http://www.times-standard.com/othervoices/ci_15857541

For all those looking for farm fresh pork this fall, we have some goods news. Our first sow had her piglets! There were only five for this first time momma, but everyone was very excited to see the first pigs born on Vaughnshire.

When I started out to make a water work for the farm I had no idea I’d get so much help from above.

We are currently under flash flood warnings which means that our “seasonal” creek is flowing at capacity.

Enjoy the picture, we will be back to posting more soon.

Windsor Foods, with operations in Lampasas, Texas, and Oakland, Miss., is recalling approximately 1.7 million pounds of ready-to-eat (RTE) beef taquito and chicken quesadilla products that may be contaminated with salmonella.

The packages of beef taquito and chicken quesadilla products contain as an ingredient the specific Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP), which was previously recalled, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced late Tuesday night. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a recall of the HVP product on March 4.  Check this article for label information:

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News/Recall_049_2009_Release/index.asp

WASHINGTON, March 8, 2010 - Nestlé Professional North America, a Cleveland, Ohio establishment, is recalling approximately 6,000 pounds of a ready-to-eat (RTE) bacon base product that may be contaminated with Salmonella. The packages of bacon base contain as an ingredient the specific Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP), which was previously recalled, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/Recall_015_2010_Release/index.asp

WASHINGTON—Ruiz Foods, Inc., a Denison, Texas, firm, is recalling approximately 115,700 pounds of a ready-to-eat (RTE) beef product that may be contaminated with Salmonella. The packages of beef product contain hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), which was recalled on March 4.  Package label info can be found here:

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2010/03/ruiz-foods-recalls-rte-beef-over-hvp.aspx

Meat flavored potato chips are not to be left out of the fray.  This is a reminder that our meat is not always “meat”.  We have the same flavoring in our meat flavored potato chips as we do in our bacon.  One of my favorite quotes I found on one of the comments to an article on this was a guy proclaiming mock shock saying, “What someone put poison in our poison?”  Here is the info on the Pringles recall:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/pringles-recall-chips-rec_n_491892.html

I have some more commentary to offer on this later, but for now be sure to check your freezer… and eat real food where you can!

Odocoileus virginianus – Albino Whitetail Deer

How often do you get to see an albino deer in the wild? Depending on where you find the statistics on the web, you have somewhere between 1 and a million to 1 and 100,000 chance that you will see one.

But the real question is how often will you actually have a camera with you when you see one? I couldn’t find statistics for that one! But what ever the odds are, we were blessed with both of these “against all odds” events a few years ago. These were taken on Hwy 46 between Grassland and Leipers Fork, just south of the Harpeth River.

I originally posted them on the Vision Tennessee site, which has since been removed, so I thought I’d keep a copy of them posted here.

Of course, this is a good opportunity for a redneck test.  When you see this picture do you admire the incredible diversity of creation or do you say to yourself, “hum – bet that would make a good roast”?  Admittedly, I had an internal conflict.  First I said “wow that is an incredible creature”, then I lamented not having my gun… then I realized I had my camera.  I quickly snapped these shots and turned the truck around and pulled into the driveway just above the rise seen in the picture below.

As you can tell from the different shots, I was able to spend a few moments watching them.  Once I was in the driveway I was trying to figure out the best way to get close to them.  As I was headed down one side of a rock wall the three deer headed up the other side.  I heard one of them break a branch or make some noise and quickly ran back up towards the edge of the driveway to see the two brown deer dart across the other side of the road.  The white one was scared by the car and circled back within 20 feet of me.  Unfortunately the shot was washed out from the reflection of the sun either in the guardrail or the stopped car – I forget.

Either way, it made for a fun mini adventure on the way into town and some pretty cool pictures to look at.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Moldy tomatoes from Kraft, Frito-Lay, B&G Foods, and Safeway could be in your pantry because of a basic weakness in the industrialized food system.  The NY Times reported that SK Foods, one of the nations largest tomato processors, was bribing large corporate buyers to push their rotten tomatoes into your pantry!

