Author: Chris Jones (Page 2 of 7)

conceptual- creating something in your mind

practical- Joe Salatin puts conceptual to real life

analytic – look in detail

Are the principles of capitalism and industrialization ( by themselves) sufficient to address the critiques of industrial food production ?

how are they compatable with profit, regulation, market

Inequality, externalities, monopoly

No, the principles of capitalism and industrialism aren’t sufficient enough to address the critique of industrial food production

environmental consequence- pollution, fertilizer – soil fertility diminishes – unfertile land, takes a lot of water to keep production

address critique  how would capitalist supporter respond

how would joe salatin respond

how would values joe values can they be integrated in to capitalism

if it can be then critique is subtle

ideas

                                                                                                                critique                                        practice

quantity versus quality  capitalism

capitalism has something to do with healing the land

“While its great that the birds have actual contact with grass, it’s not sustainable. Polyface does not raise the birds in winter, and so must buy eggs from other farms to replenish their stock each year. Each chicken on the farm was thus the child of a factory raised bird. Without a (very) small scale home farm, there’s no way to keep the chickens 365 days a year like this.So, buying Polyface chickens is best for the birds on Polyface farms, but it still means a factory life, and the promotion of a factory life, for other birds.”

The criticism Nathan Fiala is making of polyface farm is that the farm is not sustainable. Nathan says this because the farm doesn’t raise chickens in the winter because of the weather, and that the chickens on the farm are a child of a factory raised bird. I don’t understand Nathans criticisms, talking about “promotion of a factory life”  Polyface doesn’t want that at all, if anything there saving birds from going to factories not promoting that lifestyle. Nathan is attempting to make a connection between polyface buying eggs from other farms and promoting factory life.  He does come from a very eco friendly standpoint, and dives deep into the process of how polyface creates its food.

“Polyface beef is probably priced much closer to the real social price of beef, so I have no problem with the price. Scaling up of such a program, which Joel thinks is feasible, means that the days of $1 burgers at McDonalds would be gone. Again, fine with me, but there is no way Americans will be able to afford the amount of beef they eat now.”

Nathan stance on the price of beef is correct. The average price of beef per pound is $ 2.50, at polyface it’s $4.25. I don’t believe americans will increase spending on meat by this amount just because it’s better for the animals.  This country as a whole, isn’t ethically invested enough to spend a lot more money on meat just for the sake of the animal. This viewpoint is very realistic and reasonable.

“Studies have suggested that free-range and organic chickens may have more negative environmental impacts than traditional poultry products, as the chickens take longer to produce.^[9] Additional criticism claims that Salatin’s farm is not scalable, since the Earth—which already uses 26% of ice-free land for grazing—does not have enough land to support free-range meat at current consumption levels”

This criticism does have some truth behind it, the cows at polyface take up 33% more land than industrial size productions and the time to slaughter on polyface (20-29 months) is twice as long as a factory cows. “Given we are already using a lot of land to produce the meat people are already eating, this would not be a sustainable increase.”  Modern technology does allow for more sustainable land use. These criticims are coming from real life scenarios and statistics. The amount of land available for farming is so great but does have a limit. With the population increase in the world, it wouldn’t be very sustainable if every farm went about things like polyface does. With more people requires even more meat production, and an efficient factory that produces more meat in less space is worse for animals but realitically sustainable for people and the current/future challenge of feeding everyone.

Some core values of capitalism

• Individuality- looking to develop the person
• accumulation of profit
• Freedom – the ability to do what you want
• Labor – for money.  The company gets more out of the labor of workers than what they pay their employees
• Private property- Protecting their home, not having anyone infringe on their rights as a homeowner
• Free market- prices, supply, and demand are all based on the open market (consumers), free from any intervention by a government.

