés rarely make the mainstream news. At the end of the day too many of us still revert to buying their goods and services, and Big Food knows it. Oh, we may have moved our food purchases to the organic section in an effort to boycott them, but they own that too—under separate "pure" brands, so no worries there. Corporate America wants it both ways; they want us to buy their goods and services and they want their exorbitant profit, cushy market monopolies, and woke virtue-signaling. And since the vast majority of society doesn’t opt out of the formally accepted supermarket food system, they continue to openly repudiate the ever-increasing number of health-conscious customers with pseudo food made to appear healthy. Obviously, what doesn’t work is complaining and griping while consistently ceding our patronage to bully corporations who hate our values. What doesn’t work is integrity food producers who criticize the FDA and USDA for being in bed with the industry yet accept their oversight, which ultimately leads to dissolution of certain high-demand products because of regulation enforced by these agencies.  Do we too, think we can have it both ways? Can we aid and abet “the system” while at the same time opting out? If “the system” openly disregards our values, how can we possibly support them? For myself, I can’t pretend to abide by regulatory edict while underhandedly marketing unapproved products under an alibi label. Sure, it’s frightening and disconcerting to openly tell health and agriculture departments (pseudo-governments?) who we are and what we do, and that we have no desire to partner with them. But can we risk our values by affiliating with an industry who would rather see us out of business because they’re aligned with corporations who hate us? Opting out is hard (be it going against status quo regulation or eschewing the “affordability” of supermarket food), but the liberty that comes from being true and honest to ourselves and living by our convictions is sweet. While I don’t disdain folks who spend time contacting congressmen and pushing for remedial legislation, I’m not convinced that it’s the best path forward. Frankly, I’ve given up on lobbying and legislation. People ask what we think of the proposed new farm bill. I must say I haven’t even read it. I don’t care about the farm bill. There is so little in it that affects me. Yes, it has potential implications, but to change it requires tremendous lobbying efforts for a minimal difference. If all the people who have their pants in a wad about regulation and government corruption were to put their resources to practical use, what a difference we could make! Remember, where we put our effort—it grows. If we put our effort into more legislation—legislation will grow. More deception. More hard-to-understand legal jargon on many reams of paper. However, if we opt out of the system, food producers and regulators alike feel it in their pockets. Speak with your dollars, move the market. We have surrogate decision makers if we rely on Congress to rein in regulators and fix the food supply. Let’s not leave our children's health to surrogates. Find alternative sources, vote with your food dollars, exercise and develop intuition, and become skilled at vetting provenance. If we become expert at these, we can stop allowing these things to occupy our time. These are the things that will change the food culture and the agricultural landscape in America. Plus, if we stop being vexed with the status quo and focus on positive change we make ourselves far more attractive to seekers. Positivity and effectiveness entices people. Remember Margaret Mead’s succinct quote; “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” And that, is The View from the Country.Worth Repeating - “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ― Steve Jobs

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