I bave been told I should be positive on this blog, upbeat and stick to what I am doing right, enough depressing stuff in the world. But I have to tell others why I am farming, the pressure to do things the conventional way is enormous and constant, by questioning conventional farming one putting a sign on one self: Here is a farmer who thinks he knows better than the experts.

I am not claiming I know these things, I just think it is better to err on side of caution, if there is the slighted change these drugs can harm the animals and even more importantly us, they should not be used.

To me it is such an obvious fact and by denying  we are going down the road of immorality. I can understand and sympathize with the farmer caught in the middle, either get with the program or get out, the salesman or those working at the drug company for a salary, people have to make a living.

But somewhere there is a person, free enough to make the moral chose. That’s where I come in, I can decide to raise my pigs in a way I think is wholesome both for pigs and us.

But then I have to be able to write and talk about it, even rant, helps me focus and think clearly. Maybe nobody reads this, a pep talk to myself. So here I am, damn the torpedoes….

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10220221-dispute-over-drug-in-feed-limiting-us-meat-exports

My daughter Ulla sent me this link about the drug paylean or ractopamine hydrochloride used in pigs, cattle and turkeys. As I have said before, I am no expert on drug use in meat animals and don’t want to be, but I think quite a bit on the morality of using these drugs, both on how they affect the well being of the animals and possible harm to humans who consume the meat. Can we trust what the experts say, are they not on a payroll somewhere? Do they really know what they are talking about?

The article says this drug is used on 60 to 80% of pigs in this country, then on top of other drugs like antbiotics that are administred, not to contol a disease but to enhance weight gain on less feed.

The article says:

Part of a class of drugs called beta-agonists, ractopamine mimics stress hormones, making the heart beat faster and relaxing blood vessels.

And:  Pigs fed the drug in the last weeks of their life produce an average of 10 percent more meat. 

Also: Ractopamine leaves animals’ bodies quickly, with pig studies showing about 85 percent excreted within a day. But low levels of residues can still be detected in animals more than a week after they’ve consumed the drug.

One has to assume, that an animal adding up to 10% more meat tissue, must be affected, both physically and mentally, says the drug affects the stress level in the animal: mimics stress hormones, making the heart beat faster and relaxing blood vessels. 

But even if one did not have a morality problems with how the animals feel, there is the residue problem: Residues can still be detected in animals more than a week after they’ve consumed the drug.

Are you confident those residue levels will not affect us in anyway, we have a very complicated nervous system. Would you as a farmer feel morally at peace feeding this drug to your pigs, knowing the meat will end up as food for human beings?

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/feebet/mib/mib82e.shtml

Pigs fed ractopamine hydrochloride may be at increased risk for exhibiting the fatigued or downer pig syndrome particularly when marketed at high body weights. Pig handling methods to reduce the incidence of fatigued or downer pigs should be thoroughly evaluated prior to initiating the use of this medicated feed.

I don’t see how one can assume that a drug that changes a pig that drastically, won’t do something in a human being, even at residue levels. You just can’t and therefore a moral issue.

A year has past since we brought our first order to Brooklyn. 

http://healthymeat.org/page/2/

Much we have leaned I and I am going to share it here. First thing first and last. To make this possible, we have to concentrate on quality, quality that keeps us in business. If quality fails, people will not order again, even with out telling us why.

It is not a problem meeting that criteria on the farm, the way we raise the animals makes them healthy and very obvious if something is wrong. We don’t use any drugs period. The sheep and cattle are strictly raised on grass and hay. The pigs on a homemade ration plus pasture,  hay, whole corn and some whole oats, ground on the farm into a ration. Simple and it makes them healthy. Maybe more of a challenge with the sheep in the summer, lambs pick up internal parasites from their mothers from the pasture. I do not use approved drugs against these parasites and believe I have bred resistance into my flock against them. Some years are worse and this one was bad. I believe these drugs have unknown side affects on us and what is maybe more important, some of these drugs are important against human diseases, known that parasites develop resistance against these drugs.

http://www.drugs.com/mmx/ivermectin.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin

Toxicity. The main concern is neurotoxicity, which in most mammalian species may manifest as central nervous system depression, and consequent ataxia, as might be expected from potentiation of inhibitory GABA-ergic synapses. Dogs with defects in the P-glycoprotein gene can be severely poisoned by ivermectin.