Joel Salatin is critical of capitalism in many ways. One of the ways Joel Salatin criticizes capitalism is when he states that “Polyface has never had a sales target, marketing plan, or business plan” This contradicts capitalism in many forms. To make a business plan to increase profits is a foundation of capitalism. When you have no sales target, then your not looking for any specific cutomers to sell your product to. In a capitalist economy, businesses tend to market to a specific demographic of people. Another example of Salatin being critical of capitalism is this quote “We’re much more concerned about healing than competition.” This represents the idea of sharing. Mr. Salatin is willing to give away the secrets that makes his farm self sustainable and healthy because he cares more about the environment than profit or competition between farmers.  In capitalism, a core value is individuality. Looking out for the individual, developing the individual. Salatin is about developing everyone. Helping others and the earth is his personal core value. Which directly goes against capitalism. If you are a business owner in favor of  capitalism then your are trying to prosper your business, attempting to make it bigger in size for more profit, Salatin expresses his contradiction to this exact model  “All my experiences with empires have been negative. And people who run them seem fairly unhappy.” The definition of capitalism- “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” This explains the viewpoint Salatin has on capitalism and how he is critical of it.

Joel Salatin is a propenent of capitalism in some ways. One of the forms in which he supports a type of capitalism is when he states that he is a “fan of bonuses and commission” This relates to capitalism in that the accumulation of money is a key principle of capitalism. Commission and bonuses are both very common forms of accumulating money, which stems from rewarding your employees for achievements in the workplace.  Another way that Mr. Salatin is a proponent of capitalism is that he himself uses independent growers who are on a per piece pay scale.  This coincides with capitalist values by  using “independent growers”. Independence from other factors, is a key principle of capitalism, and “per piece pay scale”, which is a profit the farm receives from its workers labor. The company gets more out of the labor of workers than what they pay their employees.  These are both ways Salatin is somewhat a proponent of capitalism.

To some degree the 54% of Americans who say that capitalism is working well would accept Polyface Farm Business model. It depends on the individual but I would think that most everyone regardless of what you believe in would support polyface farms. It is considered a big farm by USDA because it exceeds $400,000 in profit per year. Polyface farm annual sales exceed 1 million dollars. They help the environment, the animals, the workers on the farm and other farms. It is making profit and helping other farms save money by using the self sustaining techniques Polyface encorporates. I think that a small margin of the 54 % would not accept Polyface business method, due to their capability of making more money but they willingly choose not to.

without profit or ownership by few means of production you don tget industrial size production. Real life example, car industry

Polyface farm on the  DANGER “we’ve been starved for cash for more years than not, thats exactly what makes us innovative, were hungry and when were hungry were creative”

marketing creates desire for things people want, not what they need.  Consume beyond need in sustainability-

Distributing useful ideas – Poly face farm with no marketing or advertising

how Polyface wants to grow “This slower, more relationally oriented, pay-as-you-go growth is inherently more organic”

Interesting point – Pollan blames wallstreet for taking smart minds of the society, leaving ill educated people to farm

effeciency = work x effort

exploitation- getting workers to give company more than what the company gives the employee

1. 
2. How much human work goes into the complexity at the heart of Polyface Farms? What is Pollan’s complex view on that work? (Complex means that he has more than a single view).

Human effort for the better of the animals. The  human workload that goes into the complexity at the heart of polyface, is ecocentric. For example Salatins treatment of pigs is “designed around natural predilections of the pig rather than around the requirements of a production system” The pig well being has priority over anything, Salatin states  “pig happiness is a by product of treating a pig like a pig”.  Pollans complex view on this work is line with his morals.  He explains that humans have a lot of work to do, to farm this way.  Pollan says “thats still us humans out there moving the cattle every morning.

2. In Salatin’s and Pollan’s views, what’s wrong with monoculture farming? Recalling Bittman and Kingsolver, to what degree are the practices of industrial food production dependent on the monoculture?

In Salatin’s and Pollan’s view, the wrong in monoculture is the entire process of how un natural it is.  The machinery, the chemicals and the fertilizer are all examples of whats wrong with monoculture in the eye’s of Pollan and Salatin. The putting of animals in close quarters, when Pollan says monoculture of ”chickens raised in close confinement”. Monoculture and industrial food production go hand in hand. In order to raise a monoculture on a farm on an industrial level, you’d probably need to to use pharmaceuticals and pesticides” and thats why chemicals were invented, in Pollan’s words “to keep monoculture from collapsing”.

