The official holiday may be April 22, but for dairy farmers throughout New York state, every day is Earth Day. Long before Al Gore ever talked about reducing his carbon footprint, farms practiced responsible stewardship by following sound conservation practices.
For example, nutrient-rich manure is recycled on the farm according to a detailed management plan, created in conjunction with professionals from their local Soil and Water District, New York's Agricultural Environmental program and others. This plan takes into account the types of soil on the farm, the terrain of the fields, soil moisture levels, and the amount of nutrients the next crop on that field will need. Even the upcoming weather forecast can affect how much manure is applied to the land.
Recycling manure back into the fields reduces the amount of man-made fertilizer farmers need to apply. It also helps conserve water resources: When manure is used as a soil treatment, the water-holding capacity of soil is increased by 20 percent, resulting in reduced groundwater needed to grow crops.
Nearly 99 percent of all dairy farms “large and small” are family owned. In fact, you could call farming the ultimate home-based business, as generally farmers and their families live just yards away from their cows. It's clear to see that farms of all sizes have a vested interest in protecting our natural resources; they depend on it for both their business and their quality of life.
As our world gets smaller, the milk our farmers produce is sold throughout New York state, as well as overseas. As the industry continues to confront issues of climate change, you can be confident that your local dairy farmer is doing everything in his power to farm efficiently while fulfilling the charge of feeding the world.
Beth Meyer
Syracuse
Meyer is public relations specialist for the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Inc.
Recycling manure back into the fields reduces the amount of man-made fertilizer farmers need to apply. It also helps conserve water resources: When manure is used as a soil treatment, the water-holding capacity of soil is increased by 20 percent, resulting in reduced groundwater needed to grow crops.
Nearly 99 percent of all dairy farms “large and small” are family owned. In fact, you could call farming the ultimate home-based business, as generally farmers and their families live just yards away from their cows. It's clear to see that farms of all sizes have a vested interest in protecting our natural resources; they depend on it for both their business and their quality of life.
As our world gets smaller, the milk our farmers produce is sold throughout New York state, as well as overseas. As the industry continues to confront issues of climate change, you can be confident that your local dairy farmer is doing everything in his power to farm efficiently while fulfilling the charge of feeding the world.
Beth Meyer
Syracuse
Meyer is public relations specialist for the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Inc.
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Farmer's Gal wrote on Apr 23, 2008 11:36 AM:
We are learning more all the time about how chemicals in our bodies, both naturally occurring in the body and otherwise, work together and against each other. And we are learning more about all the health problems that come about when these chemicals are out of balance. In particular to this discussion, we're learning about how various hormones and amino acids affect personality and emotions, as well as the more mechanical functioning of the body.
Now think about miserable, unhappy animals. Their bodies are releasing acids into their systems, along with the antibiotics, steroids and other not-naturally-occurring substances these corporate farms put into their animals. All of that ends up in OUR bodies when we eat the meat and drink the milk and consume the cheese and butter from these miserable confined animals.
The healthy way to grow food is on a small farm, where the farmer does the milking, maybe with some hired hands or other family members, knows each animal, keeps the barn clean, keeps his animals happy as well as physically healthy and sells his products locally, without need for gas-wasting shipping across country, or genetic manipulation of gassing or irradiating produce to give it a longer shelf life to last out the shipping. You can make a living farming this way, but you aren't going to get stinking rich. It's greed and not efficiency or necessity that drives these CAFOs to be so big and so cavalier about the damage not only to the environment, but also directly to the consumers' health as well.
So even if you don't give a hoot about animals and if they are treated humanely for their sakes, you might want to be thinking about it for your OWN sake. "
Andy B wrote on Apr 23, 2008 11:01 AM:
Farmer's Gal wrote on Apr 23, 2008 8:37 AM:
(I've personally witnessed 830,000 gallons of liquid manure from a local CAFO spread on less than 40 acres across 18 hours time -- you can't tell me that's within safe limits; in fact, I have a friend in the USDA in another state who confirms it absolutely is NOT).
The "losses to the environment" include both health-threatening and environment-damaging run-off in the water as well as toxins in the air and soil.
A small unincorporated family farm with fewer than 100 animals can operate they way you describe above - and it's a great thing! But the big CAFOs with thousands of animals DO NOT. I live in the middle of CAFO country and know first hand the illnesses caused my family and friends in this area -- directly from those infamous "losses to the environment."
Just because a corporate farm is owned by a family doesn't make it a "family farm." Size matters.
Meanwhile, the big places get all the government subsidies, use them to undercut prices, driving the small truly "family" farms out of business, so the CAFOs buy up all their land and just keep getting bigger. "