Pondering the Farm Bill and Integrity

Sometimes I get frustrated trying to piece together pieces of information that show up in my "social media news feed". So many things just don't make sense to me. I want the public to see agriculture as an environment that has integrity, but there is a lot that goes on that seems to fight against that. Let me explain a couple of these things.

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the piece of legislation known as "The Farm Bill" today (1/29/14). It is a massive pile of money that affects every American in some way or other since it affects food production, land use, the environment, charity toward the hungry, and we all eat. Here is a chart and an article that speaks to some of it.

An article from the Washington Post



The article talks about how this money helps promote U.S. crops abroad.

"Trade, $3.5 billion over 10 years (little change). This money is used to promote U.S. crops overseas and provide food aid abroad. "

But the article does not tell you (they probably don't know) that this legislation does not adjust U.S. laws (MCOOL) to comply with our treaty obligations. Since the U.S. has been found at fault in this matter by the courts in the WTO, this legislation virtually assures that our foreign trading partners will place retaliatory tariffs on U.S. crops/products entering their country, costing the U.S. jobs and hard earned market share. Why are we spending money to promote crops and then losing it by fighting over a lost issue? Here is a link if you want to get details WTO MCOOL summary

Much is made of the amount of money being spent on Food Stamps (SNAP) and mighty arguments are fought over reductions and what should be done. It can be seen as American charity toward the poor or Congress trying to buy votes with our money. In either case it is money for U.S. citizens. But as best I can understand it, USDA is advertising the program in Mexico. Couldn't we at least cut the advertising program and there by save those dollars and perhaps reduce the pressure on the border from people trying to enter the U.S. illegally? Here is an article that explains some of this issue.

an article about the USDA advertising in Mexico


These are just two of the things that jump out at me as I read my "social media news stream)

I sit and shake me head. I know the "Farm Bill" is needed for many reasons. I get that. But I sure hate having to take the bad with the good. Where is the integrity in that?

Thanks for thinking along with me.

Weaning baby pigs

My daughter, the college art major, came to me and asked, "What can I do other than just sit around. This is getting boring." To understand that question you need to know that she just had wisdom teethe surgery yesterday and is not feeling top notch.

I said, "You can take my phone and laptop and edit some of the video clips into a useful piece. Do something to answer the questions you get from classmates at school."

An hour later, here is what she gave me. Enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYPMUapQHoQ

While she was doing this with her talent, I went out side and enlarged the frame work of the garage door so we can park a full size car in the garage. The door installers come on Tuesday and I promised to be ready. Hammers and nails and saws are more my talent.

Dancing and the Pig Farmer

People have started to notice that I am spending a lot of time with my son, Simon, lately. (Simon has Down's syndrome and requires an ever present care giver/overseer for his safety).

I meet the bus every afternoon. I take him to therapy. I do laundry with him. We fix the evening meal. We go together to check the pigs in the afternoon. Sometimes there are simple farm jobs we can do together. There are trips to the bank, library, grocery, pharmacy and associated farm businesses that we make together. In general, many of the tasks that my wife has always done are falling on me.

People are starting to notice and politely ask questions.

Here is the deal.

My wife and I have made it our goal in life to raise children we enjoy living with. To this end we have chosen a very "traditional" family style. We have made the sacrifices for my wife to be a "stay at home mom", we have home schooled our children, we have invested in our local church and the attached community of people. We feel we have been richly blessed, very fortunate, and largely successful at our goal.

So this past summer several events transpired to force us into new patterns of behavior. One event was the departure of our last college bound student to begin her studies. This removed the Simon care giver of choice from our home.

Another event was the sudden death of my mother last December. She was the ever present fall back care giver. If all else failed, call grandma. Despite our best efforts to the contrary we ended up calling more than we probably should have. Without her there is no back up plan. We are now experiencing what it is like to live apart from extended family. I don't like it.

The next event was a major upheaval of staff at my daughter's fledging dance studio. My daughter and another fine instructor made up the senior teaching staff at the studio. This instructor left to form a competing studio and took a lot of the student body with her. This exodus is not surprising since student's tend to develop an allegiance to their instructor more than their studio. The reduced student body forced cuts in other assistant instructors and front desk personnel. It was a disaster at one level.

In response to these changes and in an effort to stabilize the business, provide an adult at the front desk, and to give encouragement to my daughter, my wife is spending her afternoons and evenings at the dance studio. This change has been very positive to the family relationships and has brought home the value of raising children we enjoy being with.

The final event in this series was the much anticipated transition in my pig business from caring for a breeding herd with large numbers of mommy pigs, baby pigs, and daily chores to a business that buys baby pigs and raises them to market weight. A transition that was intended to provide me with a less intense, stressful, and time sensitive lifestyle. As a human I needed to slow down and have some time to sit on the back porch and read or whatever. While the mental adjustment is far from over, becoming Simon's care giver fits well with this transition.

How does all this fit in a blog that is supposed to encourage its readers to think more deeply about food and where it comes from?

I hope you will see in this that I am a farmer after I am a husband and a father.

I am not unusual among my peers.