3.Besides products and profits, how do Pollan and Salatin measure the success of the farm?

Pollan and Salatin measure the success of the farm in many ways, one of these is how biological in touch with the animals the farm is. For example, the system of converting animals waste to supply nutrients to other animals. Polyface uses nitrgoen from the chickens waste to fertilize the grass, so the cows can eat that healthy naturally fertilized grass. This supports the view of being  biologically in sound with the animals. This connects to many examples the farm uses to provide a almost self sustaining farm.

list the values that inform the farm’s practices and explain the two that seem most important to you. Try to connect specific values to specific farm practices (in what farm actions do you see, for example, the principle of “individuality” being realized?).

one of their core values is grass based. Pay you back in your soul, you farm with ethics your eating with morals.

individuality physiological distinctiveness reinforces the cowness of the cow. Animals are happier when put in their natural state.

Natures template – make sure they get the same diet as they get in the wild.

dont work to maintain the animals, the animals do that themselves

distincitiveness – being your own

is there way to make living  way to do that wothout getting out of the loop of grow more, more product and more money

Iowa requires farmers to put down nitrogen for their farms

no solution will be perfect

well see if insects become popular down the road

possible solutions, every solution will require humans to change

Paper prompt – what is it ?

Logistical requirements- limits, due dates, # of quotes, paragraph structure

content requirements-  goal {learning}    background {ideas} {questions}    emphasis

sort out points of view then use that to problem solve

retorical requirements – Audience, genre

fleshed out version

visit production   – what they do                                   visit principles- why they do it

Kingsolver- Bittman related views

too much oil – limited renewble resource

too much water- limite resource, slowly renewable

unhealthy – we have to be trained to eat as much as we do

impoverished food cultures – out of balance, “lost” knowledge

remember facts being asked to look at, are facts being formed for an argument.  ex. watching graphic video, narrator makes it seem a certain way.

people who have college degress think differently than people that don’t.

role of university- train people in specialized thinking

expect viewpoints to evolve

Scientific thinking-

open- pre judge

science is evidence- based

predictions- limited data

• Spend at least 20 minutes exploring and taking notes on National Geographic’s interactive infographic on what the world eats. How do food consumption patterns change across time and cultures? Write a blog post entitled “What the World Eats” in which you report on your findings and how they relate to the Bittman timeline you made on March 19.

how do food consumption patterns change across time and culture ?

Time

Sugar intake has increased the most in people’s daily diet,  (calories per person) over time

The average amount of grams someone consumes on a daily basis worldwide increased from 1300 in 1961, to 1800 to 2011.                    Showing an overall pattern of more food being eaten by every person.

Meat consumption is gradually increasing globally, since 1961 it has doubled

Culture

Countries like vietnam stood at around 800 grams consumed per day for decades after 1961, while countries like Australia had               a constant daily intake of around 2500 grams the entire time.

From 800 grams  to 2300 grams daily intake in China has a large uptake in food eaten. Showing that the culture in China and the                greater Asia has changed. They also have the largest percentage of produce, as part of their diet.

Similar theme going on between many cultures, grams eaten per day has increased overall.

The total ton ( national consumtion ) of meat in China has increased 2,364% since 1961, . This shows these cultures embracing meat to a great extent, In Saudi arabia  where national meat consumption is up 3,102 % and in

 how they relate to bittman  timeline 

This relates greatly to Bittmans timeline, in that when food was increasingly being transported to different places thousands of miles away, grams intake per person increased. It makes sense that when the availability of food went up so did peoples appetite.  The reason why availability increased is because of the industrial revolution.

This also relates to Bittmans timeline in that from 2007-2010 we as a country kill 10 billion animals a year to feed our meat craving.  Meat consumption has exponentially prospered. Is an indicator of a culture change.  Of how big a role meat plays in the culture of the US.

Another example of Bittman’s timeline is that the idea of eating organic has gained popularity, from being introduced in american culture in the 1970’s. The amount of produce consumed per person has increased across the world, showing a change in culture and peoples attitude towards healthy food.