TRDean said:
Please...don't even go there. The comment that hormones and steriods in meat and poultry is a terrible thing...smacks of near sightedness. Modified meats and crops are here because of the growth of the population. There is more demand. While in a perfect world you would not need these "additives" sorry to say we don't live in one...and the consequences of Contador's comments could very well hurt quite a lot of people. And may I ask...why is modern industrial farming bad news??
I agree. Alot of misinformation out there about food production. I see Francois makes a comment about the testing of cattle to who's standards etc etc.Which are legitimate questions. As a cattle producer we raise our beef naturally. But i can tell u in the USA the hormonal ear implants that are used by some producers legally instead of clenbuterol are now shown to release the drug in such small amounts that in blood testing of hormone levels it is impossible in most cases to differentiate between an implanted calf and a non implanted calf as the hormone levels stay within normal paramaters.
As agricultural land has been reduced in need of a growing populations housing desires the American farmer has become far more efficient. This efficiency has been given negative connotations by people with contrary agendas.
Lets look at genetically modified corn for example. In the old days you had open pollinated corn, you had to plant male plants & female plants and originally was pollinated by wind. Not very efficient. Then later seed corn companies would hire people to pollinate the corn by hand. This was better but still kept yields under 100 bushels to the acre. Then came the first "genetically modified" corn. Hybrid corn. Selective breeding produced better & better production.
Nowadays the seed corn companies develop hybids and plant them in northern & southern hemispheres to quicken their genetic development and rapidly develop corn which can withstand severe drought to be used in places like africa. There are modern varieties which can grow on less than 1/3 the amount of water than previous varieties. Also disease and pest resistant, mold resistant.
Because of these developments people in harsh enviroments will be better able to provide for their families.
Nowadays through denser plantings & better seed it is not uncommon to see yields of 300 bushels to the acre. Less loss of topsoil, less chemical runoff etc etc.
People also talk about gov subsidies. Here is a little known fact.If you take one dollar from any program offered by the US ag agency, they have control over all your operations.
Just as an example, our family rents ground to the government for wildlife habitat. we receive $100 per acre per year, it is cropland that could rent for almost 10 times that. However many people classify this as a government subsidy. Anyway our family farm is incorporated. My mother owns a few acres in her own name which she rents. We were contacted that the tenant on her land had planted his soybeans in the wrong direction and all of the families farm money would be withheld until the practice was rectified. The law is the gov has to know all people with interests in any farming operation, if that person only holds 1% share 100 percent of money can be withheld from the operation or corporation for "violations" occuring on other land owned by a shareholder.
In this way the government retains control over virtually all of the farmland in the USA while only actually having a much smaller financial interest.
For the record the field was reinspected closer and found to be in compliance(hard to tell the direction of immature plants just driving by a field)
While "industrial" farming, is held up as a horrific practice it is not always so.
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