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I notice you missed the opportunity to provide statistics to back up your assertions.

Yet we know from extensive studies that light level control cannibalism in chickens. So we can argue improved welfare. I address the feed situation later.



You do realize we live in Canada and the discussion was about Canadian practices. rBSt is not allowed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, etc. RED HERRING Now can you tell me about Kg of milk per cow in the last 10 years compared to 50 or 60 years ago? Will a 'contented' cow produce more or less milk than a cow stressed by less than optimal 'welfare'?


what genetic modifications????? Crossbreeding??? How about number of pigs per sow per year in a farrow operation. What about housing that prevents the sow from crushing piglets. You do realize that was a common occurrence when you used the methods of 50 years ago. mortality of 10% or more of the litter used to be common. I guess the welfare of the offspring was not important in the past.


A broad statement I would expect from someone born and raised in the city that was parroting statement from others who did not know the specifics of what they were talking about. You on the other hand state you are a farmer so should know better. But let's give it a shot. Take 1930 methods and feeding practices, calculate the production in pounds of meat per farm. Convert this back to land mass required for example xx farms times 320 acres(or a different acreage number justified by averages require across Canada). Check your figure against the available agricultural land mass. Now take the total consumption for Canadians and see how much excess production there would be.


Repeat process from above, but this time on tons of crop produced. Compare different tillage practices for input costs versus output. I will give you a hint there is less fossil fuel consumed per acre now than there was in 1980, which was less than 1960,and so on until you get back to horse drawn implements.

There is a wide diversity of expertise on the forum. You cannot assume that there will not be someone who will question your assertions regardless of the topic. If you can back up your statements with facts and not with quotes of opinions then productive discussion can follow.

   

You can argue that there is an improvement due to light level control. But probably it would help if you back it up. The other point is that the effect would have to have a net benefit, how does the benefit from reduced pecking order activity balance the negative side for the chickens welfare of reduced opportunities to see the sun, eat a green meal, or catch an insect. That would be the point of considering animal welfare which was the concern of at least that one of the protesters quoted in the story I linked to. The reduction in bird violence could be just the amelioration of the problem caused by high bird population barns compared to less intensive farming. Do you have any stats on that?



Actually, despite your attempted assertion, the discussion was about ag policy in Europe. Is your deflection attempt a RED HERRING? I expect that the concerned person quoted would be concerned abour rBST being allowed into Europe and since it was you that brought up Dairy, not he or I, I thought you might be interested in "how current methods of milk production are disregarding the animal's welfare" which coincidentally enough was your question. By the way, policy discussions at the European government level would probably be under pressure from Monsanto to adopt the the artifical growth hormone, so the point is germaine to the discussion. Deal with it.




Again, there are benefits, as I agreed in my earlier post, but are there net benefits. Farmers dock their piglets to prevent pigs raised in closed and crowded barns from being so bored that they try to chew each others tails. Giving one example of a positive doesn't make a complete argument. For someone so assertive of the proper way to do these things I can only assume you missed that class in debating.



Let's give it a shot, your implication is that there is something to know better than what I said, for your reference, "Production is up per unit. This is a bonus, but if all such improvements rely on expensive, environmentally damaging, and serious health considerations, I question if it is worth it." So, How is that wrong.

Maybe we could get into that total production discussion. I don't know that it is relevant unless the points I raised are discussed in the same breath.



Once again, you only focus on production as though production is the only goal or fuel efficiency can make up for what the huge use of fossil fuels is doing to the environment. The idea of the protest is to inform the politicans meeting in Berlin that there are a variety of interests, co-operating in an effort to inform themselves and ensure that agriculture is a contributor to society. Do you have a problem with that?



Like you said.

   

Thankfully, it has emerged today that the British are likely to get the chance to say good riddance to the EU between 2015 and 2017.

