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On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

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Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#331
post #192
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems fairly inextricably tied to a heavy reliance on cereal crops & soy. If fruits & vegetables were a higher portion of our collective diet, more small farmers could be supported (produce being less mechanized) and while food spending would increase, our collective health might improve at the same time.

It's not really possible to produce enough calories for the population by focusing on fruits and vegetables. Only cereal and starch crops can do that. This has been true ever since humans stopped being hunter-gatherers and it won't change in our lifetimes. Also even produce farming is increasingly automated. For example there are already working prototypes of strawberry picking robots; within 10 years those will be i…

A meager 9% of the US population hits the recommended 2-3 cups of vegetables a day. I'm not talking about doing away with grains.

It's true produce is increasingly automated. The viable scale still seems much smaller though.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#332
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the cheese they sell in France would be classified as a biological weapon in Germany. They are awesome.

Equally, Limburger would be classed as a biological weapon in France, and I dare say, the world. Brevibacterium Linens for the ... eeeugh. (but, good cheese)

Nope. There are many French cheeses like that. Munster, livarot, époisses ...

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally, Limburger would be classed as a biological weapon in France, and I dare say, the world. Brevibacterium Linens for the ... eeeugh. (but, good cheese)

Nope. There are many French cheeses like that. Munster, livarot, époisses ...

There are indeed. I didn't understand where the "nope" went to?

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One man's ecological wasteland is another man's ecological wasteland.

Gotta admit, I'm not sure which you'd call the ecological wasteland -- the urban area, or the suburban area. Because I'll tell you what, we have a heck of a lot of biodiversity in this suburban area, far more than downtown.

CO2 emissions in the suburbs are a global catastrophe. You emit a shit-ton less of CO2 per capita in a city than in a suburb.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#335

Fun fact: newborn cows are switched from their mother's milk to an industrial milk formula just five days after their birth, instead of the normal weaning period of 8 months, so that humans can drink the calf's milk.

Far from an universal truth from my experience as a veterinarian

Really? Tell me: what is the typical time your patients wean their calves? Because it literally cannot be 8 months, because then there is no milk left to sell. So what is the weaning period, and what are the calves fed before they start grazing?

EDIT: Nevermind, I just went through your comment history. You seem to be a lot of contradictory things. Like, both male and female.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'm opposed to the use of rBGH. Stating falsehoods doesn't help the cause. 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…

Organic milk tastes worse. It gets heated to a higher temperature for pasteurization

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there good scientific evidence that rBGH is bad for you? I don't know a lot about this, but my first guess is that "naturalness" / "organicness" partisans are opposed to it for reasons related to the non-scientifically-supported ideas they have that are rooted in purity instincts.

In the US, on every carton of milk that advertises itself as being rBGH-free, there's a statement mandated by the FDA, who was apparently lobbied by the industrialized farms who thought such advertising unfair: "The FDA has determined that no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBGH-supplemented and non-rBGH-supplemented cows"

Sure, but that could be true or false. Granted, in either scenario people who use rBGH are incentivized to want it to be true. I assume the fact that it's on cartons at all is a loss for the industrialized farms, though.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't think employers see as much difference between labor wages and machine maintenance as you do. Of course they do. When labor is voluntary, the wage is agreed upon by all parties to the transaction. When labor is not voluntary then only the compelling party need agree. > You can make a business judgment about how well to feed or house your slaves -- or particular favored slaves -- in much the same way tha…

> A man steals my TV from my house, he’s a thief and he stole from me. Observing that he did not also steal my toaster is irrelevant . A man works as a blacksmith, manufacturing items as demanded by customers and, in every case, exchanging them for cash, which he keeps. Saying his labor is unpaid is false. Slavery is a legal status, not a salary status.

> Saying his labor is unpaid is false.

It is true because payment is something that one receives as part of an agreement. Slaves, by definition, aren’t able to agree to things unless their owner also agrees.

> Slavery is a legal status, not a salary status.

Correct. Salary is a concept that only applies to free men.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>reported farms using illegal labor. I'm from Mexico, but I've always suspected the reason the US Democratic Party supports immigration is precisely because a lot of big corporations want to drive down the price of labor. They piggyback on antiracist and antinationalist activism to advance the interests of big agriculture. If I was a big agro, I'd invest in both parties. The Republicans to remove regulation that help…

> is precisely because a lot of big corporations want to drive down the price of labor Doesn't immigration also create industry which then creates jobs?

Since immigrants are much poorer on average, they spend less than the native population, and often cost more in welfare etc. So the costs of immigration are borne by taxpayers and native low wage workers, while large corporations and business owners reap the benefits.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is precisely because a lot of big corporations want to drive down the price of labor Doesn't immigration also create industry which then creates jobs?

Immigrants can only increase demand that is less than the value of their wages. There is diminishing returns in adding more people to a situation.

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