Coming Soon: Farmageddon...The Unseen War on American Family Farms

[boston bean]

link with video trailer:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/09/the-return-of-fresh-milk-from-the-king-dairy.aspx?aid=CD945

The video above is the trailer from a full length documentary called Farmageddon...The Unseen War on American Family Farms, produced and directed by Kristin Canty. The film is slated for public release in January of next year, but Canty was kind enough to provide me this preview. (For more information, see www.farmageddonmovie.com.)

The film offers an in-depth look into the issue of raw milk, and the many issues that surround it. From government policies that favor big agriculture over small traditional farms, to the fascist-like methods employed to maintain that status quo, to the vastly different health impacts between organically-raised raw milk and its pasteurized and genetically modified factory-farmed counterpart.

[ixion]

1. It's not just limited to food...any commodity or utility is controlled in mafiaesque fashion

by the US government and their puppet masters.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Control the food, control the people

This is an issue that doesn't come within a light year of the coverage it deserves.

[boston bean]

3. did you have a chance to watch the trailer. The raids on family farmers is a crime.

They look like really hard working americans, and their farms are beautiful!

Rustling kids up at dawn for a federal raid, makes me sick.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Corporate farming istrying to do to family farms what WalMart did to family businesses.

And the result for the rest of us is the same..Disaster in every way one can imagine.

[boston bean]

6. Using the government as an enforcer for CAFO's is a sickening thought. nt

What is a CAFO you ask:

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_Animal_Feeding_Operations

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. K&R great point N/T

[xchrom]

7. 'Benign' neo-liberalism at work. Nt

[MattBaggins]

11. And it's good work

I want my food inspected and tested.

[Scruffy1]

8. Having spent most of my life in he Veternary business

All i can say is you can get tuberculosis, brucelosis, and e coli from non pasteurized milk. Soon as I see the word family farm in a post my bullshit meter goes up. The small farmers have been gone for years, replaced by a wealthy investor class.

[peacebird]

9. Ibuy our meat from a family farm a mile from my house

A middle school science teacher raises heifers, pigs, and poultry and sells the meat and eggs. He wants to transition to full time farmer. We buy 1/2 a cow, and 1/4 pig each year. There ARE family farms still in existance out here. Many raise goats and produce farmstead cheeses. Another local family farm sells tubs of fresh salsa, pickles, and three bean salad. And there is a lady who lets folks buy a share of her cows, because if you are a part owner of the cow, you can get fresh raw milk.

In each case, it is a small family run operation. That's just some of the family farms I support around Charlottesville, Virginia. I also know the grassfed beef and pastured eggs I get are a far superiour product to any crap factory "food" I can buy in the grocery store.

[MattBaggins]

10. You "know" this or you "believe" this?

You have the meat, eggs and dairy products tested? You have inspected the facilities for cleanliness and compliance?

[peacebird]

12. I know the Amish meat processing plant that he uses meets all govt reqmts

As far as the farms, I have visited many times and can vouch for the health of the animals and their humane treatment. I am not in the least concerned about the eggs - can you say THAT about the eggs in the grocery? (i seem to recall something about two huge recalls recently....)
As for the meat - grass fed beef IS better for you than factory farmed beef - that is well documented (do a little web research on your own) but I CAN tell you first hand that grass fed ground beef needs a couple table spoons of water in the pan when you brown it, because the fat level is so low!
I can also tell you that real free range hens lay eggs with deep orange yolks and the raw albumen (white) "stands up" instead of being the runny slime you get from factory farmed eggs. Oh - and you actually have to *crack* the eggs, because the shells are much harder than supermarket eggs.
I know the farmers personally, I visit the farm where their children can't wait to show me the new piglets or calves. All in all - I prefer dealing directly with the farmers I know, and yes - I know I am getting a far superior product.
Have a nice day.

[MrsCorleone]

13. A bit off topic, but may I ask how much a half a cow runs?

Is it grass or grain fed?

I ask, because my brother is interested in going in with 3 or 4 other families to purchase a grass fed cow. I don't know if they're planning on a half or whole cow. I don't even know if half would feed multiple families.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[MadHound]

18. I buy my beef from my neighbor,

I buy a quarter cow, get the meat cut how I want, and last time I purchased beef, the combined price of my meat and the processing fee worked out to approximately $2.30/lb, no matter the cut.

As far as grass or grain fed, that depends on who you buy it from. My neighbor raises grass fed beef with no anti-biotics or hormones.

A quarter cow lasts my wife and I a year, maybe a little more. When I was a kid my dad bought a half cow and it lasted a family of four for a year or more.

[MrsCorleone]

32. Thanks Madhound.

This info is very helpful. It does make sense for my brother to have others go in with him. It's just him and his wife. They are opposed to eating any cornfed meat, so they'll go with grass fed

[peacebird]

33. what we get is grass fed, and it runs $2.50 a pound, processed however we want it.

That said - please note that in our case the weight is "hanging weight" when the animal is first slaughtered. After the beef ages (hangs for a week or so) then the amount of weight I take home *is* reduced, but the cost is based on hanging weight. Half a cow lasts a year for our family of three, with plenty also sent home to my mom.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. Small farms and family owned farms are the bulk of all daries in

my entire region. So you are wrong. Sorry about that. You are just ravingly incorrect. Some of my family are in the dairy business. They are not the wealthy investor class, they are thrid generation family farmers.

