TIME Magazine Article

Time appears to be drinking the HSUS/PETA Kool-Aid...

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458-1,00.html

It's funny how they say what we're doing is not sustainable.

Everyone should upgrade to a more fuel efficient car, but agriculture should go backwards in terms of efficiency to be sustainable???

I do think one good point is made in the article. If the people who do want animal agriculture to be a simpler process i.e. grass fed beef, it's going to have to start with consumers and not in Washington. If there is enough of a demand for a product there is going to be someone who is willing to supply it and right now that is just not the case in most parts of the U.S.

maybe they can put it in the health care bill that legal citizens "shall" eat grass fed beef, but illegals get theirs for free.

Well I guess feedlot pen riders are all just a bunch of mindless drones working in a soul-killing occupation in all those CAFOs that depend on cheap subsidized corn produced using too much nitrogen that flows into the Mississippi Delta and causes the dead zone.  Pretty grim outlook.  Didn't know it was so bad.  Not a word about conservation, soil testing, GPS application of chemicals, waste management plans, etc. that the whole regulatory environment controls.

It all boils down to cheap energy.  We saw that when fuel went to $4/gallon shipping costs started exceeding the value of the product being transported.  Makes sense to shop local when that happens.  The other issue is the whole farm subsidy and price support programs.  These distort the entire market.  However, the farm programs have now been capitalized into farmland values.  If the farm programs disappear without a mechanism to pay for the huge loss of value in land, the financial wreck would make the mortgage crisis look like peanuts.  Something is going to break at some point, and I think we will start to see it if energy starts to cost over $4 to $5 per gallon over a sustained time period.  As usual, Time barely glossed over the issue.

Perhaps those that wrote this article or are otherwise quick to point fingers should try growing their own food for a while or doin it for a living and find out how their idealistic world is far from a reallity.

Yep those farmers and ranchers they are going to bankrupt the earth damn it!!!!  But you know they provide the food we eat, but damn them anyways!!! 

What a crock of crap. John doe there has got a gas pick up truck he gave five grand for. Uses a gallon a gas every 17 miles. But for the low price of 25 or 30000 he could get  fuel effiecent car that seats four(anorexic's only) comfortably and gets thirty miles to the gallon. 

here's a response from our side.

http://cattlenetwork.com/Audio--NCBA-Responds-To-Time-Article/2009-08-24/Article.aspx?oid=829110&fid=VN-ASSOCIATIONS-NCBA

knabe said:

here's a response from our side.

http://cattlenetwork.com/Audio--NCBA-Responds-To-Time-Article/2009-08-24/Article.aspx?oid=829110&fid=VN-ASSOCIATIONS-NCBA

Click to expand...

If you aren't a member of NCBA perhaps now would be a chance to join - great response by Darren Williams