GreenWatch

B. McPherson Note the broadcaster says no pollution of this river has occurred! Pigs don’t fly but they sure can float as the residents of China’s Shanghai have found. To date over 3 000 have been fished from the Huangpu River which serves as the main water supply to the coastal city. The problem of the dead pigs has grown too large to cover up and even China Daily is reporting on it. Reports of dead animals started coming in last week, but the public was not made aware of the corpses in their water supply until Monday. Some of the dead animals still had ear tags which the department of agriculture traced to piggeries upriver. An outbreak of porcine circovirus in the upriver location has resulted in the death of about 20 000 animals. In Jiaxing's village of Zhulin, which is dependent on pig farming, almost all of the more than 1,400 households keep pigs. In January, 10,078 pigs died there and in February another 8,326 died, Jiaxing Daily reported. China Daily...

B. McPherson Got Pork? Love bacon?  Con Agra, one of the large food supply corporations is asking its pork suppliers to construct plans that would eliminate sow stalls, otherwise known as gestation crates by 2017. Five years from now there may be a plan to eliminate these cruel devices. Then the elimination of the stalls may take another 10 years. For those of you who eat pork, you should know what you are putting into your mouths and that of your children. In Europe sow crates are still used, but are slated to be eliminated by 2013. N. American pork producers have industrialized their operations in the past couple of decades. They have become efficient meat producers. Consumers have seen the price of pork, bacon, ribs, hams steadily decrease as efficiencies have been implemented. In order to become efficient meat factories, the animals become cogs in the production line. Sow stalls are just one aspect of the inhumane practise of factory raised pork. The female pig...

B. McPherson

B. McPherson The following expose is not connected with Establishment #761. It is meant to illustrate what may happen in a factory setting. Canada’s Food Inspection Agency(CFIA) has issued yet another food recall. This one involves the possible contamination of beef by E. coli . This is the bacterium that may cause ‘hamburger disease’, a sometimes fatal syndrome that destroys internal organs. The public is warned that it is possible that beef products from plant #761 may be contaminated. The bacterium is found in the lower intestinal tract. You and I have it and it’s fine if it stays there. A great part of your ‘poop’ is E. coli that’s why we are careful to dispose of our excrement. And one of the reasons that we wash our hands carefully after using the toilet. For this potentially fatal microbe to be in meat it means that feces is believed to be mixed into the meat. Canadian law does not compel the slaughterhouse to recall its product. The offending meat is recal...

B. McPherson Perhaps stem cell steaks are a bit of a reach but scientists at the Dutch Eindhoven University of Technology are culturing beef strips from beef stem cells. Chief scientist Mark Post has predicted that they will have enough of the in vitro produced muscle by October to produce a hamburger. While this may sound like science fiction, the basics have already been dealt with and tiny strips of beef muscle have been cultured. The scientists involved estimate that this will be a more efficient way of producing beef for consumption. Conventionally raised beef takes about 100 pounds of resources to produce 15 pounds of useable meat. The lab raised beef is estimated to produce 50 pounds for every 100 pounds of resources. Of course the first stem cell burger will actually cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The race is on to produce more meat for the growing human population. As living standards rise, people can afford more protein and often consume it in the f...

By B. McPherson This is the time of year when avid gardeners are pouring over seed catalogues planning for the summer’s bounty. Few people who are not gardeners and farmers are aware of the diminishing variety and number of seed houses. Regulations enacted by the US government now prevent seed suppliers from sending specialty seeds from Canada to the US, further restricting the supply of specialty and heritage seeds. Some gardeners are dealing with the dwindling varieties by saving seeds from open pollinated(plants that will breed true) varieties and activists have arranged for seed exchange days. There are small companies that offer heritage seeds over the internet. Some of the older seed houses in Canada still cater to the farmer who is planting fields, but the really big industrial farms are increasingly turning to the big seed producing corporations. These large seed manufacturing corporations have in a few decades come to dominate the commercial seed industry. Mo...

By B. McPherson                                              Video: The Seven Myths of Industrial Agriculture One of the things that every person can do to help the environment is to purchase food in a mindful way.   The Union of Concerned Scientists is urging their fellow citizens to take an active interest in how their food is produced. They are urging Americans to participate and show support for a new farm bill that is expected to pass in 2012. There is a proposal to level the field for sustainable farmers who provide food to local markets. Currently, governments of the US and Canada are increasingly favouring industrial farming operations. Subsidies paid to big, monocrop operations disadvantage farmers who maintain mixed, sustainable and organic acreage. The routine application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, m...