[superduperfarleft]

14. Automatic unrec for mercola. n/t

[boston bean]

15. i have no idea who mercola is other than this instance

Can you shine some loght on who Mercola is and why he is or might be objectionable?

Thanks.

[superduperfarleft]

16. He's an anti-vax nutter who promotes dubious health information in an attempt to sell books.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2116

[boston bean]

25. thanks for that i had no idea.

:-)

[superduperfarleft]

28. No problem. Nothing personal. n/t

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Raw milk is an interesting issue

However the author conflates pasteuriztion with genetic modification and factory farming, when they are each separate things. Organically raised milk is usually pasteurized, yet the author implies otherwise. Lately I have been using some low heat pasteurized milks made around here. I'm personally not interested in drinking raw milk unless it comes from my own family's cows, but that is just me.

[SpiralHawk]

34. Big Ag (R) feeds GMO crapola to the cows (and pigs and chickens,etc)

so it's not really unrelated - eat genetically mutant crap, or animals fed on it, and you are in to the MUTANT MORASS -- and of course it is all OCCULT - no labels on anything

You can't select GMO mutant food if you want it,and you can't avoid it if you don't

RepubliCorp Farming -- and it's occult practices -- have most people by the short hairs

[MadHound]

20. The war on family farms has been going on for thirty five years now,

And corporations won, long ago. Sadly, few people were really paying attention or giving a damn.

What is going on now is that over the past decade or so, small family farms have been making a bit of a comeback due to increased interest in organic food, CSA's and such. Thus we are starting to see these regulatory skirmishes designed to punish small farmers.

[riderinthestorm]

22. As a small family farmer, with only a few minutes at lunch today to read DU

I just want to kick this thread and this post especially.

Big Ag has been whittling away at the number of small family farms for decades (escalated during the farming debt crisis in the 80s, poignantly and persistently kept in the media by Willie Nelson and John Melloncamp with their FarmAid concerts).

The rise in demand for organics and a return to locavore eating has drawn some niche farmers back into the industry. Big Ag has been/is/will continue to fight back hard...


... but I'm not sure raw milk is the best area to have the fight over the demise of farmily farms.

[Bluenorthwest]

26. My family is filled with farmers, has been since I was born.

The OP and many statments in this thread are just not accurate. Organic Milk and Raw Milk are not the same thing, and organic farmers are not all selling raw milk, nor is all pasteurized milk genetically modified nor is it all 'factory farm' product.
This sort of irresponsible hypberbole is not helpful to the actual farmers. To conflate this niche issue with 'organic' or 'family' farms is just not right.
Sorry.

[MadHound]

29. 'Scuse me, but I conflated nothing,

In fact I didn't mention anything about raw milk vs. organic milk. I was looking at a broader issue, namely the assault on small farmers.

Yours is not the only family filled with farmers, and for your information, I am a farmer, and know just as well as you what I'm talking about.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. How did I know this was going to be about Raw Milk.

I'm sorry, but if the 10,000 or so people in this country who don't believe in pasteurization have a harder time getting it, it may be a pain in the ass, it may even be governmental overreach, but it's not exactly "farmageddon". :eyes:

Also, you are presenting a false, bullshit dichotomy: "organically-raised raw milk and its pasteurized and genetically modified factory-farmed counterpart."

There are plenty of brands of organically raised, non genetically modified milk that IS PASTEURIZED.



It is only a very small fringe element that wants their milk with all the bugs in it.

[LostInAnomie]

23. I wouldn't drink raw milk.

Give me something that has been tested.

[Kaleva]

24. "Large animals produce large amounts of fecal material (shit)....

Even with careful sanitation, it is nearly impossible to keep all dirt and fecal matter from getting into the raw milk. "

"Since many millions of people drink pasteurized milk every day in the United States, and only about 1-3% of the population drinks raw milk, the number of illnesses reported show that the actual risk of getting sick from drinking raw milk is tremendously higher than drinking pasteurized milk."

http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/#RawMilkFacts85

I grew up on a small farm and worked on a larger one while a teenager. My family and I drank raw milk for years with no ill effect and it took me a long time to get used to the taste of pasteurized milk after I left home. That being said, I do know it's impossible to keep all shit and dirt out of raw milk. The animals are shitting and pissing machines and they'll do their thing whenever the urge comes upon them.

[NickB79]

27. Ah great, the raw milk advocates are trying to co-opt the small farm movement

Small farming and raw milk are not mutually exclusive. The VAST majority of small farmers have their milk pasteurized and don't buy into this BS "movement".

We do desperately need to help restore and expand small family farming to this nation as an important part of revitalizing our economy and surviving the coming challenges of climate change and Peak Oil. Selling raw milk is the exact opposite way to do this. Nothing will hurt the image of the small family farmer like widespread outbreaks of dangerous diseases linked to raw milk.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. The idea that unpastuerized milk is somehow healthier is woo of the highest order.

If consenting adults want to drink it, I think they should be able to, but we do have health and labeling regulations for a reason.

[Greyhound]

30. The 5 family farms that are left are certainly screwed. K&R.

Trapped in the eternal finance scam, without significant help from lots of regular people, we can look to the south to see where this leads.

[leftstreet]

35. The only people who should be drinking milk are baby cows n/t