A more interesting and enlightening article on the state of 21st Century Agriculture is plugged after this article.
Michael Pollan is a wonderful writer. This article shouldn't surprise anyone who spends time thinking about the food they put into their body and where it that food is sourced.
Oh yes. It's possible to make highly productive, completely organic, local agriculture. Added bonus, in times of high unemployment, it's relatively job-intensive.
The mega-corporation-owned, gigantic scale, chemical-laden industrial agriculture presented here is a nightmare...
Hopefully technology (robotics + machine learning) will improve this a lot in the future. Rather than needing to keep dairy cows in a shed they could graze, and some robotic contraption could roam the field milking them, etc.
It's also worth mentioning that these are probably the better food operations out there (most wouldn't allow cameras).
Wrong! Agriculture is a low profit business. If you're cruel to animals or take shortcuts you will go broke. I used to work with farmers as a fertilizer guy and I've seen it all the time.
First off most of these truly are family farms. It may not look that way but because of the high degree of automation available a single family with a couple of employees can farm thousands of acres or milk thousands of cows.
The outstanding farms care about their employees and their livestock. I knew one farm where every one of 1500 cows had a name. Not USX1102 but NancyJo or William. Every profession has outliers. Usually when you see a documentary it's that exceptionally bad farm.
I've been on hundreds of pig, cattle and dairy farms and you're seeing the exceptions in those documentaries. It's sad but it drives city dwellers to get entirely the wrong impression of today's farmers.
Because farmers are concerned that reporters are out to portray their operations as more inhumane or less safe than they really are. For example, nursing sows are kept in very small cages so they can't roll over and kill their piglets, but farmers know that most journalists would only see (and thus talk about) the claustrophobic quarters.
> Agriculture is ugly, and always will be.
I grew up on a farm; while there's certainly room for improvement, most farming operations are very humane. I can't speak to the extreme "big ag" end of the spectrum, but family farms--even large ones--tend to treat their animals well.
the images already show us great amounts of automation (carrot cleaning and sorting, as well as the 12-person crew doing what took 40 people to harvest greens) and it's only going to get more automated. It's clear the days of manual laborers harvesting are coming to a close. Fewer and fewer people will be involved in growing and harvesting food.
One thing I wish is that they had Mitch Epstein do the commission ala American Power[1]. Not to knock Steinmetz, I just like how Epstein takes in a scene and presents it ambivalently great and obscene.
Hopefully technology (robotics + machine learning) will improve this a lot in the future. Rather than needing to keep dairy cows in a shed they could graze, and some robotic contraption could roam the field milking them, etc.
Already in production.[1] The cow's view of a competing robotic system.[2]
Semi-related: I wonder why the Times is publishing the magazine during the week now. I suspect it has to do with when and how people read these days - many fewer people getting the hard copy, and probably fewer people reading online over the weekend.
I feel like we're at peak long-form journalism, podcasts, and binge-worthy tv. I could (I do not) devote 2+hrs a day to the good stuff and still be way behind.
Funny you should say that, I just subscribed to the Times a little over a month ago, the digital version that is. Its the first newspaper I've subscribed to in over 4 years. I like their articles and generally find myself actually reading through them the whole way. Its the only paper I've found worth my time/money.
>Our industrialized food system nourishes more people, at lower cost, than any comparable system in history...
It does puzzle me though why in Spain, among most other food, bread is 1/5 and Tomatoes 1/10 the price. Particularly odd is that US boxed cereal and California wine are also cheaper.
The first picture is just depressing. All those calves living their lives in a cramped space without exposure to nature or to one another, constantly fed to achieve maturity in a fraction of the time it would normally take. This is so fucked-up. And of course their meat tastes nothing like beef.
"Newborn females arrive from local dairies and spend their first 180 days at Calf Source — first in one of 4,896 hutches, like the ones seen here, and then in larger group pens. Trucks pass down each of 72 rows, dispensing water and milk. After a transfer to Heifer Source, another facility owned by the Milk Source company, the cows are inseminated and then returned — seven months pregnant, and just under 2 years old — to the dairies they came from."
They only spend a small part of their life there. And they're cows, so they're not used for meat.
Additionally depressing is that all of these calves were separated from their mothers at birth, as will all of their offspring. When a calf get it's mothers milk, humans do not.
They do have at least some exposure to one another - if you look closely at the photos you can see a bunch of them out of the pen and near each other.
And the text says they are in group pens when they get older.
They must have some reason for separating them though, it looks like a ton of work to implement and they wouldn't do that for nothing. Don't know what though. Maybe some of them get bullied otherwise?
the next logical step is a cow without a head (or without a brain, or a rudimentary brainstem only) that ingests nutrients from pipe coming from a nutrient-vat of soylent-like material.