All across America, the people that provide those things that show up on your table as food are making these hard decisions and negotiating these interpersonal connections. Before the first livestock is fed, the first seed is planted, the first farming chore is done, men and women are figuring a way to raise children and see to their care. This is the core of who we are and what we do. In that respect, I doubt that the farm family is much different than the non-farm family.

Pigs Waterslide and an Awesome Farmer

A Dutch farmer set up a pig waterslide, took some pictures, and posted it to social media. The result is that I am now getting well meaning questions and suggestions for my farm. And more than one copy of the original post.

Here is the link

People find this idea hilarious, funny, and entertaining. And it is. What a great way to help pigs play!

I was curious about the details of this farm so I asked some social media friends to help me track down more information. Given the unknowns of culture and language the best thing I found was this link to the farm's web page. Pig Palace

Please click the Pig Palace link above to get an idea of how sophisticated this farmer's approach to farming is. It is quite impressive. It shows a person looking forward to the challenges that he faces.

With all this as background, I would like to make a few observations from my viewpoint as a U.S. producer who is also deeply involved in looking forward for solutions to challenges.

I am unsure a pig would volunteer to go down this slide. My experience is that a pig will hesitate and test out a new surface/material pretty well before stepping on it. If they are afraid of losing their footing they will refuse to advance. Getting pigs to step off the wooden ramp (pictured below) onto the cement floor and vice versa often requires patience and neither is a slick waterslide.

In any event it is pretty dangerous for an animal with hooves (cartilage for feet) to be sliding around. This is one reason we put shoes on horses and the internationally recognized animal behaviorist Temple Grandin has argued against slick floors in facilities her entire career. As a point of reference, this loading ramp on my farm would be written up by the National Pork Board's Sight Assessment Auditor because there are missing treads/cleats.

I will simply point out that the key issues with hog wallows (mud holes) are odor, flies, environmental degradation, and diseases (both human and porcine) and move on. Who could argue with the obvious fun of a mud hole?

So I am not particularly enamored with this waterslide as a production strategy, ........ but as a marketing investment I think it is awesome.

The Netherlands/Holland/the Dutch are members of the EU (European Union) and are struggling to find ways to produce food affordably under some very stringent animal welfare and environmental regulations. Many of the EU nations just simply are not going to be able to comply. Compliance takes money and that means debt, and parts of Europe are in a terrible bind in that regard.

This forward thinking farmer appears to be running a very transparent and public friendly enterprise utilizing the latest and greatest technology to meet these challenges. In the back pasture he is showing how much he loves his animals by giving them a water slide! What an awesome farmer. You only need to read a few comments to realize how much good favor he has bought with the public. I can only stand in admiration of the strategy. Well done.

Maybe someone should open a large scale commercial farm that is accessible to the public in the U.S.......and add a waterslide? I will have to suggest it to my friends at the Fair Oaks Pig Adventure.  The future of farming may lie in this kind of forward thinking marketing and public transparency.

George Washington and the Federalist Papers

 "The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in... some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes.

"Should, hereafter, those who are entrusted with the management of this government, incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."

George Washington, Excerpts from Drafts of the First Inaugural Address (April 1789)

Panera Bread, Antibiotics in feed, and #PluckEZchicken

I have recently been following the debate about the Panera Bread online advertising campaign that suggests that farmers feed antibiotics to their livestock because they are too lazy to care for them. This debate can be seen at the Blog "The Adventures of Dairy Carrie"  and a follow up called #pluckEZchicken . In the whole debate there seems to be a missing piece of information, "What antibiotics are fed to livestock?"

While the Panera Bread advertisement seems directed more at the chicken producer, I feel it reflects poorly on most producers of livestock. Since I raise pigs on a large scale in confinement barns, I will speak only to what I know and don't know or do and don't do as the case may be.

I purchase baby pigs from the Fair Oaks Pig Adventure (technically it is the company named Legacy Farms that is the operating partner) when they are weaned. These pigs arrive at my barn weighing about 14# and are about 21 days old.

pigs are housed in these pens for easy observation for 6-8 weeks

As I understand it, biologically, the piglets are just starting to produce their own immunities and to lose those of their mother at this age. In other words they are weaned just before they start to pick up mother's adult diseases and their immune system has just started to respond independently. Obviously, they are at risk of getting sick during this time since it takes about 3 weeks (21 days) for an immune response to develop. It is during this time that I feed antibiotics in their feed.

In some ways, I liken it to when I went to college and was first exposed to all the diseases that the urban students were already immune to. I was sick for a month!

even authorized personnel shower in and change clothes on entry

I go to great lengths to present the pigs with as clean an environment as possible during this period. The pens they enter have been cleaned and disinfected and entry to the facility is restricted. This includes people but also any other living things that might be a carrier of disease like raccoons, possum, birds, etc.. The tough ones are airborne viruses. To this end my barns are located in remote locations to create natural buffers to airborne illnesses.

Feed arrives from a commercial mill in a semi truck and is placed in storage bins. Each feed and delivery has a unique information tag/invoice that is delivered with it so I can know what was delivered.

this is the largest image I have been able to make, my son scribbled on the weight ticket

These tags are kept on file for two years as part of my compliance with the National Pork Board's Pork Quality Assurance Plus program so that if a question is raised about what was fed, I have an auditable trail for an answer.

