Animal Rights Initiatives A Little Scary

[dun]

When I was a kid, everyone had about 40 sows around here, and paid for their farms and their kids college education by raising hogs in woodlots and pastures. Sows did last for years back then, instead of till the age of 3 with worn out joints and crippling arthritis.

Pigs used to be called the "mortgage lifter" because there was enough profit to raise them and make a decent profit. Regulations started kicking in and the price of hogs went down the toilet. Friend of mine that was a third generation hog farmer and farmed corn and beans to feed the pigs lost millions in investment when the market went away. Now he farms the corn and beans as a money crop instead of running them through the pigs first. It's been a good number of years and he's finally almost getting his head above water.

dun

 

[mwj]

When I was a kid, everyone had about 40 sows around here, and paid for their farms and their kids college education by raising hogs in woodlots and pastures. Sows did last for years back then, instead of till the age of 3 with worn out joints and crippling arthritis.

Pigs used to be called the "mortgage lifter" because there was enough profit to raise them and make a decent profit. Regulations started kicking in and the price of hogs went down the toilet. Friend of mine that was a third generation hog farmer and farmed corn and beans to feed the pigs lost millions in investment when the market went away. Now he farms the corn and beans as a money crop instead of running them through the pigs first. It's been a good number of years and he's finally almost getting his head above water.

dun

Dun I do not think your friend is a good example if he lost ''million's'' in his ''investment''. I doubt very much if the first or second generation of his family used these terms :roll:

 

[dun]

When I was a kid, everyone had about 40 sows around here, and paid for their farms and their kids college education by raising hogs in woodlots and pastures. Sows did last for years back then, instead of till the age of 3 with worn out joints and crippling arthritis.

Pigs used to be called the "mortgage lifter" because there was enough profit to raise them and make a decent profit. Regulations started kicking in and the price of hogs went down the toilet. Friend of mine that was a third generation hog farmer and farmed corn and beans to feed the pigs lost millions in investment when the market went away. Now he farms the corn and beans as a money crop instead of running them through the pigs first. It's been a good number of years and he's finally almost getting his head above water.

dun

Dun I do not think your friend is a good example if he lost ''million's'' in his ''investment''. I doubt very much if the first or second generation of his family used these terms :roll:

Lost may have been a poor choice of words, he does still have the facilitys. Of course they're useless now and were as soon as pigs dropped to a dime a pound. Major expansion and rebuild of the existing facilitys to state of the art at the time, farow to finish operation. It all spells loss to me when you still have to repay the loan and your livelyhood is gone.

dun

 

[KMacGinley]

Regulations? Nobody regulated my cousin out of the hog business. Sows in the woods with them being brought to the barn for farrowing in a crate doesn't create much of a biohazard. What drove my cousin out was 8 cent hogs.

The crash of 98 occurred in hog prices due to several big boys flooding the market with hogs and the North American Free Trade agreement with hogs flooding in from Canada.

Using Smithfield as an example, when you are vertically integrated and selling factory raised hogs under your own brand name at the supermarket, you don't really care about the live price now do you? The remaining small time hog producers in my area were killed off by 8 cent hogs in what I feel was a deliberate attempt to destroy the competition.

As far as price goes, Less efficient, but more humane methods of raising hogs would have a positive effect on price: Not for the consumer, but for the producer. I am sick to death of hearing Farm Bureau and the like along with all the land grant Universities bragging about how cheap food is. It is time that the American consumer paid a fair price for food. The price of inputs is not cheap, but we are somehow expected to make do with the same price for products as we got 30 years ago. Priced a new Tractor or combine lately?

The capper for me was when the head honcho of the Indiana Beef producers in an editorial in the magazine stated that cattle prices were too high . Who do you think that he was working for? The producers or the Packers?

I think that it is time for american agriculture to get over the "We feed the world" mindset and start looking out for ourselves. We have paid the price for the government's cheap food policy long enough. Maybe consumers would have less money to spend on gameboys and toyotas and spend more of their money here at home for food. Maybe young people could get a start in livestock production on a smaller scale and support a family again. Maybe smaller towns would come back across this country.

A good place to start would be the elimination of confinement livestock production nationwide. If the price of pork and poultry were increased across america, through less efficient production methods, that would make beef all that more attractive for the consumer; that is if we can stop the free traders from dumping in foreign beef on us.

