Tag: Economy

Monsanto – Too Big to Fall?

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Here in the Washington DC area you often hear Monsanto running ads on the radio touting how they are helping farmers feed the world and how they are supporting sustainable agriculture. However, Monsanto is anything but a supporter of sustainable agriculture. They are a giant agricultural chemical and genetically modified (GMO) seed corporation that has done much damage to sustainable agriculture. Many people have lamented how Monsanto has been able to "legally" run rough shod over farmers in developing a monopoly in the agricultural world.

Last month, a little reported, but very significant event happened. France’s Supreme Court ruled against Monsanto, saying that the agrochemical giant had not told the truth about its best selling weed-killer, Roundup. Monsanto had falsely advertised Roundup as being "biodegradeable" and claimed that it "left the soil clean".  Roundup is not biodegradable and it does contaminate the soil.

For years we have been told that when Roundup is sprayed it kills plants, but when the chemical comes in contact with the soil it is neutralized. It has been said so often that many believe it to be true. France’s Supreme Court’s ruling shows proof that Roundup is not neutralized in the soil. The use of Roundup is one of the leading reasons why Monsanto has developed genetically modified seeds. The plants grown from their genetically modified seeds can be sprayed with Roundup and will not die. That enables farmer to spray their fields with Roundup and kill the weeds after the corn or soybeans have come up and not harm the corn or soybeans.

Keep watching. Someday – maybe in the distant future – but someday, Monsanto and their Roundup will likely disappear, never to be seen again.  "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.  Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." (Psalm 37:35-36)

Monsanto’s philosophy is built upon the evolutionary mindset that there is no God and that genetic selection (including genetically modified organisms—GMO’s) is THE answer to improving food production and feeding the world. What is being missed is that while genetic improvement has increased food production, the nutrient density of the food has decreased along with human and animal health. More food has to be consumed to supply the needed nutrients and as a result, obesity is increasing among children. The majority of people and animals today are either on pharmaceutical drugs or natural supplements to try to have some semblance of health. This is a testimony that Monsanto’s method of genetic selection is not THE answer.

God created the soil full of minerals in the Garden of Eden. The soil has been declining ever since. It has been documented that in the last 60 years that the mineral density of the soils has significantly decreased. We need to first rebuild the mineral and organic density of our soil. Then we can select for genetic superiority. The seeds that have been genetically selected by Monsanto to grow in mineral depleted soils do not have the proper genetic expression to grow in nutrient rich soils and produce nutrient dense foods. Many organic farmers and gardeners have discovered this and that is why there is a growing interest in heirloom seeds. The heirloom seeds in improved soils produce higher protein food and nutrient density. Along with the nutrient density is a significantly improved flavor. Our mouths tell us what food is best for our bodies by how good the food tastes.  When a tomato looks like a tomato but acts and tastes more like a tennis ball, you can be sure that that tomato was genetically selected for some other quality than nutrient dense food. Listen to your mouth and eat what is good! If it has a poor taste quality it is poor quality food. That is true of meats and eggs as well.

Links to articles on Monsanto
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8308903.stm
http://www.midnorthmonitor.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2160916  – An article showing how the "inactive" ingredients, the trade secret ingredients, that make Roundup more potent have been found to cause human liver cells to die.
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080627/n1

What Will You Eat This Winter?

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We as Americans allow others to do our food planning for us and to provide the food we need during the winter months. Is that wise? For as long as many of us can remember, one has been able to go to the grocery store every week during the winter and find it full of all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables, and buy whatever one wanted. Being able to buy food in the grocery store all winter has been so easy and reliable that most people do not have more than a few day’s supply of food in the house. We have gone from the self sufficiency of 100 years ago to almost total dependency on the grocery store.

This winter has the potential to be different. Mexico and central California, which provide much of our winter vegetables, are experiencing the worst drought in years. The Central Valley in California is a 400-mile-long, 18 county area. More than 260,000 of the 600,000 acres that grow tomatoes, lettuce and other crops have been taken out of production this year. When you think of how many tomatoes can be grown on one acre and realize that almost half of the land is sitting idle while the rest of the land is not producing as much because of the drought, there is potential for a food shortage. A link to the Wall Street Journal’s Sept. 2 article on the drought in California  – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125184765024077729.html?mod=rss_US_News
Note: We are not predicting that there will be a shortage of food this winter. It is possible that the food shortage will be made up from food from other parts of the world. We are just giving you a heads up.