I am not an expert on drug use and will never be. I took the decision decades ago not to use drugs on my farm period. Then I was not so sure I was right. Today I am more confident, if for no other reason, the cost of the drugs, complications and mistakes in record keeping. Also the danger of administrating these drugs, I know of a animal doctor who supposedly got stung with a needle meant for a cow and was severely affected.

As I wrote, easy to control the quality on the farm, both before the animal goes to the butcher and then storing the meat in the freezers when the meat comes back. I believe frozen meat is safer and better if it is stored right, fewer safety issues. One thing we have learned, we probably did not run the freezers quite cold enough, have taken care of that. Should be well below zero, even if it costs more in energy. We are in the process of putting up a walk in freezer, a mayor investment, but there we should be able to keep the meat even colder.

Different what happens at the butcher. A real problem we are going to have to work on. There have been several instances this year when the quality was just not good enough and from more than one butcher. When I started farming in 1985, I sold lambs to a restaurant, I literally had to give up on that business, couldn’t work with the only USDA butcher in the area were we farmed then. Couldn’t even count on that the restaurant got the lambs I brought to the butcher.

Temma, my wife is in London, coming home tomorrow, setting our youngest daughter up at a college over there for this semester. While she is away, I have been making simple meals, mostly our pork chops fried on a pan with rice or a baked potatoe, enjoying the taste. They are good!

Last night I had two and there was definitely an unacceptable rancid taste to the outside fat. I am sure we sold pork out of this batch. The only explanation has to be that something went wrong at the butcher.

So here is the promise, we will do our best this year to work on this, we have to communicate better with butchers, make sure the meat is cut up in a timely manner and stored at the right temperature before being frozen. We have to be on top of every little  detail, from the time the animal leaves the farm till the meat comes back to our freezers.

So if you have a problem with the quality, please let us know and please don’t give up on us, we are all trying to change how farm animals are raised in this country and by working together we can do it. We should be able to trace individual problems back to where the problem originated, especially if we get feedback from you. Maybe it is marginal, not enough to return the meat, but by knowing about the problem we can fix it in the future. We are working on keeping better records. We all have to eat, one of the realities of life.

Thank you. Let´s hope the butcher accepts his mistake, we have done mistakes ourselves,  complicated to keep everything straight. We have now farmed since 1985 and in the very beginning I tried direct marketing, sold lambs to a fancy restaurant in Warwick NY where we lived and farmed then. I became aware they were not getting the lambs I delivered to the butcher. Lost the business and gave up on direct marketing. Then small processors all over the country were being bought out by the big plants.

I could not fight that trend, but also, I was trained as a traditional farmer. To us marketing is a taboo. We are supposed to raise the food as efficiently as we can, feed our nation being it America, Iceland or even Denmark where I have worked in agriculture, England too on a farm in the Lake district.

Believe it or not, somewhere we pick up the believe we are soldiers of the earth or something, our duty to work the land to the best of our ability and feed the nation we belong to. We are not farming for monetary rewards or job security, I understand farming is more dangerous than mining, one bad decision and you could loose everything and I been everything, everything on the line.

As a young man I believed somebody else was watching the store, the food we bought wholesome and good. I don´t anymore and this direct marketing my personal response to that and I am very thankful I have the ability and means to do what I believe in.

And to make it clear, I could not do this without my wife, you should just have seen her with her paperwork talking the butcher into that he had made a mistake, not us.

One amazing thing about delivering the meat to our customers is that we have never been stood up, always somebody there. A couple of times we have gotten lost but are now getting a “GPS”.

We had orders for several pigs, brought them to the butcher and picked up a few days later. When we started to process the orders yesterday we realized the meat we got back was not ours, the weights didn’t add up and the total weight of the cuts for each pig were higher than the original hanging weight, quit a chock to us.

We can’t sell meat from animals we know nothing about, so back to the butcher this morning with the meat to convince him something had gone haywire. Not an easy task, the butcher was not about to admit anything went wrong at his plant.

We kept our cool, my wife with the paperwork in her hands showing him the numbers and me standing beside her trying to look non-hostile but supportive of her arguments . The butcher couldn’t talk his way out of the numbers, tried though, not a pleasant situation.

But we left without the meat and now have to full-fill the orders  with other pigs we have. But one thing is sure and clear, we can’t sell meat from animals we havn’t raised our self, completely defeats what we are doing and believe in.

Every year we have to cut, bale and wrap hay so that our cattle, sheep and pigs have healthy feed all year round. We do two cuttings each year and it is a time of long hours and listening to the weather forecast.

