Food and ag

It has been a while since you've gotten much philosophizing... Feel free to just scroll down if you're mostly looking for cute kid/goat pictures, but meanwhile, two trains of thought about food and agriculture:

1. (One reason) why (some) people (might) argue about food production systems:

Most of the meat you buy at the supermarket lives its whole animal life in a big big house -- climate-controlled, protected from the elements and from predators, with access to scientifically-balanced and measured rations of grains and minerals.  It's an extremely efficient way to produce affordable, plentiful, and uniform meat, ideally in convenient, accessible packages.  But there are, as you've perhaps heard, downsides -- the animals don't get to go outside, they don't get to eat what their stomachs were evolved to process (they fatten faster on corn than on grass), they are often stressed and more susceptible to disease (lots of animals in a small space), there are certain social and environmental concerns (water pollution, antibiotic resistance, industry consolidation, etc.). 

But visiting industrial (and not-so-industrial) meat farms with a bunch of students made me realize some things I hadn't thought about before.  Mostly, I've been starting to suspect that a lot of the debates where people claim the "superiority" of either mainstream food production or of "alternatives" (local/regional production, organics, fair trade, grass-fed or animal welfare certificates, etc.) are not so much about agriculture and food as they are about broader societal disagreements about how to live in the world.

A manager at a pork facility we visited, when asked about raising pigs outdoors noted that, "Sure, you can raise pigs in an open barn, but then you have pigs that lose ears to frostbite or have to spend time in the rain."  Another showed us a new "free-to-roam" pig housing set-up, where, instead of being housed in individual metal cubicles, 40 pigs are grouped together in a 15x15 (indoor) pen.  This is marketed as a big improvement for animal welfare, although given the nature of pig hooves and slotted floors that are slick with poop/water mixture, the "roaming" was kind of like a person trying to walk on high heels over a sidewalk grate.. but nevertheless...  Our tour guide pointed to a big pile-up of sleeping pigs and noted "Gosh, they had more elbow room when they were in individual stalls (aka gestation crates)."  When we visited a large-scale chicken facility (boasting the highest weight gain per bird per day in the entire industry), our host remarked, "Do you really want to eat chickens who live outdoors eating all kinds of weird bugs when you can eat a chicken with a scientific diet?"

And it made me think that our views on what makes for humane or appropriate conditions for livestock may actually have a lot to do with what we think of as the "good life" for people.  I'd venture (totally unsubstantiated-ly) that if you asked people whether they wanted to 1) go to a climate-controlled mall, eat processed sanitized food, and have some personal space, or 2) run around in the woods or fields or trails, sleep in a big huddle on a camping trip, and grow food, most people would opt for the mall. It's probably the "easier" and probably more "comfortable" option. 

And so we provide that for our animals -- indoor environments, temperature and humidity-controlled comforts, precise and controllable diets... And for people who want their farm animals to be outside in the rain and the sun eating bugs, perhaps they too are projecting a sense of how they want to be living themselves.  So, while of course I have my own opinions on which system is better suited to an animal's "natural" behaviors, and while I have views on the line between feeling nicely comfortable and insulating oneself too much from the humanness of life, what I think is more interesting is that views on agriculture seem to diverge in very similar ways to views on broader social values and lifestyles.  Which is kinds of obvious, I suppose, but I hadn't thought about it that way.


Lamb in cooler


Making sausage

 
Cooking day

2. (One reason) why (some) people (sometimes) think about food production systems:

Most of the students I work with are interested in "alternative" food systems, like the pigs running around pastures rather than in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations).  They like purchasing foods whose production did not cause pesticide or fertilizer runoff, or did not rely on child slave labor trafficked across national borders (a big problem in the chocolate industry, as it turns out). But they also struggle with the elitism that tends to permeate these kinds of movements... And so it's interesting to see, when faced with different models, where they land.  

On our NY chocolate trip, my co-teacher noticed that the students tended to rave about visits where the chocolate-maker spent time talking with our group.  It didn't really matter whether the chocolate was "artisanal" or "sustainable" or made "by hand" or "by machine" or whatever else food studies students would presumably be interested in.  Instead, they primarily responded to the personal connection generated with the chocolate-maker, the experience of talking with someone who felt passionate about his/her work.  This was true whether the chocolate factory visited was more industrial (melting down chocolate to create confections) or artisanal (“bean to bar” as it is called these days).

Many scholarly-types have argued that this search for personal connection is part of what has fueled recent interest in the food system.  They argue that while industrial food production provides a lower cost, convenient, and consistent product, its lack of process transparency creates a disconnect between people and their source of nourishment, with associated discontents.  But I’m not sure that the industrial food system actually suffers from this kind of disconnection with its consumers.  Its connection with consumers is slightly different, of course, but I think this connection between consumers and products is actually paramount. 

Even if a consumer at McDonald’s, for example, has no idea of where the ingredients in his/her Big Mac come from, who prepared it, or how it was made (facts often lamented in alternative food circles), the franchise’s global popularity suggests that the consumer has a strong connection with the experience of food at McDonald’s.  By serving consumers a consistent product, available worldwide, produced by the known (animated) character Ronald McDonald, McDonalds is in fact selling a known product, one with which consumers can easily feel a strong personal connection, despite it being in some ways the extreme example of an anonymous meal.

 

So perhaps proponents of alternative food systems (including my students) are not simply seeking a connection to their food (they can clearly get that from the industrial food system as well) but rather a particular kind or source of connection to their food.  In my job, located in a school of sustainability, it is often argued that this connection has something to do with a concern for the environmental and social footprint of our food production practices – and so we often focus on understanding production practices and consumer access as keys to understanding the differences between different kinds of food production.  But the preference of chocolate students for producers with a story, regardless of their production methods or size or consumer base, suggests again that it probably has less to do with the food and agriculture pieces, and more the valuing of a particular kind of lifestyle or set of social interactions....


Cacao tree (in a greenhouse)

 
Hershey, PA!

 
Students' final projects for chocolate class

Anyway, on to some kiddo pictures.  The basic rundown on life with the crew is that we're still too busy, but hoping that with summer coming, we'll get towards a more manageable pace.  But meanwhile, everyone is doing well.

Doctor's office waiting room for checkups

Dinner

Stories with Safta

Parking lot picnic

Li'el as a big fan of Timber

And apparently hairbrushes

We finally got our leaves raked

And jumped in the piles

And I feel like I've been remiss on posting goat photos lately, so here's one from winter

And our borrowed chicken coop

And a couple of videos to send you off with!