The LA Times has a September 7, 2009 article "Mexico Water Shortage Becomes Crisis Amid Drought"

"A months-long drought has affected broad swaths of the country, from the U.S. border to the Yucatan Peninsula, leaving crop fields parched and many reservoirs low. The need for rain is so dire that water officials have been rooting openly for a hurricane or two to provide a good drenching.
"We really are in a difficult situation," said Felipe Arreguin Cortes, deputy technical director for Mexico’s National Water Commission.
"This is supposed to be Mexico’s wet season, when daily rains bathe farmland and top off rivers and reservoirs. But rainfall has been sporadic and unusually light — the result, officials say, of an El Niño effect this summer that has warmed Pacific Ocean waters and influenced distant weather patterns.
"Mexico’s hurricane season has been mild, with no major hits so far this summer, though a weak Hurricane Jimena dropped plenty of rain on parts of Baja California and the northwestern state of Sonora last week. The sparse rainfall nationwide has made 2009 the driest in 69 years of government record-keeping, Arreguin said…"
"Although no one wants to recognize it, there is a food crisis," said Cruz Lopez Aguilar…"

To read more – http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-drought7-2009sep07,0,6988447.story

One of the best savings accounts for an uncertain future is a freezer full of food. You always have to eat. Food and water are the most basic and important necessities of life. To rely totally on others to store up and provide food for us for when we need it is putting total of faith and trust in "the system".

There is one other aspect of "What will you eat this winter?". Will your food be from local sources or will it have logged many miles over land and sea from unknown (trusted?) sources to land on your plate? There is still a little time left to get a freezer and stock up on local food for this winter. We will have eggs available all winter, but our last chicken processing will be in November. We will not have any fresh chickens available after November until May of next year. The meat chickens are too young to handle the cold outside in the winter time. The "free-range" chickens that you will see in the grocery stores this winter will not be free-range! They are conventionally raised chickens, raised in big chicken houses with a deceptive title.

What is Expensive?

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It is interesting how easy it is for us to get our perspectives mixed up about what is expensive. Recently Cathy met a lady at Wal-Mart who was purchasing her groceries. By her appearance she was obviously not well. She was riding in one of the electric shopping carts that Wal-Mart provides for customers who have difficulty walking. This lady had met Cathy before and inquired about our eggs, but when she found out that they cost $3.75 a dozen, she said "Oh, I can’t afford that. It is too expensive." This lady was also drinking a Coke while she was shopping. The irony of that lady’s priorities and perspective made Cathy think. That Coke was flavored sugar water, devoid of nutrition and was contributing to the lady’s poor health. The acid in the Coke tends to leach calcium out of the body and bones and destroys the enamel on one’s teeth. It cost at least a dollar. Our pasture raised, organically fed eggs, on the other hand, are full of nourishment, protein, and readily absorbed nutrients and vitamins. A dozen eggs weighs at least one and a half pounds. At $3.75 a dozen, that is only $2.50/lb for a high protein food. That dozen eggs would provide that lady six meals of easy to prepare protein (two eggs per meal) at a cost of only 63 cents per meal. Now compare that to the Coke which cost more than a dollar per "meal". If the lady only has a limited amount of money to spend for food, which should she "too expensive" – the Coke, or our pasture raised eggs?

Scenario  #2
    A person we know of, has poor health and is concerned that they might die. At the same time they have plenty of money. Someone shared with this person about an alternative health care method which has had good success with this person’s type of illness. The person’s response of what is expensive helped me see things from a different perspective. This person said that they were open as long as there is not a product sale push along with the results of the testing. They said, "I am sorry, but I am very skeptical of testing programs of this nature that require you buy their products to fix your deficiency." The person, instead, has chosen to go with the medical doctor’s testing and product sale push which requires the person to use the medical doctor’s products to "fix" the problem at a cost of tens of thousand of dollars. Unfortunately, the medical doctor’s product "fix" also has a high failure rate along with major side effects.

What I learned from this situation is how easy it is for us to view things as too expensive to even check out because it would cost several hundred dollars a month, and other things such as the medical doctor’s "fix" with no greater success rate and which cost tens of thousands of dollars more, as a reasonable route to take.

