Speaking of willful ignorance.

The benefits of the industrial agriculture era are high productivity, cheap food and relatively high levels of sanitation . . .

At the turn of the century, Americans were spending close to 50 percent of household income on food, he explained. Today, the figure is closer to 8 percent. But big problems exist with the state of today’s agriculture industry, Mackey said. Fossil fuel consumption by the food industry has soared and environmental degradation is rampant.

Plus, animal welfare concerns are largely nonexistent in industrial agriculture, he said. CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) have been around for just 40 years, enabling the U.S. population to consume animal foods, which was not the case at the turn of the century.

Ignorantia affectata, a contrived ignorance, an ignorance too useful to abandon. At the turn of the century almost half the US population worked in agriculture, though that number was rapidly declining due to automation and industrialization. The US was already the world leader in production.

Animal welfare was an entirely different issue since beasts of burden were still the mainstay of life. We went to war on horseback. Working animals were cared for to keep them working. Food animals were fewer, in part because so much forage was consumed by draft animals. In those days the canals were choked with barges carrying hay to cities to feed horses, and the streets were covered with road apples.

But the rise of these operations — the epitome of the industrial agriculture industry — means “the consequences to the animals have been tremendous,” Mackey said.

It's true. We seldom use beasts of burden these days. There are far fewer of them as a consequence, but there are far more food animals. It takes a certain blinkered view of history to claim that animal welfare has declined over time. We no longer beat them, whip them, or work them to death on short rations.

Mackey pointed out to the audience that dairy cows make milk for their young, but being hooked up to milking machines three times a day means many young are denied the milk and go into veal production.

“If you're supporting milk, you are supporting the veal industry,” he said.

Dairy heifer calves are far too valuable to be vealed. They are pampered and coddled until they grow up and "freshen", and then join the milking line. Their calves are taken away so that their teats aren't damaged by suckling. Those calves, like their mothers, are bottle fed milk or milk formula, like human babies frequently get fed. Human mothers often don't want baby chewed teats either.

Bull calves have less value. Only the very best are kept intact and used for breeding. The others are steered. A small percentage of those are vealed. