I came across an article titled “Seven U.S. Cattle Operations Recognized for Outstanding Environmental Conservation Efforts”. At first I thought this is a good change in direction and may be written about a few organic, grass fed beef producers. As I read the article, I became suspicious of the way it was written. Then I noticed the source of the information was a press release issued by The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. But after looking up the specifics of some of the recognized farms, I saw that some were indeed deserving of the honor. One example is the Eckenfel Farm in Missouri.
The awards are sponsored by Dow AgroSciences and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Conservation Service. This alone would normally cause me to write this off as nothing more than spin by huge cattle producing corporations looking for some good PR. But it seems to be legitimate. Is it possible that mainstream cattle producing organizations are beginning to see the light of responsible, sustainably produced beef? I am skeptical, but maybe the writing ($ signs) is on the wall. I think price will continue to be the bottom line for most beef consumers and because of that industrial production of beef is not going to change anytime soon. I would love to be wrong though.
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I’m a vegetarian, but I cook meat for my husband. I recently found organic beef at a store that I don’t often shop at. The prices were more than double the non-organic counterparts. It was very disheartening but I bought it because I decided my husband’s health is worth it. I’m concentrating on quality of food rather than quantity.
Thanks for bringing this information out.
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Interesting perspective. As long as the market for grass-fed and organic beef continues to grow, the industry will be forced to evolve. That, or production will be shipped overseas as a result of the industrialization process. Conventional beef producers could be digging their own graves with increased efficiencies including factory farming … because there will always be cheaper labor overseas … ie, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, China, etc
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Thanks for those thoughts, Neo Com. I liked your post on Twitter. If you read my post from last December , you can see that I also, as you wrote, “I have a lot of questions and no answers people”. Twitter is a mystery to me. I have an account, never really use it, yet have 10 followers. Three know me, the others don’t. But the bottom line is that even if I felt Twitter was helping me in some way, I don’t know if I have the time to “Tweet”. Heck I hardly have time to write blog posts and I love to write! I would be interested in your thoughts on that December post I did. Thanks!
As to your question on your site about requiring people to log in to comment. Don’t. It will pretty much eliminate any comments. Anyone can post a comment here without having to log in or register. This is a good policy for any blog. Here and here are a couple of links to folks who agree with me and have written on this very topic.
If you have the latest versions of WordPress, use Akismet, and maybe use another filter, (I use the “Cookies for Comments” and “Simple Trackback Validation” plugins) spam will be greatly reduced. I still get some, but they are mostly the type described in this post, real people with too much time on their hands.
Yes you are right about the price, but I seem to enjoy lately more vegetarian food… Anna
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