Over the last 14 months, Mr. Watson and three other purchasing managers, at Frito-Lay, Safeway and B&G Foods, have pleaded guilty to taking bribes. Five people connected to one of the nation’s largest tomato processors, SK Foods, have also admitted taking part in the scheme…

… The scheme, as laid out by federal prosecutors, has two parts. Officials say that Mr. Salyer and others at SK Foods greased the palms of a handful of corporate buyers in exchange for lucrative contracts and confidential information on bids submitted by competitors. This most likely drove up ingredient prices for the big food companies.

In addition, prosecutors say that for years, SK Foods shipped its customers millions of pounds of bulk tomato paste and puree that fell short of basic quality standards — with falsified documentation to mask the problems. Often that meant mold counts so high the sale should have been prohibited under federal law; at other times it involved breaching specifications in the sales contracts, such as acidity levels or the age of the product.

The scope of the tainted shipments was much broader than the bribery scheme, touching more than 55 companies.

…In 2007, faced with a product shortage, Mr. Salyer allegedly ordered subordinates to ship 3.4 million pounds of moldy tomato paste to Kraft. It was accompanied by documentation falsely claiming that it met federal mold limits…

Michael P. Doyle, the director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, said there had been several cases in recent years in which ingredient suppliers were suspected of falsifying documentation to mask quality or safety faults in foods, especially with imports. He said that should make companies more aggressive in testing, not only to guard against pathogens but also to check quality.

“As a consumer I wouldn’t want to have moldy tomatoes in my tomato ketchup or my tomato products,” Dr. Doyle said.

(As if it s not bad enough that you can’t by ketchup without GMO High Fructose Corn Syrup!  But that’s… another post.)

Where do you go with news like this?

• Do you call for a boycott?
• Do you write your congressman?
• Do you show up and picket your local grocery store?
• Or fly to the corporate offices of one of these industry giants hoping to be heard?

Honestly, what I do, is say thank you New York Times for the reminder of why I grow my own food or buy it local as much as possible!

How about you?  How do you respond to such news?

Going on the offensive, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is bringing suit against the FDA.  Some may think, I’ve been a little hard on the government with my constant ranting against the “Raw Milk Nazis”.  But, I don’t know what else you call an organization that persecutes small farmers trying to make a living and people who disagree with the so-called science of the FDA.  Regardless, of what we think we should call “them”, “they” are now rightly on the defensive.

Our friends, truly friends of all small farmers, The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense fund is taking the Raw Milk fight directly to the FDA.  In this press release, Pete Kennedy explains the reason for the action:

“This is a lawsuit of historical significance” said Pete Kennedy, President of the Legal Defense Fund, “because it directly challenges for the very first time the legality of the ban against the interstate distribution of raw milk in final package form for human consumption.”  Kennedy went on to explain, “Too often we have seen FDA take actions against dairy producers, and recently in Georgia against a virtual farmers’ market, that attempt to deny the individuals’ right to consume the food of their choice.  The interstate ban is unjust and needs to be overturned.”  The complaint for declaratory judgment brings five claims alleging violations of the right to travel, the right to privacy, the non-delegation doctrine, substantive due process, and that FDA’s action in promulgating the two rules exceeds the authority granted by the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

David Gumpert has more details of this historic lawsuit on Grist.  The main points he identifies from the filing are as follows:

The FTCLDF suit argues that the FDA’s role is a problem on several levels:

• It maintains that raw milk isn’t dangerous in the food-borne-illness scheme of things. “According to CDC statistics for 2007, there were 7,031 reported cases of foodborne outbreaks associated with bacteria, which resulted in 678 hospitalizations and 11 deaths (3 deaths of which were from pasteurized milk). According to those same CDC statistics for 2007, there were only 32 reported cases of illnesses attributed to fresh, unprocessed, raw milk (0.5 percent); there were only 2 reported hospitalizations attributed to fresh, unprocessed, raw milk (0.3 percent); and there were no reported deaths attributed to raw milk.” It concludes: “More people are killed each year from lightning strikes on golf courses than die from milkborne illnesses.”
• That consumers who cross state lines with raw milk could at any time be penalized for violating the FDA’s prohibition, even though the agency has generally limited itself to going after farmers. It points to a case last October, in which one of the plaintiffs, Eric Wagoner, who runs a Georgia food buying group over the Internet, had 110 gallons of raw milk already purchased by Georgia consumers confiscated because the milk had been purchased in South Carolina, where raw milk sales are legal, and brought back to Georgia, where they aren’t. “Upon reaching Georgia, Plaintiff Wagoner’s truck was searched and seized by officials from Georgia without a warrant. The raw milk in Wagoner’s truck was embargoed by officials from Georgia without a warrant. On Oct. 19, 2009, the 110 gallons of raw milk, including milk owned by Plaintiffs Wagoner and Cooper, were destroyed at the order of the Georgia officials and the FDA without a warrant or other legal process.”
• That the FDA, if it so chose, could take a less harsh approach to raw milk. “For example, FDA has a regulation at 21 C.F.R. 101.17 that pertains to unpasteurized juices, and provides, in part, that a warning label on a juice container is an acceptable alternative to pasteurizing the juice, to wit: ‘WARNING: This product has not been pasteurized and, therefore, may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.’”
• That the FDA is singling out raw milk for special harsh treatment. According to the suit, “There is nothing in the PHSA [Public Health Service Act] that authorizes the FDA to find that a product that is legal to sell in more than half the States and where it is legal to consume in all 50 States should be banned as a ‘communicable disease’ or ‘illness’ particularly when there are other foods in the United States that cause more cases of foodborne illness.”

This should be an interesting case as the FDA has been unwilling to debate their positions in a public forum.  Perhaps, a judge will force the discussion, and bring to light some of the motivation for the FDA’s position up to this point.

As my friend Justin posted here, the NAIS is not dead.  I was just reminded that I did not post his post when I came across the following article verifying some of the details.  This is from Brian Allmer’s article found here.

NAFB – Now that USDA is scrapping the National Animal Identification System, the National Institute for Animal Agriculture will devote part of its annual meeting March 15-17 in Kansas City, Missouri, to helping develop a new identification system. The NIAA Animal Identification and Information Systems Committee will convene a panel of animal agriculture representatives to discuss what this new approach will mean to their sector of the industry and to offer input to state and tribal decisions.

Under the new USDA plan, states and tribal nations will set their own programs and standards. Those groups will confer at a two-day forum in Kansas City March 18-19 to discuss ways to achieve the flexible, coordinated approach to animal disease traceability USDA envisions.

NIAA board chairman Leonard Bull, says – NIAA has been very involved in convening such panels and conferences over the past two decades in order to assist in developing consensus across animal agriculture on animal identification issues. This is yet another opportunity for NIAA to provide the needed forum for animal agriculture to proactively work toward a positive solution to a very difficult and contentious issue.

If your not interested in hearing about our experience with pulling a breech lamb, you should just skip this post.

Our 12 year old has a thriving herd of 12 sheep.  He bought 4 sheep 2 years ago.  We’ve already butchered 2 and and lost 2 babies.  Overall, we love the Katahdin sheep.  They have been very easy compared to some of our other farm animals.

The book says 95% of the time, sheep lamb just fine without any help.  We recently had one of those 5% gone wrong experiences I don’t think any of us will forget.

One of his yearling ewe’s was due to lamb and was showing obvious labor signs.  The day progressed and during our periodic checks on her, it became obvious that she was in good labor but making little progress.  Being of the 95% belief, we thought for sure she’d have the lamb any moment.  When it became clear that she wasn’t progressing, the boys brought her down to a pen to check her out.

Our 12 year old put the gloves on and checked her finding only on foot presenting.  He knew that was a problem and tried to find the other foot.  It proved to be a very difficult needle-in-a-haystack search, but eventually he found the other foot and leg.

Even after finding the other foot, the lambs presentation was terribly wrong.  Eventually, we figured out that it was completely breech and one of the legs was twisted and broke (probably from laboring in the position it was in).

He tried to get the legs together and presented right while daddy held the momma ewe who was not happy and our older boy held the flashlight.  Our 10 year old took pictures, while I flipped back and forth in the sheep book trying to match up the malpresentation pictures in the book to what my 12 year old was telling us he was feeling and seeing.  It was one of those moment where you are thinking, “I can’t believe we are doing this!”

It became apparent that the lamb was probably already dead and that if they didn’t take more forceful, drastic measures to get the lamb out, the ewe would probably not make it either.  Eventually, the guys were successful in pulling the breech lamb.  The baby lamb was a stillborn little ram who was terribly malpresented with a twisted and broken leg.