   

The point I was replying to was a comment that they are paid to leave land unused, and if they changed that unused land would be destroyed.
Farmers that don't plan for sustainability will go out of business once their farms become less productive, due to poor soil quality. For enviromental consequences, thats a matter of regulation and law. If they pollute they are fined or jailed.

To handle import regulation, IE to force African farmers to meet a standard of enviromental protection, you can hit their product with tariffs. The administration of making sure farmers that want to avoid the tariffs by being enviromentaly complaint would be a nightmare.

   

It will be interesting to see what the UK masses think, and how many EU countries will follow with referendums like these.

   

As you seem to think free range is better than confined housing perhaps the following article will inform you of the affect of light on free range birds.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815910100209X
Notice they included more than one genetic type and also considered dietary levels of methionine and cystine. If you wish to find references on organic farming of poultry and the affect of light there are lots out there. You make a huge assumption that seeing the sun, eating a green meal and catching insects is better for the bird and conversley housed birds fed a balanced diet is bad for the bird. I see nothing more than an opinion. Just because everyone has one does not mean that an opinion is correct. Can we agree that an animal under stress grows slower? Can we also agree that laying chickens under stress lay fewer eggs and cows will produce less milk? I have access to lots of stats supporting those statements, but I am willing to look at experimental data that indicates the opposite. Care to provide some?


Pleaes refer to the bolded section where I had referred to the EU not allowing rBST. So Either you missed the reference or chose to ignore it so you could avoid an anser. RED HERRING Deal with it.



I beleive I am demonstrating net benefits. While tail docking is a common practice it is not universal. You should also reference older material when common practice was outside loose housing for sows and growing pigs was common. You will find references to aggressive behaviour in pigs goes back well before current methods were adopted. I have given much more than one example as you have referenced several in your post. How you can reduce many to one and expect to have proven a negative demonstrate either a lack of debating skils or an attempt to mislead due to a shortage of facts to support your opinion.



Notice the 'if' in your quote? It implies you do not 'know'. If you do not 'know' then the statement is at best misleading and that makes it wrong to assert current methods are bad and old methods are good.


Please start by raising a point supported by fact instead of unfounded opinions.





Please suggest a better way that will achieve your goals of something different than current practices while generating enough food production to meet the population demands. Oh, can you please keep it cost effective so even the poorer people can afford it? You know the ones making minimum wage or those in other countries living below the poverty line? I am still wating for something better than a broad unsupported statement.

As you seem to like debating then you know to score well in a formal debate you must support your arguements.

   

I was referring to environmental degradation from any number of sources, firstly being the overuse of the land, second is erosion caused by overuse of the land, excessive pesticide use. On top of those, we still have the big cities and small towns of the world expanding onto the best agricultural land around. In the case of a farmer with a hundred acres. If he sets aside say twenty acres into a long term soil building program, and farms the rest, he has the ability to pull that land out of set aside if forced by finances. Land that is being continually cropped can lose its fertility, and its structure quickly.



I don't know whether you would be surprised to find that farmers have some goals and priorities that are not long term sustainable. Over much of the last fifty years a huge number of farmers have had to deal with rising costs, lowering returns, lack of help, and increasingly wierd weather. All of these factors put pressure on the farmer to produce more from his land. While most try to balance that need against the desire to maintain their land, as the pressures build it gets harder to accomodate the long term.

European and American subsidies have been a serious pain to Canadian farmers. But it is encouraging to know that there are jurisdictions around who recognize the benefits of having farms and farmers into the future. Marketplaces tend to be more short sighted.

   

All you linked to was the abstract of the study, difficult to tell what the results were for sure, but it looks like they found genetic type to be the major contributing factor to chicken violence. I don't agree that animals with less stress necessarily produce more, nor is that the issue that was raised, about animal welfare. Have a look at the following for a discussion of impacts versus returns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_som ... mal_health

"Animal health

Two meta-analyses have been published on rBST's effects on bovine health.[6][7] Findings indicated an average increase in milk output ranging from 11%–16%, a nearly 25% increase in the risk of clinical mastitis, a 40% reduction in fertility and 55% increased risk of developing clinical signs of lameness. The same study reported a decrease in body condition score for cows treated with rBST even though there was an increase in their dry matter intake.