These tags show that from 6/28/13 to 7/24/13 this group of 2100 pigs was fed an antibiotic call Carbadox at a rate of 50 grams per ton of feed. The label further says that this medication must not be fed within 42 days of slaughter. It may also be seen that this amounted to slightly less than 31 tons of feed.

So with these facts let's think a minute.

My wife's 2# bag of powdered sugar weighs 907 grams.

my cheapo scale is off a little

I just fed 1550 grams of antibiotic to my pigs mixed in with 31 tons of corn, soybeans and minerals (also on the tag above) over about 30 days, to fight off diseases that almost certainly were present, while the pigs immune response developed naturally. The first pigs won't go to market for 5-6 months (180 days) so the 42 day slaughter restriction is met with ALOT of room to spare.

Since these are the only antibiotics these pigs will ever see, unless there is a disease that breaks out, it seems unreasonable to me to say they are stuffed full of antibiotics. The Panera Bread add shows the antibiotics holding up the barn roof. That seems a little bit of an over statement to me.

So the next obvious question is, "What is Carbadox and how safe is it?"

The answer, of course, is way beyond my technical knowledge. I am a pig farmer with a college degree in Agricultural Business from 1983. You are a consumer that expects food to be healthy and wholesome for you. Period. Full stop. That is why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates these drugs requiring enormous amounts of testing and research before they are approved for production.

I just listened to a presentation of this process at a meeting of the National Pork Board's Animal Welfare Committee by Dr. Steve Sundlof (the former head of the agency tasked with this job). His presentation for laymen took an hour. I do remember that the testing requirements are for things like effectiveness, safety to the pig and ultimate consumer, safety to handlers, safety to the environment, and length of time needed for the drug to dissipate from the animals body prior to slaughter (slaughter hold times), along with other things. These all get condensed into the feed tag pictured above.

If you are concerned/interested about what is in the food you are putting in your mouth, I applaud you. I hope this discussion gives you a little more perspective about what goes on at my farm (I am not unlike a lot of farms). I hope you can begin to appreciate the time, attention, and great lengths that farmers are going to so that the food you put in your mouth is absolutely healthy for you and in fact has never been unhealthy itself.

After all, the road to healthy food is not easy but it sure is tasty.


P.S. Diana Pritchard comments on the social media aspect of this dust up in her Swine Web editorial.
P.S.S. here is a person with more expertise discussing antibiotics/residues Mom at the Meat Counter

Patrick Henry, Immigration, and Freedom

I have experienced a slow transformation in my thinking toward my relationship with the government and the degree to which it attempts to control the citizens. My recent trip to Washington D.C. that I detailed in the blog about data and surveilance is the most recent transformative event in my thinking. When I realized that E-verify would create a database of EVERYONE's work history a small light came on in the back of my head. Reading the full text of the famous speech by Patrick Henry brings my thinking into clearer view.

I have just recently come to realize that we live in the "information age" and that "knowledge is power". Our government is assembling enormous amounts of information/knowledge about each of us as citizens which gives that government enormous power. For what purpose? We are told it is necessary for our safety and defense. This causes me to focus on the question "Have we any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of data and lists? No, sir we do not. They are meant for us: they are sent to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the government has been so long forging. "

The endless scandals that the government (from both parties) seems to be facing all have a common denominator, data and its analysis. The weapons of mass destruction, interrogation, IRS, the NSA, the AP, Obamacare, immigration, EPA data releases, and on and on, all point to a government that is collecting and using data....for what. To make men free?


Here below is the text of Patrick Henry's speech, I have edited it to fit more clearly with the current day situation, so you may more clearly consider my thoughts.

"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" by Patrick Henry (italics are my edits)

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy people of the United States. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to anyone if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony.  The question before us is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate.  It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

It is natural to man to indulge in illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren of hope till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their daily salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the U.S. government for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves. Is it that insidious smile with which our petitions are heard? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.  Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our concerns matches with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are databases and lists necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be cooperative that surveillance must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this electronic array of arms, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Have we any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of data and information? No, sir, we have none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. they are sent to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the government has been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them?

Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you , sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated: we have endured bad legislation, and have implored our leaders to arrest the tyrannical hands of the various agencies. Our petitions have been disregarded and spurned, with contempt, from the white house. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending---we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to peaceful but unswerving resistance and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us , sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our government shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our government can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no choice. If we were cowards enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our records are taken, our names recorded, our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the streets of Boston! The war is inevitable---let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace----but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next national crisis that sweeps from the media will bring to our eyes and ears the sight of a mighty government controlling its people. Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would we have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty god! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

(source unknown)

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I do not advocate for armed resistance, but I am all for a spirited and energetic defense of our god given liberty. A freedom that includes the right to life, movement, association, speech, assembly, etc. without having government monitor our every action and move (a guard at every door).

Thank you for considering these things with me.

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postscript update 7/7/13

here is an interesting view from another angle http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/privacy-vs-security-false-choice-poisons-debate-nsa-leaks-6C10536226