Why is it that in the Taylor Farms photo of vegetable processing, all the workers are wearing dusk masks or respirators? What is dangerous in that environment?
In addition to keeping the food clean, massive amounts of dust derived from any substance can be irritating, even vegetables. Have you ever cut an onion or a really hot pepper?
People can complain about conditions and what not of mass produced food but it's a big demand. I think it's ingenious the designs of these various mass-production facilities.
Sure, treat the animals with respect. Does suck to think you're born for food.
That line of cows being inseminated and sent back to where they came from. Shit. Sounds dirty haha. Poke. I don't know how they do it though so just speculating.
[+] [-] rwmurrayVT|9 years ago|reply
Michael Pollan is a wonderful writer. This article shouldn't surprise anyone who spends time thinking about the food they put into their body and where it that food is sourced.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/obama...
[+] [-] triplesec|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wazoox|9 years ago|reply
The mega-corporation-owned, gigantic scale, chemical-laden industrial agriculture presented here is a nightmare...
[+] [-] rudedogg|9 years ago|reply
It's also worth mentioning that these are probably the better food operations out there (most wouldn't allow cameras).
Agriculture is ugly, and always will be.
[+] [-] rmason|9 years ago|reply
Wrong! Agriculture is a low profit business. If you're cruel to animals or take shortcuts you will go broke. I used to work with farmers as a fertilizer guy and I've seen it all the time.
First off most of these truly are family farms. It may not look that way but because of the high degree of automation available a single family with a couple of employees can farm thousands of acres or milk thousands of cows.
The outstanding farms care about their employees and their livestock. I knew one farm where every one of 1500 cows had a name. Not USX1102 but NancyJo or William. Every profession has outliers. Usually when you see a documentary it's that exceptionally bad farm.
I've been on hundreds of pig, cattle and dairy farms and you're seeing the exceptions in those documentaries. It's sad but it drives city dwellers to get entirely the wrong impression of today's farmers.
[+] [-] weberc2|9 years ago|reply
Because farmers are concerned that reporters are out to portray their operations as more inhumane or less safe than they really are. For example, nursing sows are kept in very small cages so they can't roll over and kill their piglets, but farmers know that most journalists would only see (and thus talk about) the claustrophobic quarters.
> Agriculture is ugly, and always will be.
I grew up on a farm; while there's certainly room for improvement, most farming operations are very humane. I can't speak to the extreme "big ag" end of the spectrum, but family farms--even large ones--tend to treat their animals well.
[+] [-] cconcepts|9 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/Aju_wqHhCBk
[+] [-] micky_25|9 years ago|reply
Dairy farming has come a long way. Automated farms already exists where cows just wander into a shed at their leisure and are automatically milked.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2013/s3863064.htm
[+] [-] mc32|9 years ago|reply
One thing I wish is that they had Mitch Epstein do the commission ala American Power[1]. Not to knock Steinmetz, I just like how Epstein takes in a scene and presents it ambivalently great and obscene.
[1]http://mitchepstein.net/american-power
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
Already in production.[1] The cow's view of a competing robotic system.[2]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hojnPpvI6-I [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Q1LoxK5mE
[+] [-] subpixel|9 years ago|reply
I feel like we're at peak long-form journalism, podcasts, and binge-worthy tv. I could (I do not) devote 2+hrs a day to the good stuff and still be way behind.
[+] [-] TheGRS|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whybroke|9 years ago|reply
It does puzzle me though why in Spain, among most other food, bread is 1/5 and Tomatoes 1/10 the price. Particularly odd is that US boxed cereal and California wine are also cheaper.
But that is off topic I'm sure.
[+] [-] elorant|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hexane360|9 years ago|reply
They only spend a small part of their life there. And they're cows, so they're not used for meat.
[+] [-] subpixel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angersock|9 years ago|reply
Mankind has basically hit eldritch horror in terms of how we use livings beings in our machines.
[+] [-] ars|9 years ago|reply
They do have at least some exposure to one another - if you look closely at the photos you can see a bunch of them out of the pen and near each other.
And the text says they are in group pens when they get older.
They must have some reason for separating them though, it looks like a ton of work to implement and they wouldn't do that for nothing. Don't know what though. Maybe some of them get bullied otherwise?
[+] [-] walrus01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cylinder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nayuki|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bglazer|9 years ago|reply
The problem isn't what's going into the workers, it's what's coming out of them.
[+] [-] nitrogen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ge96|9 years ago|reply
People can complain about conditions and what not of mass produced food but it's a big demand. I think it's ingenious the designs of these various mass-production facilities.
Sure, treat the animals with respect. Does suck to think you're born for food.
That line of cows being inseminated and sent back to where they came from. Shit. Sounds dirty haha. Poke. I don't know how they do it though so just speculating.
Great post
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zeveb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] titanomachy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] capper|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nitrogen|9 years ago|reply