We have bought into society’s warped view of what is expensive and what is not. The point of this scenario is not to discredit the medical profession. They play an important role in our lives such as when I was in an accident several years ago and broke my ankle. However, the $15,000 cost was way too excessive.

We are what we eat. There is a cause and effect sequence that occurs from the food that we eat. When we eat food that had to be raised with herbicides and pesticides, and meat that had to be fed antibiotics, is it any wonder that so many Americans have to also feed at the Pharmacy? If the food that we eat couldn’t survive without chemicals and antibiotics, we shouldn’t expect our bodies to be able to make it without chemical and antibiotic "fixes" too. When you take into account the medical costs, the lost time running to the doctor’s offices, the poor health in later years, etc., "cheap" grocery store and restaurant food is not cheap. It is expensive.

One of our customers, a young mother, commented that since she has started buying real food, her total food costs have gone down. Yes, the ingredients cost more, but she needs less. Plus you cut out expensive, negative nutrition foods such as Coke and boxed cereals. Your food dollars are spent on real nourishing food.

Is real, organically raised, nourishing food expensive? No, not when you count in all the costs of "cheap" grocery store food.

The End of Factory Farming?

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Wrong philosophies eventually come to an end, and it is interesting watching it happen to factory farming. The elections brought about a  change that you may not have heard about. California voters voted to do away with cages for laying hens, and the typical very small pens for hogs and veal calves. Most of the white eggs in grocery stores are laid by hens packed in small cages about five or six hens per cage. Each hen has the equivalent of a space eight inches by eight inches, which is less than a sheet of paper. The cages are in long rows, stacked three or four high, filling the huge chicken houses with tens of thousands of laying hens. The hens live their entire life squeezing out as many eggs as possible to fill the grocery stores with cheap eggs so that Americans have surplus money to buy iPods, cell phones, plasma TV’s, and other "necessary" items. The hens can’t exercise, breathe fresh air, or enjoy the sunshine. Factory farming has reduced millions of laying hens to mere egg laying machines that produce eggs that are barely fit to eat. California is one of the largest egg producing states in the nation, and they are leading the way in putting an end to the cruelest of the factory farming methods.

The factory farm broiler chicken industry is in trouble. Pilgrim’s Pride, the largest broiler producer, is almost bankrupt. Their stocks have fallen to 31 cents a share! Tyson Food is following closely on their heels. Tyson’s stocks have now fallen to where Pilgrim’s Pride’s stocks were several months ago, because Tyson’s poultry division is losing huge amounts of money.

For years the business philosophy has been for farms to get bigger and bigger. The small family farm could not compete. Now we are seeing that trend of bigger and bigger starting to collapse as the big companies can’t handle their huge debt load. The transition back to smaller more sustainable farms will probably be difficult, but the end result will be better quality food.
We live in some very interesting times.

Shipping Crisis

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There is another crisis that I feel I should let you know about so that you can prepare if it should become a bigger problem. All around the world, goods are sitting on docks waiting to be shipped by boat, but the companies buying the products are not able to get financing to pay for the goods because of the credit crisis. As a result of the big drop off in shipping in the last several months, the cost for rental of a large cargo ship has dropped over 90% as ship owners try to attract business so that they can survive. Ships that were getting over $200,000 a day to haul cargo are now only able to get $5,000 – $9,000 a day. This shipping crisis is an indicator of a much bigger problem. If things don’t change soon, imported items will start disappearing from store shelves when current inventories are depleted. This has the potential of becoming a serious problem because around 50% of the food in America and much of everything we use on a daily basis is imported. To read more on the shipping crisis, search www.news.google.com for "shipping crisis".

The Principle of Preparing For Winter

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In these times of economic uncertainty, the principle of preparing for winter helps us understand how to prepare for the uncertainty of the economic future. If you want to be self-sufficient in raising your own food, how many months’ supply of food do you need to store up for the winter? Three months’ supply? Four months’ supply? Six months’ supply? Our ancestors understood the importance of raising food and storing it up for the winter when they couldn’t grow food, and neither could anyone else around them. We have lost touch with what it means to store up food for the winter.