After they pulled the lamb, the ewe was in a bit of shock and didn’t move for quite a while.  They gave her a shot  and some molasses water and watched her in the pen until morning.  The released her out in the pasture and so far, almost 2 weeks later she is doing well.  Thankfully!

A couple of days later, another on of his expecting ewes, also a yearling, had a healthy delivery of twins!

One of the reasons we moved to the farm was in search of a slower paced life that allowed time for “one another”.  It was seeking meaningful relationships and finding the time to invest in other people’s lives.  In short it was looking for community.  Not the old Cheers theme of community, you know the one, “Sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name” – it was more than that.  It was to know, more than to be known.  It was to serve but at the same time having the stability and certainty that others would also serve you in a time of need.

As I compared those goals that we had as a family to the stated goals of the “Slow Food” movement web site; Slow Food USA, I found myself in substantial agreement with many of the ideas they put forward.  Check out the Slow Food Manifesto:

• Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model.
• We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.
• To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction.
• A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.
• May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.
• Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food.
• Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food.
• In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.
• That is what real culture is all about: developing taste rather than demeaning it. And what better way to set about this than an international exchange of experiences, knowledge, projects?
• Slow Food guarantees a better future.
• Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters who can help turn this (slow) motion into an international movement, with the little snail as its symbol.

That is a pretty fair statement of the conditions of the modern man both churched and un-churched as they say.  But in reading this I was faced with several questions.  Isn’t that what we lost when the South was conquered by the Union?  Isn’t fast food the crowning symbol of progress – the promised utopia the industrialist, forced upon a once contented slow paced Southern people?  Is the manifesto really “progressive” or is it merely recognizing some truth prophesied of long ago.  As I processed these thoughts I reached for my copy of “I’ll Take My Stand“.  I’ll give you a quote from the introduction by Louis D. Rubin, JR. which I think speaks to the heart of the fast food, fast life issue many are seeking to overcome today.  In 1962 he wrote his first introduction for the second edition:

…the Agrarians were not economist.  They were humanist…  And the real values they were asserting in 1930 were not those of “material well-being” or of neo-confederate nostalgia, but of thoughtful men who were very much concerned with the erosion of the quality of individual life by forces of industrialization and the uncritical worship of progress as an end in itself….

Humanism, properly speaking, is not an abstract system, but a culture, the whole way in which we live, act, think, and feel.  It is a kind of imaginatively balanced life lived out in a definite social tradition.  And, in the concrete, we believe that this, the genuine humanism, was rooted in the agrarian life of the older south and of other parts of the country that shared in such a tradition… We can not recover our native humanism by adopting some standard of taste that is critical enough to question the contemporary arts but not critical enough to question the social and economic life which is their ground.

This in a nut shell is where Slow Food will fail.  It wants us to pretend to slow down and attend our Slow Food meetings on Tuesday night, but the reality of our age is that all those who do will be at the drive through window for breakfast as they rush off to their city jobs on Wednesday morning.  We can’t be critical of our cuisine without recognizing the economy that drives it.  It is one thing to call for local food, organic food, or “humane” food; but it is another thing to live in an economy that allows one to pay the farmer for his labors.

I guess the short of it is this; we not only need sustainable farms but we need a sustainable way of life.  This global economy consumes us until we are gone and then it sets it’s sights on our children.  The Twelve Southerners fromVanderbuilt detailed our departure from a sustainable life and foretold with alarming accuracy the challenges we face today when the work was originally published in 1930.  The Twelve Southerners were able to put forward a holistic work examining multiple facets of our culture and the challenges industrialization brought in the areas of art, education, economics, politics, family life and structure, and many more areas that are tied directly to the community we no longer enjoy.

