Consumers Demanding Cage-Free Eggs
by Ridge Shinn

It is exciting to see the consumers "pulling on the rope" and getting what they demand. Whenever I speak to consumer groups, I always remind them that they are the key to reviving the rural economy. As Wendell Berry says, "Eating is an Agricultural Act." Your food dollar votes definitely affect what gets raised for market and how it is raised.

I predict that 100% grass-finished beef will be one of the next very scarce products. Our challenge is that the ramp up time is 2.5 years for grass-fed beef, rather than a number of months, as for cage-free egg operations.

Read a recent New York Times article (from Aug. 12) about cage-free egg demand.

Raw Milk in the News
by Ridge Shinn

There seems to be growing interest in raw, unpasteurized milk drunk straight from the cow. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned interstate sales of unpasteurized milk 20 years ago, but adherents claim raw milk is healthier to drink.

August 8, 2007 New York Times published a very interesting article about the interest, and controversy, over this topic. You be the judge.


Read the article.

Return of a Dread Disease
by Ridge Shinn

We are both saddened and alarmed that foot-and-mouth disease has reappeared in English cattle, specifically on two farms in Surrey. This is a very contagious disease, as we recall from the outbreak of 2001. As a recent editorial in The New York Times noted, "It is really worth hoping that this outbreak is contained and its cause discovered as quickly as possible. The rural economy of Britain suffered a horrifying blow from mad-cow disease in the 1990s, followed, with surprising swiftness, by an equally horrifying blow from foot-and-mouth disease. Those two diseases changed the agricultural landscape and, especially, how people felt about it."

Click here to read the complete August 8, 2007 editorial here (printed in PDF format).