In 1994 a European Union scientific commission was asked to report on the incidence of mastitis and other disorders in dairy cows and on other aspects of the welfare of dairy cows.[22] The commission's statement, subsequently adopted by the European Union, stated that the use of rBST substantially increased health problems with cows, including foot problems, mastitis and injection site reactions, impinged on the welfare of the animals and caused reproductive disorders. The report concluded that, on the basis of the health and welfare of the animals, rBST should not be used."



Yes, I noticed that, but apparently you skipped over my response that in a discussion of Agricultural policy such as is happening in Berlin, companies like Monsanto who produce rBST the growth hormone for dairy cows, are going to be lobbying like crazy trying to get d-regulation of their product. So bringing it up in the context of these meetings and the protesters who are arguing in favour of animal welfare is entirely appropriate, not a red herring, and thank you for bringing it up.



As your attempts to mislead through the use of red herrings, such as turning the discussion from the perpetual boredom leading to problems in small concrete pens, into a discussion of aggression in older forms of animal husbandry. Aggression is a trait of most of the animal species I know of. I have worked in both systems and having to cut the tails off piglets because tails are just too tempting a target for bored pigs only happpened in the concrete barn. I'm not trying to prove a negative, but I get the feeling that is what you would like me to do.



And since I have never suggested that old methods are necessarily better I don't know where to go with that. But another way to put my comment would be to say that to the extent our agriculture is supported by, subsidized by, the use of a non-renewable resource like fossil fuels, and that is a major part of farm inputs, I think we are going down the wrong path.

I am under the impression that this last comment of mine is sufficiently self evident as to stand alone as a fact. Feel free to point out any error you see.



Sure, we should work to control population to a sustainable level, rather than pouring more and more non-renewable resources into propping up the next generations population growth. I think it would be fair to let people know that we are exceeding our limits and ask them to please help maintain or lower our population. Cost-effective? what is cost effective about our current system of food production, and here I confine my comment to industrialized agriculture? Centralized manure excesses, putting genetically modified plants into the environment, spraying and fertilizing so that sprays and nutrients cause problems in our water supplies, driving third world farmers off their land with our subsidized production. etc. Please let me know how you see that as being cost-effective.

   

Wiki-U

   

   

Yes, wiki U,

Meanwhile More good discussions are happening in Europe,

http://www.dw.de/small-farms-crucial-fo ... a-16540822

"Incentives for major investment in agriculture are not reducing hunger in the developing world, say non-governmental organizations that monitor food stocks. They want more support for small, family-run farms.

According to recent studies, some one billion people worldwide are starving. The majority of them run small family farms producing food for themselves and their communities. Marita Wiggerthale, an expert on food and global trade issues at Oxfam Germany, says that the reason is clear.

"Small farms get little support when it comes to improving their access to land or water. They barely get any advice, or credit, or seeds," Wiggerthale told DW. "The big companies and subsidy givers involved in the industry are increasingly focusing on improving the situation for major, private investors, instead of involving small farms in the process."

"Instead, state aid in this sector focuses on big business. Members of the G8’s "New Alliance to Increase Food and Nutrition Security" or the "German Initiative for Agribusiness and Food Security in Emerging and Developing Countries" include companies like Bayer, BASF, Monsanto, Nestlé and Syngenta.

The aim of these groups is to improve worldwide food security in countries that need help. However, the result is often the exact opposite, according to Gertrud Falk of the human rights organization FIAN Germany.

"Companies invest in agriculture only when they know that they are legally secure," Falk says. "That means that developing nations are changing traditional legal systems into formal systems, so that land titles are created which can then be purchased. The poor, the hungry, often don’t have the money to buy these title deeds."