As a boy in the 1970’s I loved to explore my grandma’s basement. There were so many things to look at. It was so full of stuff that there were only paths to get around the basement. In one corner there were shelves that went from floor to ceiling, full of jars of canned fruits and vegetables from her garden. Plus there were boxes stacked on the floor that had more jars of canned food. The lid of each jar had on it the year when it was canned. I quickly discovered that she had at least two years’ supply of food from her garden in that corner. She used the oldest jars first, so she was always eating from what she had grown two or more years before. There were two freezers and they were always stuffed full of food year round. It was just her and my one single uncle that lived in the house, and yet every year she still planted two large gardens, one on either side of the house.

I thought at the time that my grandma was excessive in having so much food stored in her basement. However, in reflecting back on her food storage method, I learned an important lesson about how much food needs to be stored for food self-sufficiency. Just enough food to make it through the winter is not enough. If a person wants to be self-sufficient as much as possible food wise, you need to have more than just one years supply of food. In gardening, you never know how much of a particular vegetable will be produced each year. One year you will get a great crop and the next year little or nothing. If you only have enough to last one year, you will be without that particular vegetable until the next year.

There is another reason for storing several years worth of food. Grandma lived through the Great Depression and raised 12 children. She understood the importance of having food on hand. A two years’ supply of food enables a person to have time to adapt to whatever happens. A person with only a one week supply of food is quickly in an emergency crisis if something happens and they are not able to purchase food. There are a lot of things a person can live without. If a person can’t afford to live in a house, it is possible to live in a tent. However, if a person can’t purchase food, sawdust will not substitute!

My grandfather used to tell the story of a man who wanted to cut the cost of feeding his horse. So he started gradually converting the horse over to eating sawdust. He slowly increased the amount of sawdust that he added to the feed. Everything was going well and he almost had the horse converted over to eating all sawdust, when the horse died! 🙂

The principle of preparing for winter for self-sufficiency is, that a person needs at least one year’s supply of food and preferably two years’ worth. In preparing for economic uncertainty, if we have shelves full of food, and the clothes we need for the next year or two, it gives a satisfaction and comfort that having $10,000 in the bank does not give. You feel like a squirrel that has stored up its nuts for the winter.

Thanks for Supporting Our Local Farm

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Thank you for your support this year. It is your support that makes it possible for us to provide clean, healthy, nutritious, pasture-raised meats and eggs for you. Now, more than ever, it is important that small local farms have the support of the consumers around them. We have been hearing a lot in the news about the credit crisis and the government’s $700 billion dollar bailout.

What we have not been hearing much about is the poultry industry crisis. Pilgrim’s Pride, the country’s largest chicken producer, is on the verge of bankruptcy. They were not able to meet their financial obligations at the end of September and their lending institution gave them a 30 day grace period. Their stock has dropped to less than $3.00 a share from a high of $40 a share in July of 2007.

The other big poultry producers have also been experiencing huge losses due to the high grain prices and their stocks have been dropping as well. Pilgrim’s Pride and Tyson made appeals to the government to ease the ethanol production mandates for this year to reduce the demand and the cost for corn.  The appeals were rejected. The government is more interested in energy production and bailing out Wall Street than in domestic food production!

The supply of cheap imported chicken and a reduced demand and oversupply of chickens has prevented the poultry industry from being able to raise their prices when grain prices went up dramatically this year. Chicken prices should be much higher in the grocery stores than what they are. With the price of conventional grain where it is, the price of conventional chicken should be about the same as what organic chicken was a year ago.

For years I have observed one poultry company buying up another. Then another company would buy up that one. With each buy out, the smaller company was merged to make a bigger poultry company. It was a dog eat dog world. I wondered what would happen when the biggest dog (poultry company) died and there was no one to take its place. We are about to see that happen.

With each year, we are losing more and more of our food independence and have to rely more and more on other countries to feed us. Along with that dependence on other countries for our cheap food is an increased health risk because of the reduced food regulation in other countries. The past two years has seen a huge increase in the problem of food poisonings from Salmonella in tomatoes and other vegetables to melamine in Chinese milk and pet food products. For years, the big factory farm model has been promoted as the best food production method. The big factory farm model is failing as we thought it would. And we see how very foolish it is for us to rely on other countries to provide our food for us. It is important now more than ever to encourage the development of smaller local farms and know where your food comes from.