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The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st Century Agriculture
- rwmurrayVT 10y agoA more interesting and enlightening article on the state of 21st Century Agriculture is plugged after this article. Michael Pollan is a wonderful writer. This article shouldn't surprise anyone who spends time thinking about the food they put into their body and where it that food is sourced. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/obama-administration-big-food-policy.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/obama...
- wazoox 10y agoOh yes. It's possible to make highly productive, completely organic, local agriculture. Added bonus, in times of high unemployment, it's relatively job-intensive. The mega-corporation-owned, gigantic scale, chemical-laden industrial agriculture presented here is a nightmare...
- triplesec 10y ago.. and also much more enlightening than this puff piece for capital agriculture, is this one, also promoted on the article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/meat-industry-transparency-fight.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/meat-...
- zeveb 10y agoWeird: I have JavaScript enabled, but the article is an unreadable grey-on-white.
- capper 10y agoNot sure if you have an ad blocker running, but that was the source of that issue for me.
- titanomachy 10y agoI had the same problem but it cleared on a page refresh.
- nitrogen 10y agoThe <article> tag has an opacity: 0.3 rule that you can remove.
- subpixel 10y agoSemi-related: I wonder why the Times is publishing the magazine during the week now. I suspect it has to do with when and how people read these days - many fewer people getting the hard copy, and probably fewer people reading online over the weekend. I feel like we're at peak long-form journalism, podcasts, and binge-worthy tv. I could (I do not) devote 2+hrs a day to the good stuff and still be way behind.
- TheGRS 10y agoFunny you should say that, I just subscribed to the Times a little over a month ago, the digital version that is. Its the first newspaper I've subscribed to in over 4 years. I like their articles and generally find myself actually reading through them the whole way. Its the only paper I've found worth my time/money.
- elorant 10y agoThe first picture is just depressing. All those calves living their lives in a cramped space without exposure to nature or to one another, constantly fed to achieve maturity in a fraction of the time it would normally take. This is so fucked-up. And of course their meat tastes nothing like beef.
- walrus01 10y agothe next logical step is a cow without a head (or without a brain, or a rudimentary brainstem only) that ingests nutrients from pipe coming from a nutrient-vat of soylent-like material.
- TrainedMonkey 10y agoWhy not directly go to vat grown or 3d printed meat?
- snewk 10y agoeconomics, i would assume
- xkcd-sucks 10y agobecause an animal is a self-contained unit which manages disease and feed conversion that scales fairly predictably, while cultured meat has a pretty high entry barrier in terms of feedstock, sanitation etc
- walrus01 10y agothe cynic in me says that the "manages diseases" part will become increasingly untenable in the future, as antibiotic-resistant everything proliferate in feedlot environments, and american regulatory agencies fail to put a check on antibiotics mixed into animal feed. reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html
- bduerst 10y ago
- walrus01 10y agoBe very glad you can't smell that cattle feed lot through the screen.
- rudedogg 10y agoHopefully technology (robotics + machine learning) will improve this a lot in the future. Rather than needing to keep dairy cows in a shed they could graze, and some robotic contraption could roam the field milking them, etc. It's also worth mentioning that these are probably the better food operations out there (most wouldn't allow cameras). Agriculture is ugly, and always will be.
- weberc2 10y ago> most wouldn't allow cameras Because farmers are concerned that reporters are out to portray their operations as more inhumane or less safe than they really are. For example, nursing sows are kept in very small cages so they can't roll over and kill their piglets, but farmers know that most journalists would only see (and thus talk about) the claustrophobic quarters. > Agriculture is ugly, and always will be. I grew up on a farm; while there's certainly room for improvement, most farming operations are very humane. I can't speak to the extreme "big ag" end of the spectrum, but family farms--even large ones--tend to treat their animals well.
- shlant 10y ago> I can't speak to the extreme "big ag" end of the spectrum, but family farms--even large ones--tend to treat their animals well. This totally misses the point. Big Ag is where most of the supply comes from (and with demand, will continue to come from), therefor the practices in those environments should be the focus, not family farms. Focusing on the potential good does not in any way make the bad disappear. I just can't understand being ok with the proven, horrible conditions of large operations just because there are better examples out there. We should be judging the state of things based on the worst examples, not based on the best...
- weberc2 10y agoYour whole post is a straw man. No one is saying you have to ignore the sins of big ag because there are good farms out there.
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- nayuki 10y agoWhy is it that in the Taylor Farms photo of vegetable processing, all the workers are wearing dusk masks or respirators? What is dangerous in that environment?
- bglazer 10y agoI'd imagine it's their sneezes and coughs. The problem isn't what's going into the workers, it's what's coming out of them.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoPerhaps the workers are dangerous - to the food. Can't have them breathing contagious germs into the food they're processing...
- nitrogen 10y agoIn addition to keeping the food clean, massive amounts of dust derived from any substance can be irritating, even vegetables. Have you ever cut an onion or a really hot pepper?
- ge96 10y agoAmazing. People can complain about conditions and what not of mass produced food but it's a big demand. I think it's ingenious the designs of these various mass-production facilities. Sure, treat the animals with respect. Does suck to think you're born for food. That line of cows being inseminated and sent back to where they came from. Shit. Sounds dirty haha. Poke. I don't know how they do it though so just speculating. Great post
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- whybroke 10y ago>Our industrialized food system nourishes more people, at lower cost, than any comparable system in history... It does puzzle me though why in Spain, among most other food, bread is 1/5 and Tomatoes 1/10 the price. Particularly odd is that US boxed cereal and California wine are also cheaper. But that is off topic I'm sure.