271–280 of 341 posts
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Ultimately the problem is the price...
I think we’ve generally agreed that slavery is morally wrong and people should be paid for their work.
This is a non sequitur? Slaves are all, without exception, paid for their work. In most cases, though with some exceptions, they're paid at least partially in currency.
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One man's boring is another man's idyllic.
Yes. A lot of people enjoy having a safe yard for their kids to play in and where they can have friends and family over for a cookout. They also enjoy not sharing walls with noisy neighbors who fight and/or play loud music at all hours, not having heavy traffic in the area, and so on.
It seems strange to me that a “one shot” subdivision with a 50 year lifespan is the only viable economy use for that land.
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The writer of the articles was very clear that _he_ found farming less joyous than "9-5 hacking l33t code". Your argument is more with him than with me. The writer's other two siblings also found more "joyous" things to do. It isn't for everyone, and that is going to continue to be the reason that they can't survive against Big Ag.
Right. I don't have an argument with the writer, its a wonderful article, spot on. Yes my families work was largely pre-big ag. Nothing is for everyone. The trigger that looped me in here was the "not sustainable because hard work", I drifted to tangents too quickly.
My too my friend, me too.
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Yes, but I think it depends on the location. At my local grocery store in Chicago, milk has been $2 per gallon ($0.53 per liter) for years, as long as you buy 2 gallons or more. When I was in Florida for a few months, I couldn't find it for less than $3.79 per gallon ($1 per liter) anywhere. The cheaper milk in the upper midwest tastes better too, as it all comes from Wisconsin and Indiana where the cows can feed on…
Is there still that weird law that fixes the price of milk based on how far from Wisconsin it is?
> This was in the heart of America’s dairyland by the way, to the point that federal milk pricing used to be based on how many miles away from here you were.
This sentence cites a WSJ article from 1997 [1].
BTW, California has had bigger dairy production than Wisconsin for decades [2].
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB880411473424429000
[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/11/01/561427862/is...
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I recall hearing that there is a glut of milk in the US because there are just too many dairy cows. Is this still true?
Don't forget rBGH.[0] Canada and the EU banned it, but thanks to big Pharma, you can get still get hormone adulterated milk in the US of A. [0] https://www.organicvalley.coop/blog/rBGH-decoded-what-is-bov...
The absence of evidence that rBGH ends up in milk isn't for lack of trying to find it.
I get organic milk because it tastes better. I suspect that means it's more nutritious, and further suspect that's because of the growth hormone, not the absence of some pesticides (but not others!) in the feed.
To preemptively correct a misconception which many people have: nutrition labels are based on what the government legally allows producers to claim, it isn't the result of some test performed on the food inside the package.
Just like a huge tomato doesn't have much more lycopene than a smaller one with the same genetics, it makes sense to me that most of the increased lactation from rBGH is just water.
Might be bad for the cows too, I mean I doubt it's good for them. But I consider it cheating and think we'd be better off without it.
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Here's what I don't understand about this reasoning: many of the animals you're defending -- such as cows -- have been domesticated to the point of relying on humans for survival. For these, the choice is not "live in captivity, or live free", it's "live in captivity, or not at all". My question is therefore: were you unaware of this, or do you prefer the disappearance of (e.g.) cows over their captivity?
Most vegans would support the extinction of domesticated cows over their forced inpregnation and commodification. These domesticated cows aren’t necessary for keeping the ecosystem in balance, and any cow we don’t breed into existence won’t suffer. There aren’t a group of unborn cows being sad that they never got a chance to exist. There isn’t a strong reason to support cow breeding for the sake of cows existing.
So you support genocide ;)
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Because large agribusiness conglomerates extract their profits largely by creating negative externalities through pollution and underpriced illegal labor? That was kinda the whole point of the article. Government exists to create policy regulating externalities, and they're failing to do their job here.
Pollution is a negative externality, I agree. Paying illegal immigrants to work in the U.S. is illegal, but it is not a negative externality. I'm also not convinced that small farms are better about either of these things than big ones are.
The profit goes to the lawbreakers, the loss goes to the citizens of this country who can't do that job at a decent wage.
It's a classic negative externality.
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Mind you, activist veganism is one of the biggest reasons family farms are being destroyed all over the world. Basically, low quality food is flooding the market, and getting purchased by the poorer population, that don't feel they have a choice in what they eat, because they eat whatever is necessary to fit in their budget. Meanwhile people that CAN afford to buy high quality food from family farms, don't, because o…
Did you know that the soybeans planted there are 100% to feed cattle?
Doesn't really undermine your point, except that if you want to save Brazilian rainforest by reducing meat consumption, you'll need to take it up with the Chinese.
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You can make good cheese in the United States, cheese is really about the recipe (and how much cream was left in the milk). There just is nothing like the culture of cheese production, US foodstuffs are awful quality because the general public buys it up for some unknown reason.
Wait. You just wrote that if America implemented a supply control system that milk prices would increase to $4/g with the implication being that increase in price would be unacceptable. Now you wrote that "US foodstuffs are awful quality because the general public buys it for some unknown reason." You can't have your cake and eat it too. Most likely the public has gotten used to low prices for low quality products. I…
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This is yet more the kind of nonsensical, insufferable drivel that turns people away from rationally thinking about their food. Someone's preference for how and what they eat contributes nothing to conversation, and exists only to project a belief of superiority and collect pats on the back from like-minded thinkers.
If a sentient AI with superhuman intelligence were observing us, they would be utterly puzzled at the amount of waste and destruction we perpetuate through the meat & dairy industries for no reason other than ephemeral perceived pleasure through our taste buds. If "someone's preference" - a completely subjective thing - is objectively less efficient and more harmful than doing something else, we can and do intervene…
I said co-domesticated and I mean it: a substantial number of humans of European and Nilotic descent have a mutation which makes them able to digest raw milk well into adulthood. I have to rely on the cultural technology of fermenting milk with lactobacillus, sadly.