How to deconstruct big agriculture By Deborah J. Comstock Deborah J. Comstock The former secretary of agriculture said to farmers, “Go big or get out.” This was not good advice during a pandemic when meat-producing farmers had to euthanize their poultry and swine populations by the hundreds of thousands, leaving grocery store shelves barren and Americans without the food stuffs so desperately needed. This method of production has been going on for a long time. During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged and rewarded farmers for growing their farm enterprises. During this time, farm prices were at an all-time high. More land was acquired and dedicated to farming than any time prior; farm machinery companies flourished and prices soared. Federal regulations and programs, like extension programs, favored farmers to grow bigger. Then World War II ensued and all production and personnel was dedicated to that effort. Things changed then, but big was considered the way to go, and it has continued this way ever since. But big has not fared so well in this country. It has caused the loss of small and intermediate farmers and caused severe environmental concerns we are just now uncovering. And its process fragility is clear with the cavalier loss of hundreds and thousands animals during the pandemic. There are alternatives to this outdated concept, now that we understand its fragility. Temple Grandin, Ph.D. professor at Colorado State University and author of the book “The Autistic Brain,” offered some interesting concepts that may prove to be alternative business models to farmers and to our country for food processing in the future. She suggested we might consider the craft beer industry as one model. In her home town of Fort Collins, there are 20 small craft beer breweries that successfully coexist with a gigantic Budweiser plant, each having a complete small brewing factory on their premises. When the pandemic hit and they were unable to serve inside their breweries, they innovated ways of constructing outside barriers within the proper constraints to be able to serve their brew. And each brewery had its own “brand” or flavor of beer, which made them remarkable. Small meat-producing companies could do the same by raising their meat products on a grass-fed basis, or without antibiotics, or creating a specialty niche by which they attract customers. People are now looking for higher quality brand cuts they trust are safe and unique. She also suggested that smaller and more numerous producers of poultry, swine or beef could be closer to customers by utilizing portable slaughter units. The use of portable units is a fraction of the cost of building brick and mortar facilities, and housing tens of thousands of animals that, if production is interrupted, could be the entire loss of stock. There would need to be a coordination of federal and state inspectors, but this coordination would be a small price to pay in lieu of a complete shutdown as we saw with this recent pandemic. Many small to intermediate farmers are now beginning to raise their own stock, so this may be a trend starting to happen. Localized growing and slaughtering provides better animal husbandry and reduces the severe impacts of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) with respect to supply chain, environmental issues, disruption due to critical timelines as well as animal husbandry. Finally, Grandin offers a concept of farm or rancher cooperatives. This would mean a group of pork, sheep or beef farmers banding together to form this cooperative in a region to construct a more localized facility. The liability here is that these often get purchased by the bigger facilities, again causing the big to get bigger, defeating the purpose of a more localized production site. All of these concepts are worth consideration but would most likely need the support of state and federal governments to shepherd these infrastructures into reality. These should be considered agricultural startup businesses, worthy of grants and monies to deconstruct, over time, the big ag that has proven to be ineffective and fragile in times of a stressful economy. Deborah J. Comstock is an Adrian farm owner and board member, Lenawee Indivisible. She can be reached at comstokdjc@aol.com.

Outlet: Monroe News

Monroe News: There are alternatives to this outdated concept, now that we understand its fragility. Temple Grandin, Ph.D. professor at Colorado State University and author of the book “The Autistic Brain,” offered some interesting concepts that may prove to be alternative business models to farmers and to our country for food processing in the future.

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