 

[hraz]

I did a considerable amount of research before I committed myself to the initiative in AZ and I have to agree. The primary problem is an overabundance of hogs keeping the price low. Perhaps if the factory farms cannot pack them in so tightly there will be fewer on the market and prices can come up.

 

[andybob]

KMacGinley, depends on how you define 'efficient', the ability of the mega companies to bulk purchase feed, vaccines, antibiotics, etc at low cost keeps their costs far below those of the small company or family farmer.
Production, however is far below that found in family farms, with pre- weaning mortality in excess of 20% as apposed to 5% in my outdoor breeding herd, 19.5 pigs weaned per sow per year, my unit-24 weaned per sow per year, 150 sows per employee (including office staff), 500 sows per working family member in my outdoor unit. The mega companies held the prices low untill independent farms could not survive, while being vertically integrated, they made a profit on feed and sale of processed pork, and wrote off farm losses to tax, untill competition was stifled or contracted in.
This is a simplistic analysis, but shows that itis not inefficiency on the part of the small farmer that led to the demise of the independent pig farmer.

 

[john250]

Supporting animal rights activists because you hate Smithfield is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The structure of the hog business is a legit concern.
IMO, the animal rights agenda has nothing to do with that.

 

[KMacGinley]

I guess that I am an animal rights activist then. Factory farms are immoral. As far as hating Smithfield farms, I feel contempt for them, but they are just the ones that sprang to mind. Just because you think that animal concentration camps are wrong doesn't mean that you think that Peta is right.

 

[Alice]

I guess that I am an animal rights activist then. Factory farms are immoral. As far as hating Smithfield farms, I feel contempt for them, but they are just the ones that sprang to mind. Just because you think that animal concentration camps are wrong doesn't mean that you think that Peta is right.

Thank you, sir...thank you, thank you, thank you!

Alice

 

[J&T Farm]

I guess that I am an animal rights activist then. Factory farms are immoral. As far as hating Smithfield farms, I feel contempt for them, but they are just the ones that sprang to mind. Just because you think that animal concentration camps are wrong doesn't mean that you think that Peta is right.

I doubt you complain when you find a good deal in the grocery store. From the use of your term "Factory Farm" tells me your doing your research in all the wrong places. You do make a few vaild points, but shut down all the chicken houses, hog barns,(and nearly all are onwed and operated by family farmers) and feed lots and I promise you that only about the richest 10% of the US population will be able to afford to eat.

 

[auctionboy]

Regulations? Nobody regulated my cousin out of the hog business. Sows in the woods with them being brought to the barn for farrowing in a crate doesn't create much of a biohazard. What drove my cousin out was 8 cent hogs.

The crash of 98 occurred in hog prices due to several big boys flooding the market with hogs and the North American Free Trade agreement with hogs flooding in from Canada.

Using Smithfield as an example, when you are vertically integrated and selling factory raised hogs under your own brand name at the supermarket, you don't really care about the live price now do you? The remaining small time hog producers in my area were killed off by 8 cent hogs in what I feel was a deliberate attempt to destroy the competition.

As far as price goes, Less efficient, but more humane methods of raising hogs would have a positive effect on price: Not for the consumer, but for the producer. I am sick to death of hearing Farm Bureau and the like along with all the land grant Universities bragging about how cheap food is. It is time that the American consumer paid a fair price for food. The price of inputs is not cheap, but we are somehow expected to make do with the same price for products as we got 30 years ago. Priced a new Tractor or combine lately?

The capper for me was when the head honcho of the Indiana Beef producers in an editorial in the magazine stated that cattle prices were too high . Who do you think that he was working for? The producers or the Packers?

I think that it is time for american agriculture to get over the "We feed the world" mindset and start looking out for ourselves. We have paid the price for the government's cheap food policy long enough. Maybe consumers would have less money to spend on gameboys and toyotas and spend more of their money here at home for food. Maybe young people could get a start in livestock production on a smaller scale and support a family again. Maybe smaller towns would come back across this country.

A good place to start would be the elimination of confinement livestock production nationwide. If the price of pork and poultry were increased across america, through less efficient production methods, that would make beef all that more attractive for the consumer; that is if we can stop the free traders from dumping in foreign beef on us.

I can't decide if this is more unamerican or unrealistic. You sound just like the people that want to shut down WalMart. You can't penalize individuals or companies for doing well.