I have to admit, when I started to hear and read about the importance of the fatty acid ratio in our diets I was somewhat skeptical,  I had not seen much research. Now just today I found these two different studies, one on a Icelandic news service site and the other on BBC. Here is the first one, you read it, little to add.

http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=&day=1&id=43212&l=e&special=&ndb=1%20target=

And here is the other one. This seems to be very important, our life depending on it. And again, from grass fed meat you get these essential fatty acids, in my opinion maybe not enough to get them in a pill.

http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=&day=1&id=43212&l=e&special=&ndb=1%20target=

I was chocked when I read this article, this situation is out of hand. Fish raised in this way, is not good for you! Do you know where the beef in your store is from? The pork? Do you know under what conditions those animals are raised under or what they are eating? What medication thy are on? This fish is on steroids (testosterone!), antibiotics etc. etc.

This is a disgrace and I am convinced it is because big busisness owns our government.  Big business makes more money importing our food than having it raised in this country, therefore we import more our food every year. This is a disaster, look at the numbers in the article, every year more fish is imported. I am not supposed rant in these posts, but now  I feel like screaming.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/science/earth/02tilapia.html?ref=science

Delhi N.Y. Feb. 18. 2011.

Back to basics.

To everybody who bought meat from us in January and February.

Hi to you all. I am sending you this email to tell you how these deliveries worked for us and in what way we could maybe improve the process.

For us it was a very pleasurable experience, we are farming for many reasons and one because we believe in what we are doing. Most of the time we are working on the farm with daily chores, paying bills, fixing machinery etc. far from the reality that the whole enterprise is about feeding people.

Seeing you and letting you have the boxes full of food knowing that it is for you, your family, friends and even children was a good feeling.

I do not want to get sentimental, just emphasis that it makes us try harder to do our best and at the same time liking doing our best because we get feed back from you, people we now know.

We know there are issues, I can name a few. Thick or thin sliced pork bellies. I would rather have them thin sliced, an issue with the butcher. The way they throw the slices into a tangled heap is not very neat. I just learned yesterday that the slaughter plant we use does not have ceiling height to hang the beef in a whole carcass, so it has to be cut up to hang. Becomes a problem aging it enough without making the meat close to cuts getting an off taste.

They are opening a new plant in our area, actually two, so hopefully this problem will be solved. When you have orders in the $100 to $200 range or even above it ads up very quickly and the trip becomes very efficient. We actually made money on both these trips. If we concentrate on the City, we can drive around and deliver closer to where people live or even at their doorstep. Does not seem to be a problem, goes surprisingly fast. But then we need your phone numbers so we can coordinate on the road.

Last time we delivered, we came over George Washington Bridge, down West site highway. A delivery Midtown, West Side. On to Brooklyn, delivery at a doorstep. To Long Island City and a delivery at an apartment house. To Sunny Side and back to Manhattan for the last delivery at an apartment house on the Upper East Side. It did not take long. So here you have it, this could work. What we need from you, could this work on your end? Is there any thing we could improve?

You can buy cheaper meat in the stores. Lately I have been checking meat counters and seen they often inject the meat with something they call a tenderizer, up to 12% of the weight. But that’s not the whole story. Traditionally when animals are butchered the carcass hangs for a period, making the meat loose weight both trough evaporation and drainage concentrating the meat if you will. In the industrial meat sector they have figured out tricks to have the meat hold on to as much fluid as possible after butchering. The 12% on the label is only the part they inject, the chemicals in the injection fluid engineered to hold on to the liquid in the meat that would otherwise drain and evaporate while it hangs. There is even a process called wet aging, the meat not hanged but aged in plastic bags so it doesn’t’ loose as much weight. You can see the meat in these plastic bags in the displace cases in some stores.

The ground meat you buy in the store another story, there you can have engineered ingredients out of tissue made to look like meat. Lets not even talk about the sausage, I will just put in this link:    http://gizmodo.com/#!5742413

Maybe our meat is more expensive put you are not getting less value, but the only way this is going to work is if we can get the product directly to you without the middleman. The middleman can get the meat cheaper from the industrial sector and that’s what he does, the farmer doesn’t have a change.

And this is not happening, it already has, there are no farmers like me left. The few of us who are trying to reinvent the wheel have everthing against us and our only hope is, you buying directly from us. So lets work together making this concept “ DIRECTLY FROM US TO YOU” work. It can if we do it right.

Watch the video too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/business/19milk.html?ref=business

Just to point out why I was right in the post before, that the press depends on their advertisers for profit. This an article in NYT about their finances:

Article