Food thoughts

Weekly Food Thoughts 02/04/2010

I got an email from someone looking for "ways" to produce organic chicken feed CHEAP!!!

Ok People we need to get out of Cheap Food LaLaLand, either we change the way food out there is getting subsidies or we accept the fact that real food comes at a price and we need to change the way we eat.

Here is how the system works now : MegaFarm is producing corn at $10 a bushel (please don't quote me on numbers or names this just for the purpose of the example) so their cost is $10, here comes UncleSam giving MegaFarm $10 subsidies to each bushel of corn. At this point the cost of producing corn is Zero (0), arrive HFCS inc., mega food manufacturer, willing to pay $5 for the same bushel of corn, of course MegaFarm is happy to sell and makes a $5 profit. I simplified it but this is the principle. Now let's remove UncleSam subsidies. MegaFarm is still producing at $10/bushel and still wants to make $5 in profit therefor they will sell to HFCS inc. at $15/bushel !! Right here the price of your food tripled !!! Of course I am not taking into consideration all the ugly scheme this corn will go through before hitting your plate. Now you wonder where the $10 in subsidies comes from ??? I have news from you ... WE are paying with our tax $$ and subsequent Health Royalties for ever and this is the "beauty" of it : WE pay before we even buy !!! ... There is no miracle or magic formula, Real Food cost to produce, at $6/dozen for my eggs I pay the feed for the chickens that's all !!!

I went to a workshop called "small scale poultry raising" or something like that. Given by UF, the first speaker, PhD in nutrition, spent 17 minutes bashing organic practices, stating that if you want problems, snags, headaches (his words) that was the way to go !! I was wondering what I have been doing for the last two years or so ?? of course the only way he was promoting was factory farms, it amazed me that someone at that level was not more knowledgeable or at least open to organic practices, it shows how brain wash most people are about food, pretending that the food system in this country is one of the safest in the world ... welcome to LaLaLand. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, I was part of a backyard chickens workshop full of people wanting to raise their own chickens and realizing how dysfunctional the food system is. I loved it and made me want to start having backyard poultry workshops here at the farm, I will give you full details next week ...
Back to reality I have a ton of feed (literally) to unload ... hahaha ... see you all tomorrow ...

PS: I watch a great documentary called : food beware: the french organic revolution (Netflix) about how a small village gets its school cafeteria to go all organic and the impact on the community from the parents to the local farmers, a perfect example of how when there is a political will "things" happend. Watch it you will love it ....

Happy Hour at the farm  ...