 

[MillIronQH]

'You can't penalize individuals or companies for doing well."

What about the internet company that bought out the company in Houston that has been my ISP for the last four years. The first thing they did was lay off several hundred people. Most of them were young, bright, service mined technichians that took real pride in helping the customer. But guess what "Bobby" in India has now got a good job.

How 'bout the auto manufacturer that has the bulk of what goes on and in their vehicles made in Mexico.

Walmart was mentioned. They won't hire full time employees because if they did they have to pay out for all the things the goverment says those full timers are entitled to.

What about the hamburger chain that takes money from the community and spends it on meat from South America and lettuce from Mexico.

No you can't condem or penalize a company for doing well. But, I certainly can't bless them or support them when they do it at the expense and detrement to the public they are getting wealthy off of. BTW. That public happens in the most part to be be American citizens.Z

 

[Gate Opener]

'You can't penalize individuals or companies for doing well."

What about the internet company that bought out the company in Houston that has been my ISP for the last four years. The first thing they did was lay off several hundred people. Most of them were young, bright, service mined technichians that took real pride in helping the customer. But guess what "Bobby" in India has now got a good job.

How 'bout the auto manufacturer that has the bulk of what goes on and in their vehicles made in Mexico.

Walmart was mentioned. They won't hire full time employees because if they did they have to pay out for all the things the goverment says those full timers are entitled to.

What about the hamburger chain that takes money from the community and spends it on meat from South America and lettuce from Mexico.

No you can't condem or penalize a company for doing well. But, I certainly can't bless them or support them when they do it at the expense and detrement to the public they are getting wealthy off of. BTW. That public happens in the most part to be be American citizens.Z

Well said

 

[la4angus]

As for Alice I have already told her I don't like her and how she chimes in against everything I write, never making any valid points might I add.

auctionboy, I don't think that there is 105 of the people on these boards that like you either. Actually you remind me of a POS trouble maker with no friends else where either. We could take a poll and get a better idea how well liked you are.

 

[auctionboy]

As for Alice I have already told her I don't like her and how she chimes in against everything I write, never making any valid points might I add.

auctionboy, I don't think that there is 105 of the people on these boards that like you either. Actually you remind me of a POS trouble maker with no friends else where either. We could take a poll and get a better idea how well liked you are.

You are just angry because I have proved you wrong so many times. You are the POS. All you do is try to gang up on people on this bored. I bet you do need all of these people to like you, sounds like you are the one with no friends of the board!

 

[auctionboy]

'You can't penalize individuals or companies for doing well."

What about the internet company that bought out the company in Houston that has been my ISP for the last four years. The first thing they did was lay off several hundred people. Most of them were young, bright, service mined technichians that took real pride in helping the customer. But guess what "Bobby" in India has now got a good job.

How 'bout the auto manufacturer that has the bulk of what goes on and in their vehicles made in Mexico.

Walmart was mentioned. They won't hire full time employees because if they did they have to pay out for all the things the goverment says those full timers are entitled to.

What about the hamburger chain that takes money from the community and spends it on meat from South America and lettuce from Mexico.

No you can't condem or penalize a company for doing well. But, I certainly can't bless them or support them when they do it at the expense and detrement to the public they are getting wealthy off of. BTW. That public happens in the most part to be be American citizens.Z

I was talking about American companies based here that compete. I don't know of anyone who wants or likes when jobs go out of the country.

 

[KMacGinley]

I guess that I am an animal rights activist then. Factory farms are immoral. As far as hating Smithfield farms, I feel contempt for them, but they are just the ones that sprang to mind. Just because you think that animal concentration camps are wrong doesn't mean that you think that Peta is right.

I doubt you complain when you find a good deal in the grocery store. From the use of your term "Factory Farm" tells me your doing your research in all the wrong places. You do make a few vaild points, but shut down all the chicken houses, hog barns,(and nearly all are onwed and operated by family farmers) and feed lots and I promise you that only about the richest 10% of the US population will be able to afford to eat.

I was waiting for the Americans won't be able to eat comment.

A few years ago, I had a friend that was in hock up to his butt for several thousand to some credit card companies. They were always complaining about no money, so I agreed to let him feed out some pigs at my place. We each bought two feeder pigs and took turns buying feed for them. Later I found out that they had started charging their half to me at the elevator.(ha ha). But that is beside the point. They were supposedly broke right? But when you went to their house, they always had beer to drink, they always had every brand of pop under the sun to drink. They could rent movies every night and they had plenty of money to go out to eat on.