It is certain that our diet has changed, but what is less evident is the changes that take place within a man, his beliefs which make up his faith and practices.  To say it simply, the reason we have a hard time finding community today is our priorities have changed.  They are not based on our belief in God, but what brings us pleasure in this economy.  Or as some have said, it is based on what is good for our “personal peace and affluence”.  The real challenge lies ahead.  It is one thing to see the challenges, but it is another thing to swim upstream to attempt to make the changes needed to reclaim a sustainable life.  Many will fall pray to the allure of money and the wealth this economy can promise.  But the answer is not to have more money to invest in making changes.  I would bet that Slow Food USA has a good fund raising machine.  But yet the reality of their lives, even the structure of the organization, works against their stated goals.  The answer is to be a people who are not swayed by money, but driven by principles.  God places value on family and relationships long before wealth.  To finish the quote from Rubin:

It was not their (the agrarians) assumptions that one first achieved material well-being, then used it to further “the more spiritual side of a good, full and happy life”; on the contrary, they insisted that any attempt to divorce economics and labor from “the more spiritual side” of one’s life brutalized the labor and cheapened the humanity.

Let us not sell our soul to a faceless nameless corporate economy that is always promising morebetterfaster of what ever it is we think we need.  This new economy, this idea of slow food or eating local produce, is really the old economy, of relationships, time redemption, and of being close to the land that God gave as a gift to sustain our very lives.  It’s agrarian at its core and it’s hard work.  But, it is worth every moment when you consider the community being developed as we order our lives in a simple honest and just manner.

A Toast to Michael Schmidt as he continues the Good Fight.
(picture by DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR)

Some governments don’t know when to stop.  Ah, but that is what we call tyranny isn’t it?  Citing that Judge “Kowarsky “erred in law” in ruling the public can opt out of provisions in the acts “through a private contractual arrangement.”" the prosecutor has decided to press the appeal in the well publicized Michael Schmidt raw milk case.  I say it is an overdeveloped sense of ego that is driving him and not a desire to “protect” people from this dangerous product.  What ever the true motive, we offer a toast to Michael for his on-going perseverance in the face of tyranny.  May we all stand as tall when we are faced with injustice.

Here are a few quotes from Megan Ogilvia at the Toronto Star.

The farmer from Durham said the appeal to the Ontario Court of Justice signals “the next stage in a serious battle” for food freedom.

“This is not about milk. This is about the respect for the individual’s right to make choices without government interference,” he said in a statement. Schmidt was handed the notice of appeal Thursday.

…

Kowarsky (The lower court judge) ruled the farmer does not advertise his product to the public and cited a lack of evidence that people got sick from consuming Schmidt’s dairy products.

Schmidt, 55, maintains he does not break the law by giving milk to some 200 cow-share members, who buy a portion of a cow and pay to board the animal at his Glencolton Farms. Ontario’s raw milk laws do not apply to farmers, who can legally drink their own cows’ milk.

Here are a few link round ups:

• http://www.yorkregion.com/article/103116
• http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/raw-milk-crusader-schmidt-says-ont-govt-wasting-time-by-appealing-his-acquittal/
• http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/province-refuses-to-accept-raw-milk-acquittal-michael-schmidt-to-hold-news-conference-tuesday-feb-16th/
• http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2010/02/schmidt-fights-for-food-freedom-and-raw-milk.html

Farmer Michael Schmidt will hold a media conference on the Province’s appeal, Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 9:30am, in the Press Room, Queen’s Park

I’ve had a lot of folks tell me that they did not like grass fed beef; that it was too tough, or didn’t taste right.  To be honest, in my experience, there have been several steaks I have cooked where I agreed with them.  But at the same time, there were some that were out of this world!  I think there are several factors, ranging from how the beef was raised and when it was “harvested”.  We are still studying the art of raising grass fed beef, but these tips will certainly help with the finishing touches!  I found them from a great post at Only Grass Fed.  Check out these abbreviated hot tips to cook your grass fed beef and you may never go back to corn finished beef again.

1. Lower the cooking temperature.  Low and slow is the way to go with this beef. A general rule of thumb is cut the temperature down by at least 50 degrees.
2. Invest in a meat thermometer.  No room for “eyeballing” it, be precise.  The suggested internal cooking temperatures for grass fed beef are 120 – 140o Fahrenheit (which is lower than the USDAs guidelines for beef which is 145 – 175o).  Remove it from the heat source when it is 10 degrees below your desired cooking temperature. Don’t worry, it will continue to cook once it’s taken off the grill.

