GMO Grass Seed: Farmers Beware

Right now 100% grass-fed beef is GMO free. But will that be the case in the future? Grassfarmers need to weigh in on this issue now.

Specifically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be studying the environmental effects of a genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa seed. The USDA published a notice in the Federal Register recently, alerting the public to the department's intent to prepare an environmental impact statement and giving the public 30 days to comment on what issues should be considered.

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Jo Robinson Writes in Mother Earth News

Author and grass researcher Jo Robinson writes about the current beef industry in the February/March issue of Mother Earth News. She writes, "Supermarket beef is an unnatural, industrial product. The good news is there are better and safer options. Learn how to avoid hormones, antibiotics and other unwanted chemicals in your food; stay safe from mad cow disease and E. coli, and choose better beef, including grass-fed, organic and locally raised options."

In this article, she writes convincingly and passionately about returning to the era of pre-industrialized beef. She discusses the widespread use of hormones, antibiotics, and by-products, and the resulting bad side effects of these practices. Read her article here.

In addition to her article are five related articles:

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E. Coli Levels & Distiller's Grains

The Des Moines Register reports that USDA scientists are investigating if there is a link between increased E. coli in cattle that are fed distillers' grains, a byproduct of ethanol production.

The reason for the research study is that scientists at Kansas State University and the University of Nebraska concluded cattle that were fed distillers grain had higher levels of E. coli bacteria as compared to cattle fed regular corn.

Read the entire news report here.

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler: A New York Times Article

Mark Bittman regularly writes about food for The New York Times, and his January 27 article focuses on the cheap and abundant availability of meat in the American diet, comparing it to a similar addiction for oil. Both meat and oil are subsidized commodities, he notes, and its wide availability is having some unfortunate effects.

He cites these statistics: "Americans eat about ... eight ounces [of meat] a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total. Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s icefree land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation."

Horrifyingly, with all the hunger in the world, he says, "the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens." Deforestation, pollution, climate change, health problems for both people and the animals themselves ... all are factors that cry out for a change in how harmful our food system has become.

He concludes: "Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production."

Read the complete article here.

Declining Biodiversity in Cattle

In a recent article in The New York Times by Andrew Rice, we read about a breed of longhorns known as the Ankole with traits suited to the hilly grasslands of western Uganda. Yet, they are being replaced by Holsteins. Rice writes, "Indigenous animals like East Africa’s sinewy Ankole, the product of centuries of selection for traits adapted to harsh conditions, are struggling to compete with foreign imports bred for maximal production. This worries some scientists. The world’s food supply is increasingly dependent on a small and narrowing list of highly engineered breeds: the Holstein, the Large White pig and the Rhode Island Red and Leghorn chickens. There’s a risk that future diseases could ravage these homogeneous animal populations. Poor countries, which possess much of the world’s vanishing biodiversity, may also be discarding breeds that possess undiscovered genetic advantages."

Read the entire article here.

Expensive Oil? It's the Cow's Fault

Super-spook R. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA and now a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton, argues that our dependence on Middle Eastern oil is a national security concern. In a satirical piece, Woolsey imagines a conference call between the nations of OPEC and the lobbyists of Washington, D.C.'s K Street. He explains, "[OPEC's] greatest fear is that the United States will become oil-independent -- and they're concerned that the crunchy types' campaign to feed cows grass rather than corn could mean not only a healthier America but one less dependent on OPEC."

Read the entire article by clicking here.

Jared Diamond on the Consumption Factor

Jared M. Diamond, professor at UCLA and author of the best sellers Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, asks in a January 2 Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, "What's Your Consumption Factor?"

He writes, "The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences."

This level of consumption cannot be maintained, he writes, as our world resources dwindle and as people in developing countries strive to adopt our high-consumption lifestyle. What is the answer?

"Willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable. Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life."

Read the entire editorial.