To the Editor:
Re”Factory farms are our best hope for feeding the planet,” by Michael Grunwald (opinions visitor essay, December 15):
As Government Director of the International Alliance for the Way forward for Meals, I take concern with Mr. Grunwald’s essay. He argued that “we should always consider all agriculture as a obligatory evil.” You completely should not.
Around the globe, our union helps farmers and fishermen who’re on the entrance strains of manufacturing considerable meals that helps boosting biodiversitycreate a much bigger one climate resistance and supply solid livelihood. No evil required.
The sort of meals manufacturing techniques Mr. Grunwald insists we should always undertake have been rightly criticized for many years by leading experts for his or her dependence on fossil fuels and poisonous chemical compounds – whereas producing little or no of what you or I might contemplate meals. (Assume excessive fructose corn syrup or livestock feed crops.)
These techniques are “efficient,” as Mr. Grunwald claims, provided that you ignore their true cost — for our well being, setting, local weather, and so on. As somebody who has heard numerous tales from communities devastated by the poisonous toll of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, the air and water air pollution from manufacturing facility farms, and the lack of soil and land degradation from industrial farming practices, to not point out the exploitation of employees and animals in these techniques that’s not the way forward for meals I’ll settle for. Nor ought to it.
Anna Lape
Berkeley, California
The author is the writer of Food regimen for a Sizzling Planet.
To the editor:
I had simply returned from the morning milking after I learn Michael Grunwald’s essay together with his evaluation that “we should always consider all agriculture as a obligatory evil. It makes our meals and makes a large number.
I milk six cows, all named, in fact (Dandelion, Carnation, Lilac, Daisy, Dodie, and Dandelion), on our 40-acre, 100% grass-fed dairy farm in Northeast Washington State. And apparently I’m a key contributor to the horribly inefficient and nature-destroying small-scale diversified agriculture that must be changed by extremely environment friendly large-scale industrial agriculture.
Mr. Grunwald sadly makes the basic mistake of assuming that the ends justify the means. It focuses on producing as a lot meals as potential with out contemplating the myriad dangerous results of commercial agriculture past its environmental penalties. These embrace the consequences on meals high quality, the well being of farmers and employees, the construction of rural communities, the sustainability of manufacturing, financial alternatives and meals safety.
In nature, all issues are related, and the extra we separate meals manufacturing from nature, the extra we make sure the continued manufacturing of low-cost, low-quality meals on the expense of farmers, fields, animals and our rural communities.
Virginia Thomas
Chuella, Wash.
To the Editor:
Michael Grunwald is true that industrial agriculture produces quite a lot of meals on comparatively little land. He’s additionally right that many farming practices which are claimed to be higher for nature produce much less meals, which might result in meals shortages or the conversion of extra forests to cropland.
However we have to change the way in which we develop meals. Along with deforestation, agriculture contributes about 40 p.c of human-caused methane emissions and practically 70 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions are human-causedand makes use of 70 percent of our planet’s fresh water.
We’d like a system that will increase manufacturing per acre whereas defending pure sources, folks and animals. We are able to obtain meat and dairy merchandise with decrease methane content material via options corresponding to optimizing animal well being to enhance productiveness and feeding cows dietary supplements that safely scale back methane of their belches. We are able to scale back the extreme use of fertilizers with out depriving ourselves of their monumental advantages. And we are able to ease pressures on land and water use by adapting crops and livestock to local weather stressors. We additionally must drastically scale back meals waste – nearly a third of all food it by no means does on our plates.
We should attempt for options which are scientifically confirmed and steadiness a number of priorities in order that we are able to feed the world with out irreparably harming it.
Britt Grossman
New York
The author is vice chairman for agriculture, water and meals on the Environmental Protection Fund.
To the Editor:
Michael Grunwald says that though large-scale livestock farming is damaging to the setting, our authorities ought to attempt to enhance it as an alternative of on the lookout for alternate options. However his case will not be convincing.
Mr. Grunwald rejects the promise of small, environmentally pleasant farms. He says they eat up an excessive amount of land for the quantity of meat they produce. Industrial agriculture, he provides, is extra environment friendly, partly as a result of “its pesticides and herbicides kill bugs and weeds that cease crops from rising.” However these poisons trigger monumental injury, together with the dying of pollinating bugs on which a lot vegetation relies upon.
Mr Grunwald additionally rejects the hope that plant-based diets will scale back the necessity for big manufacturing facility farms. Demand for meat, he says, is predicted to extend. However that prediction could change if the general public higher understands the environmental impression of meals purchases.
Lastly, we’d like a fuller dialogue of animal struggling in manufacturing facility farms. That is horrible. I am undecided that farms which are designed to earn cash are able to offering really humane circumstances. However till they do, we should discover methods for our animal family members to reside full, free and completely satisfied lives.
Invoice Crane
Poquag, New York
The author co-owns Protected Haven Farm Sanctuary, which provides a lifelong residence to farmed animals rescued from slaughter.
To the Editor:
Michael Grunwald glosses over the struggling that manufacturing facility farming causes to billions of animals on this nation by stocking them in excessive confined circumstances, typically motionless in cages or crates.
I’ve personally visited the repository highlighted in his materials, and this isn’t the norm. In typical animal feedlots—and much more so in industrial hog and hen farms—the scent hits earlier than you see the animals, and their distress stays with you lengthy after.
I’ve additionally seen how native communities are harmed by this trade that toxins their air and water and destroys their economies.
We is not going to clear up starvation by doubling down on a failure-prone system. We’d like funding in accountable, sustainable farming practices that deal with animals with respect and restore rural communities and our land.
Federal laws launched final yr – on Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act — will fund the transition of farmers to extra humane, sustainable practices. Manufacturing unit farming will not be inevitable, and we can not resign ourselves to accepting the human and animal struggling it leaves behind.
Daisy buddy
New York
The author is vice chairman of farm animal welfare for the ASPCA