   Here are some temperature guidelines from The Grass Fed Gourmet by Shannon Hayes:

   • Rare — 120F
   • Medium Rare — 125F
   • Medium — 130F
   • Medium Well — 135F
   • Well — 140F
3. Let it rest on the counter top for 10 minutes. While your meat was cooking, all the water molecules were heated up and excited. Resting it allows the juices to redistribute. Cutting into it too soon will allow all the moisture to drain out.
4. Start with steaks and roasts that are at room temperature before cooking
5. Tenderize. For some of the tougher cuts, cover with plastic and pound your steak a few times to break down the connective tissue.  But no need to pulverize it, a few whacks should do it. (HT to OGF)

If you are going to be cooking a lot of grass fed meats, be sure to check out one of these great resources.

• The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook: Healthy Cooking & Good Living with Pasture Raised Foods
• Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

This report, by Stephanie Dearing, discusses Monsanto’s intent to re-engage in the research and production of GMO wheat:

After Monsanto announced its plan to revisit gm wheat last year, having received the support of an international farmer’s coalition, a worldwide movement opposing the yet-to-be developed grain product is growing…

Monsanto spent under $5 million developing its gm round-up ready wheat, but scrapped the product in 2004 after consumers around the world voiced their opposition to the product…

But last year… Monsanto purchased a biotech facility in Montana specifically for the purpose of developing gm wheat.  The company spent $45 million purchasing WestBred.

…Seed companies would obviously benefit from the development of a new commercial product that is accepted by consumers.  However, farmers are predicted to be benefactors of a gm wheat that is drought tolerant, because they will not experience the same level of crop losses as they would otherwise.  The key is consumer acceptance of gm grains.

These points are taken from a press release from WORC.  If you have not looked into the technology behind the GMO “movement” let me recommend a quick view of, “The Future of Food“.  When someone tells you that we need GMO seeds for some lame excuse like “our wheat production is down”, you can refer them to this list, or if they are inclined to read the actual report, it can be found here, and more articles are found here.  For now, in my best David letterman voice, the Top ten reasons Monsanto should never develop GMO Wheat:

Can you think of any others?

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=113066

The Bulgarian Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Water has adopted the proposed changes to the GMO Act including the 5-year ban on GM Crop cultivation.

The decision was backed by the 11 MPs on the Committee and will be voted on next week in the second hearing of the Act in the Bulgarian Parliament. It was passed at its first reading in January

Some Bulgarian Socialist Party MPs also called for the center-right GERB government to look in to the possibility of announcing Bulgaria as a GMO free zone, suggesting that this would help the tourist industry amongst other things.

The Borrower is a slave to the lender

The last post discussed this article touting the salvation of the Crudaros (Dairy farmers) in Uruguay, by stimulus money.  We will discuss where that money is coming from in the next edition and who is gaining control by loaning the money.  But first, we need to understand that this issue is not a single issue that will ruin a country.  I’m not making the case, that the sky is falling in Uruguay because the dairy farmers are getting government money.  After all the dairy farmers in America have been getting government money for years and we are doing fine; right, Dean Foods?  Seriously, I suspect in the near term there will be quite the opposite feeling for everyone involved.  the farmers are poor enough that any money will be accepted, and after all it will take more than just the dairy industry to crash a nation.  But, what I hope to point out, using this situation as an example is the difference in this international economy that we all currently live under and an agrarian economy this author longs for.

My second response to this article, after I got past the fact that they are moving away from the healthy benefits of raw milk, was how could a country with all that natural wealth, specifically the cattle, have poor dairymen?  I always understood cattle to have value and dairy cows that produce to be worth something of even more value, and this country has more cattle per capita than any nation on earth according to the article.

Subsistence dairy farming dates back centuries in Uruguay, the country with the highest number of cattle per capita in the world: 3.8. There are approximately 10 million cattle and more than 15 million sheep in this country, which has a total population of 3.3 million, 93 percent of which is urban.

So then what happened to make these farmers poor?  Two things are mentioned in the articles itself.  One is an economic system that has a larger is better emphasis and two, the economy began to change and export it’s wealth to other nations.

“The problem is when you’re too small, just too small,” says Claudia Pérez, a small-scale dairy farmer in Uruguay, glancing to her left, where her pasture ends just 50 metres from her modest rural home.”…

In Uruguay, where the economy is driven by agriculture, tourism and banking, beef and wool are leading exports. But until it began to transition into a prosperous export industry 15 years ago, the dairy sector focused on supplying the domestic market.