I guess that I am unAmerican, I think that americans are spoiled, selfish creatures that blow a lot of money on unimportant creature comforts at the expense of or because of a morally bankrupt cheap food policy. At the expense of the animals in those buildings and the farmers.

I would like to see Us Americans pay a fair price for our food.

One result of factory produced food is factory processed food. Who knows, if people had to actually prepare meals, maybe they would actually sit down and eat together, and just maybe families would get stronger, and just maybe some of the social problems we all like to complain about would be impacted in a positive way.

We rarely if ever buy meat at the store. In the fall, I manage to shake off my animal rights activist leanings and shoot a couple of deer. We also eat our own beef. If eggs and chicken or our thanksgiving turkey cost a little more, I guess that I might have spend a little more on them and a little less supporting Japan or India or indonesia or china for junk that is not Germane to my survival.

As far as the chicken houses and hog farms go... What percent of them are contract producers for the big 3 these days? They may own the buildings, but they sure don't own the animals confined in them. Maybe if we did what I am suggesting, they could be the guy in charge again.

As to being unrealistic. Modern agriculture is unrealistic. It is sustainable as long as oil is cheap or until the people legislate confinement facilities out of existence. News flash: Oil is no longer cheap and people don't want to live next to a giant hog barn and drink polluted water while breathing polluted air.

Maybe if we adopted some of the old ways we flung aside in our rush to become a leisure society so we could download tunes on our ipods and talk on our cell phones all day, it might help to make us back into what I consider to be What America used to stand for: family, moral behavior, fairness and a certain maturity that enabled us to do the right thing.

 

[badaxemoo]

As to being unrealistic. Modern agriculture is unrealistic. It is sustainable as long as oil is cheap or until the people legislate confinement facilities out of existence. News flash: Oil is no longer cheap and people don't want to live next to a giant hog barn and drink polluted water while breathing polluted air.

Thank you. I'm glad somebody has the guts to say it. Modern industrial agriculture is built like my oldest hay rack. One good kick and the whole thing will fall apart.

Modern agriculture relies on externalities.

We grow 200 bushel corn and poison aquifers with nitrates and pesticides.

We raise-finish meat animals in confinement which results in strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

We wash topsoils that took eons to form down the river in a half century.

Farmers (corporate or otherwise) shouldn't be able to enhance their bottom line at the expense of the environment and the public shouldn't benefit from cheap food at the expense of a sustainable rural economy.

Cheap food hasn't helped farmers and I would argue it hasn't helped American consumers either (watch the film Supersize Me or read Fast Food Nation).

The odd thing about this board, as someone mentioned earlier is that I bet many of the producers here farm sustainably, and yet they defend the economic system that will eventually swallow them whole.

I'd recommend Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma to anyone who is interested in food (either producing or consuming it). I enjoyed the section on beef, but found the opening chapters on corn to be the most shocking.

Instead of the "Get Big or Get Out" conventional wisdom, we should be saying "Get Sustainable or Get Out".

 

[john250]

I guess that I am an animal rights activist then. Factory farms are immoral. As far as hating Smithfield farms, I feel contempt for them, but they are just the ones that sprang to mind. Just because you think that animal concentration camps are wrong doesn't mean that you think that Peta is right.

If you make common cause with the animal rights folks, that is your choice. But every livestock operation will end up in their crosshairs in time. The restrictions on sow crates and veal calves create legal precedents. They can legislate how you keep your billy goat if they sell the electorate on it. And millions in tv time have been proven to sell. Don't think it can't happen.

It seems to me that you are calling more for the enforcement of anti-trust laws. Smithfields market dominance is your villian. We seem to have forgotten the anti trust laws and the packer and stockyards act these days. It isn't good for any of us when a very few buyers dominate the market.

 

[hraz]

The restrictions on sow crates and veal calves create legal precedents.

Is it ok to allow sows and veal calves to be kept in these conditions to protect yourself from the POSSIBILITY of someday being in the "crosshairs"? You cannot predict the future. Maybe they eventually look at the beef industry, maybe not. That possibility cannot reasonably be used as an excuse to allow abuse.