I completely fail to understand how anyone can say that corporations are not accountable to us… Every single dime they have, every bit of power they exert is given them by the sale of their products. We have complete control over corporations based on what products we choose to purchase. The only exception to that, corporate welfare, is a relatively minor source of income for them, but one that I agree should be cut off, if possible. Read about Farmer Percy to see how hard that will be.
The problem is one of educating the people, not of regulating the companies. WE need to be reformed… the companies will follow our dollars like puppies after mothers’ milk. If you want to talk about how to effectively re-train the poor spending habits Americans are exhibiting, I will be right there with you, but regulating the corporations is shifting the blame; unnecessary and ineffective.
The stated and obvious goal of every corporation is to turn a profit. As long as they can do that though immoral means, they will continue to do it. We have no hope of regulating morals in corporate actions except though our purchasing decisions. "As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it." Dick Cavett.
The cigarette companies ran wild until the public was educated effectively on the cost of smoking. Not by a little warning label introduced by regulation, but by a series of TV and billboard ads paid for by health care organizations that were being financially damaged by the costs of treating lung cancer. Remember those? The woman talking through her throat? The guy who killed his wife with second hand smoke? "Mind if I smoke? Care if I die?"
Those ads, and the backlash to Joe Camel, shifted public opinion and vastly reduced the power and influence of those companies. The more recent ads, paid for by the companies themselves due to regulation, have been FAR less effective; less hard hitting. If people stopped buying cigarettes, they would be gone, but as long as people want to use nicotine as a drug, and damage their lungs, who are we to tell them they can’t? Or to prevent a company from supplying them what they ask for?
In the same way, if people accept food grown NOT locally and organically but instead GMO, insecticide soaked, in factory farms, who are we to outlaw that?
If people want to purchase cheap shoes or clothing made by exploited workers under inhuman conditions, how can we change the morals of the producer, if we can’t even change the morals of the purchaser? Get people to watch this show:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/blood-sweat-tshirts/ if you want to make a difference.
A population of sheep must begat a government of wolves; and so too idiot consumers fuel exploitive corporations.
Showing posts with label factory farms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label factory farms. Show all posts
2009/03/27
Chickens
A friend asked how hard it is to raise chickens. I answered as follows, based on my research into the subject (not based on personal experience since I'm not allowed to keep chickens where we live inside the city limits *wink*)
Chickens must be the easiest and most productive animal to raise. They need a run, a coop, food, and water. Other than the materials and labor to set up the run, coop, etc... The only maintenance required (assuming the run is big enough and you setup the coop correctly) is refilling the feeder, and cleaning out the water dish on a regular basis to keep disease at bay. A poorly designed coop will require regular cleaning, and a run that is too small or poorly placed will require hay or other composting material and semi-regular mucking out.
A rooster is NOT required for eggs, although some people claim that only fertilized eggs are worth eating.
Tips:
Set the run up on a slight slope, with the high end having easy access to throw in compostable materials (food scraps, lawn clippings, garden waste, etc...) and the low end having an easily removable gate to shovel out the lovely rich compost / fertilizer they produce. The ideal setup would have a drop of a few feet from the low end into a compost bin where the mixture of chicken poop and compostable material would drop and cook into a rich but usable material for your garden. Chicken poop is to rich to use directly, so it must be mixed with other materials (they do that naturally in the run) and then let set for some time to cook.
Setup the coup OVER the run (or lifted up on stilts) with a chicken wire screen under their roosting perch and a very slight slope (darn near flat) from the nesting boxes down to that screen and just a strip of wood to keep the eggs from rolling out onto the screen. Then the nesting material (sawdust, etc...) will randomly migrate out and down through the screen, they will poop through the screen while roosting (which they do a LOT) and that poop will be mixed with compostable materials in the run as they scratch through it. Chickens have a close relationship with their own poo. They let bugs, maggots, etc... grow in it and then scratch those out an eat them.
If you build your garden beds high enough and surround each bed with a waist high fence, you can let the "girls" out once in a while to clean the back yard of snails, bugs, spiders, etc... They don't like to eat ants, and they DO like to eat your best garden greens in the most destructive and wasteful ways possible. E.g. just the main root from each pepper plant.
Downside:
Smell: Really not as bad as people think, assuming the run is large and either setup smartly or kept clean with manual labor. But there is a bit of a whiff on hot days...
Flies: No matter how clean you keep it, chickens shit, and you will get flies.
Spiders: Spiders follow from flies. We have more black widows per square foot than any place I've ever lived.
Garden and grounds: They WILL get out, and they WILL destroy something you lovingly planted. They like to scratch or dig up flowers, veggies, etc... Any area that they frequent will be laid baron by their constant digging for bugs and the overly rich power of their poop.
Chickens must be the easiest and most productive animal to raise. They need a run, a coop, food, and water. Other than the materials and labor to set up the run, coop, etc... The only maintenance required (assuming the run is big enough and you setup the coop correctly) is refilling the feeder, and cleaning out the water dish on a regular basis to keep disease at bay. A poorly designed coop will require regular cleaning, and a run that is too small or poorly placed will require hay or other composting material and semi-regular mucking out.
A rooster is NOT required for eggs, although some people claim that only fertilized eggs are worth eating.
Tips:
Set the run up on a slight slope, with the high end having easy access to throw in compostable materials (food scraps, lawn clippings, garden waste, etc...) and the low end having an easily removable gate to shovel out the lovely rich compost / fertilizer they produce. The ideal setup would have a drop of a few feet from the low end into a compost bin where the mixture of chicken poop and compostable material would drop and cook into a rich but usable material for your garden. Chicken poop is to rich to use directly, so it must be mixed with other materials (they do that naturally in the run) and then let set for some time to cook.