In other words, when the economy shifted to export, the business model also shifted from a local supply and demand model to large scale production to meet the new higher demand.  Like in the US it was, and is, get big or get out.  Those that did not have the economy of scale or the desire to produce enough volume to compete with large export corporations now suppling the growing export market were forced to accept the new lower prices brought about the changes in the production model.

Now, some would argue that low prices is the primary goal in food production and I don’t believe low prices are bad.  However, what the corporate model misses when the focus is low price and high profits is manifold.  But two things come immediately to mind.  One is a way of life and two is a quality product.  I’ll touch on these briefly.

First read the story and look at the way of life for these families and specifically the community relationships.  The Crudaros, life required them each day to come in contact with their neighbors they served.  I’m certain some days, perhaps most days, that was monotonous.  But at the same time, you know those people, or at least you were in a position to know them and to be part of their lives as they could be part of yours.  Think about the social ramifications that one aspect has in relation to building a strong community.  Knowing people and being part of a community produces an environment where a family name means something.  It puts social pressure on people to perform and “be on their best behavior” because there are connected with everyone around them.

Next think about how those relationships and your standing in the community effect the pride in the quality product you are providing them.  That is, at least in a system that puts a value in quality and relationships.  In the article we see them watering down the product to try to stretch it and get enough volume to compete and feed their families at the lower prices.  We also see them traveling into the city to find enough poor people that are willing to pay a cheaper price for a lesser product.

My position on this, is that when an economic system puts a value on price alone, which corporations always do, you remove the driving factors for quality.  When you remove the face to face interaction with the customer, you remove the thread that weaves the complexity of community relationships together.

Lastly the article passes over these driving factors and goes to the fact that the government is going to help these poor farmers.  The solution will provide much needed money for these dairy families, but in the process it furthers the destruction of their community and makes them a slave on a subsidized plantation instead of a freeman on their own land.  In short, the system, either by design or greed, drives the prices down so the independent family farmer can not compete and then offers the shackles of debt to help him.

It would be easy to point to the Uruguay government as the one’s to blame, and I’m certain they hold their share of the responsibility.  But in the next piece I want to look at who holds the notes and ultimately who benefits from this world economy.

The Borrower is a slave to the lender

This is going to be a little complicated, but bare with me and let me attempt to explain my thoughts on this article from Poverty News Blog, which quotes this source article, URUGUAY: Pulling Small Dairy Farmers Out of Poverty.  Let me get a few quotes to give you an idea of where I’m starting.

Pérez has just 10 dairy cows, which produce a few dozen litres of milk a day, bringing in a small income when she sells it on the outskirts of the city of Durazno, located 183 km north of the capital, Montevideo. She lives on her small farm or “chacra” with her husband and two children, who are in primary school. 

Her family’s way of life is shared by just over 200 other small-scale dairy farmers in the departments (provinces) of Durazno, Florida and Flores in Uruguay’s central region, most of whom have no more than two hectares of land…

…”We just scrape by,” he (Oscar Moyá another “crudero”) says, “but at least we can survive on what we earn.”

…The milk sold by the “cruderos”, above and beyond any possible nutritional properties, is cheaper, at 23 cents a litre compared to 30.4 cents a litre for pasteurised milk.

Subsistence dairy farming dates back centuries in Uruguay, the country with the highest number of cattle per capita in the world: 3.8. There are approximately 10 million cattle and more than 15 million sheep in this country, which has a total population of 3.3 million, 93 percent of which is urban. 

But now, the business sector and government institutions have come together to provide solutions aimed at drawing small-scale dairy farmers into the economy of scale. 

In Uruguay, where the economy is driven by agriculture, tourism and banking, beef and wool are leading exports. But until it began to transition into a prosperous export industry 15 years ago, the dairy sector focused on supplying the domestic market. 

That newfound prosperity, however, has not trickled down to rural families who continue to eke out a living on their small dairy farms. 

Two years ago, Mauber Olveira, director of development in the Durazno city government, and former mayor Carmelo Vidalín were the driving forces behind one of the alliances to integrate the “cruderos” into the modern milk processing industry. 