"A problem which is getting worse is land-grabbing, where big investors buy up the land of local people with the support of governments.

The agricultural industry may provide much-needed jobs in rural communities, but often, according to Falk, the money "is much less than what they could be earning if they were running their own farm."

UN wants to improve farmers’ rights

Worldwide some 500 million small farms currently provide two billion people with food. The UN Human Rights Council is now working on a declaration guaranteeing the rights of farmers and others who work in rural areas.

It's based on a resolution the organization passed last September, against the wishes of the EU and the USA.

"We hope it has a similar effect to that of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," says Falk. "It should lead to a change of attitude so that the rights of farmers and rural communities are respected in future."



UNfortunately ironic to be putting this kind of suggestion before Canadians just at the moment, still the authors must feel that there is some hope in other areas of the world, Possibly the more developed ones.

   

When you reduce stress animals do produce more. There are litterally roomfuls of data supporting the statement. Whether you measure egg prosoduction, milk production, meat production or even toonage of crop harvested, when stress is reduce production increases. In a measurement of animal welfare stress is seemed as a negative factor. You will remember reading about it in the research papers you read concerned with animal welfare. But if you will not agree with a basic measurement of an animals welfare then I guess we cannot discuss that part of the subject further.



I highlighted the relevant part. The mastitis and fertility side effect alone will prevent rBST from ever being adopted in Europe or any of the other countries that do not allow it today. Farmesr simply cannot afford the masive losses from the side effects for only an 11 to 16% increase in milk. Better pick another item to beat the drum on.


Please see above. The article you quoted shows that rBST is a non starter. Pick another item to beat the drum with.


As for the rest the closest you came to having support for a statement was referencing small concrete pens for pigs. I could take the time an effort to show you modern methods, but it is starting to be like flogging a dead horse. Even though you state you are a farmer your statements lead me to believe that at best you might be a hobby farmer.

Based on your closing statement can I assume your biggest beef is the use of fossil fuels in farming? Your solution to cost effective agricultural production to meet world demand was population control. No country that has tried it including China has been very succesful to date. Can we agree that before the world comes to terms with population growth the world population will be at least double what it is today? So tell me how you suggest it is possible to produce enough food without using fossil fuel or herbicides. Before you run down the path of organic farming please consider the cost of production, yield per acre, crop rotation and the need to summer fallow. Please avoid platitudes, broad sweeping statements and just work with numbers to make your points. If you cannot do the mathematical calculations then you cannot make your case.

   

The articles I referred to is evidence that increased stress is a possiblility in conjunction with increased production. Why would I accept that a discussion has to be based on your opinion.



And yet American dairy farmers seem content with the net benefits. And as I pointed out earlier, it was you that brought up dairy.



Yeah, well I don't want to waste your valuable time. Perhaps you could come up with more evidence that turns out to negate your point like the study on chickens and light levels.



My biggest beef generally speaking concerning agriculture is that people get their backs up and only hear part of a discussion. Not just agriculture either energy, environment, social values. It is probably the single biggest obstacle to an improved and sustainable planet of humans. The population of North America, Europe, have stabilized. The possibility is there for other areas.

And it isn't important whether I think we can produce enough food to satisfy whatever population we have without fossil fuels. Because we aren't going to have them to worry about. The more we use them now the faster that day will come. That isn't the only factor of course, our usage is also causing global warming, which is going to be a factor in Agriculture production. From reduced glacial melt in our mountains to increased variablility of weather in our fields. It seems a natural to me that we should be employing alternative methods as much as possible. If you are interested you might take some of your time and look into the

http://scienceprogress.org/2010/11/agri ... hallenges/

and this,

http://www.organicgardening.com/living/ ... hold-water

   

I see opinions without substance. Let me know when you care to support your opinions with the logisitcs to make them a possible answer.

   

suit yourself bud.

   

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