Setup the coup OVER the run (or lifted up on stilts) with a chicken wire screen under their roosting perch and a very slight slope (darn near flat) from the nesting boxes down to that screen and just a strip of wood to keep the eggs from rolling out onto the screen. Then the nesting material (sawdust, etc...) will randomly migrate out and down through the screen, they will poop through the screen while roosting (which they do a LOT) and that poop will be mixed with compostable materials in the run as they scratch through it. Chickens have a close relationship with their own poo. They let bugs, maggots, etc... grow in it and then scratch those out an eat them.
If you build your garden beds high enough and surround each bed with a waist high fence, you can let the "girls" out once in a while to clean the back yard of snails, bugs, spiders, etc... They don't like to eat ants, and they DO like to eat your best garden greens in the most destructive and wasteful ways possible. E.g. just the main root from each pepper plant.
Downside:
Smell: Really not as bad as people think, assuming the run is large and either setup smartly or kept clean with manual labor. But there is a bit of a whiff on hot days...
Flies: No matter how clean you keep it, chickens shit, and you will get flies.
Spiders: Spiders follow from flies. We have more black widows per square foot than any place I've ever lived.
Garden and grounds: They WILL get out, and they WILL destroy something you lovingly planted. They like to scratch or dig up flowers, veggies, etc... Any area that they frequent will be laid baron by their constant digging for bugs and the overly rich power of their poop.
2009/03/02
NAIS is a scam.
NAIS was designed by NIAA (the National Institute of Animal
Agriculture), a corporate consortium consisting of Monsanto,
industrial meat producers such as Cargill and Tyson, and surveillance
companies such Viatrace, AgInfoLink, and Digital Angel. The NAIS
scheme fits agribusiness, biotech, and surveillance companies to a T:
1) They are already computerized, and they engineered a corporate
loophole: If an entity owns a vertically integrated, birth-to-death
factory system with thousands of animals (as the Cargills and Tysons
do), it does not have to tag and track each one but instead a herd is
given a single lot number.
2). NAIS will only be burdensome and costly (fees, tags, computer
equipment, time) to small farmers which helps push them out of
business, thus leaving more market to giant agribusiness.
3) Agribusiness wants to reassure export customers that the US meat
industry is finally cleaning up its widespread contamination. NAIS
would give that appearance ... without incurring the cost of a real
cleanup.
4) NAIS will allow total control over the competition: Owners of even
a single chicken would be required to register private information,
the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of their 'premise'
and if any animal leaves its 'premise', the owner will be required to
obtain an ID number for it and have the animal microchipped. All
information, including 24 hour GPS surveillance would be fed into a
vast corporate data bank, allowing for ease of false slaughter to
hide true problems or to substitute biotech's genetically engineered
animals.
5) NAIS may allow plundering of farmers through required DNA samples:
DNA samples would be invaluable to Monsanto and biotech corporations
genetically engineering animals. Farmers who raise heritage breeds
would have no say in how their distinct DNA would be used and to the
sole profit of biotech companies.
6) The advantage for the surveillance companies is obvious:
Compulsory tagging of 6 million sheep, 7 million horses, 63 million
hogs, 97 million cows, 260 million turkeys, 300 million laying hens,
9 billion chickens, and untold numbers of bison, alpaca, quail, and
other animals -- and new animals being born, means a massive
self-perpetuating market.
Please take action now to stop this insanity. Our health and our
lives depend on it.
Stop NAIS Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php
Agriculture), a corporate consortium consisting of Monsanto,
industrial meat producers such as Cargill and Tyson, and surveillance
companies such Viatrace, AgInfoLink, and Digital Angel. The NAIS
scheme fits agribusiness, biotech, and surveillance companies to a T:
1) They are already computerized, and they engineered a corporate
loophole: If an entity owns a vertically integrated, birth-to-death
factory system with thousands of animals (as the Cargills and Tysons
do), it does not have to tag and track each one but instead a herd is
given a single lot number.
2). NAIS will only be burdensome and costly (fees, tags, computer
equipment, time) to small farmers which helps push them out of
business, thus leaving more market to giant agribusiness.
3) Agribusiness wants to reassure export customers that the US meat
industry is finally cleaning up its widespread contamination. NAIS
would give that appearance ... without incurring the cost of a real
cleanup.
4) NAIS will allow total control over the competition: Owners of even
a single chicken would be required to register private information,
the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of their 'premise'
and if any animal leaves its 'premise', the owner will be required to
obtain an ID number for it and have the animal microchipped. All
information, including 24 hour GPS surveillance would be fed into a
vast corporate data bank, allowing for ease of false slaughter to
hide true problems or to substitute biotech's genetically engineered
animals.
5) NAIS may allow plundering of farmers through required DNA samples:
DNA samples would be invaluable to Monsanto and biotech corporations
genetically engineering animals. Farmers who raise heritage breeds
would have no say in how their distinct DNA would be used and to the
sole profit of biotech companies.
6) The advantage for the surveillance companies is obvious:
Compulsory tagging of 6 million sheep, 7 million horses, 63 million
hogs, 97 million cows, 260 million turkeys, 300 million laying hens,
9 billion chickens, and untold numbers of bison, alpaca, quail, and
other animals -- and new animals being born, means a massive
self-perpetuating market.
Please take action now to stop this insanity. Our health and our
lives depend on it.
Stop NAIS Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php
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