The formula, Olveira told IPS, was to get Nutrísima, a Uruguayan dairy company, to build a plant in the city of Durazno, which has a population of 35,000 and is the capital of the department of the same name. 

The plant buys raw milk from local farmers, pasteurises it and sells it to supermarkets and other buyers. 

The project included financial aid agreements to enable dairy farmers to purchase equipment and livestock to boost production.

This will be multi-part post as I’m going to attempt to point out the different economic focus, that is local, national, and international, and who benefits from each one.  I will be making the case that Uruguay is already a wealthy nation according to agrarian standards.  Look at the quote above.  They have the highest number of per capital cattle of any country in the world!  I will further be pointing out the control they are loosing both from the Cruderos (Dairy Farmer) standpoint and at the national level by taking the money from the wealthy lender nations who are providing the capital.  I’ll give you those quotes in the next post.  For now check out the article and let me know what you think; is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Orange Peel Tips: (HT to Living Green)

- Due to the high content of flammable oil in orange peel, dried peel makes a great firestarter or kindling

- It seems that cats don’t like the smell of peel, so you can place them around plants where you don’t want cats digging

- Using a “zester”, the top layer of an orange peel can be scraped to produce zest. This can then be used to strong flavor to foods, such as sauces, soups and salads. The zest can be dried overnight and then stored in airtight bottles for future use.

- Dried orange peels can be placed in a cloth bag and placed in closets and cupboards to reduce musty odors

- A puree blend of orange peel and water can be applied to an area to discourage ants from crossing.

- Most insects hate limonene – the oil in the peel. Small piles of zest can be placed around an area to keep it free from flies and mosquitos. A great way to enjoy a picnic without having to use commercial repellents or insecticides!

- To deodorize a garbage disposal unit, throw down a few peels while it’s operating

- Candied orange peels are a tasty treat that seem very simple to make. Plenty of recipes can be found on the Internet.

There is a preceptive piece from David Gumpert on The Grist.  David, of The Complete Patient, outlines the shift in tactics the government has been using to intimidate those who would “produce”, sell, or consume raw milk.  I don’t quote them below but he also gives a good outline of some of the major raw milk flashpoints in recent history in the article.

When the current phase of a nearly century-long government campaign to convince American consumers to abandon raw milk launched in 2006, heavy-handed intimidation tactics were the order of the day…

…Those earlier assaults on owners of small farms generated enough unfavorable publicity that federal and state authorities have opted for a less distasteful approach. The emphasis now is on ever-closer regulatory oversight of raw milk sellers and distributors, as well as court actions.

A major target over the last year has been private buying groups. These groups of anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds of consumers have organized in states where raw milk either is banned for general sale, or else available only from dairy farms. They have grown out of the exploding popularity of raw milk and the resulting demand by consumers to be able to conveniently obtain raw milk without traveling hours to a farm. In many states, they have long been tolerated … until now.

You can read the full article along with all the details of the previous and current government raids and tactics on grist.org.  Also if you really want a good read check out David’s book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights.

Great Deal on Diapers Here

We gave you a tip of what was to come here.  Many of you know about the various shopping adventures Beth has had over the years and you may have noticed that some of her couponing articles have started to disappear from the blog.   Don’t despair, this is by design.

Beth has been working on an ebook detailing her shopping experiences and the many money saving secrets she has learned over the years.  We decided to launch a new web site in honor of the soon to be released e-book.  All the articles from vaughnshire.com relating to grocery shopping, couponing, pantry building, etc… have now been (or soon will be) moved to http://pennypantry.com.

This is an exciting adventure for Beth to share about a topic she is passionate about.  I’m looking forward to working with her to create an on-line e-course that will go with the new book in the near future.

For now click on over and checkout the great deals on stocking your pantry and be sure to check out the pre-launch special on the new book.

I’ll share more about what to expect from Vaughnshire in the near future.  We are hoping to refine the focus of the site a little more by narrowing the focus to topics specifically related to farming, agrarian living, slow food, and sustainable living.  It would be great to have your input as we move this direction.  I was considering configuring a poll to see how Vaughnshire might better serve your needs, but until I get around to something that official feel free to leave some comments if there is an area that would be helpful to your family.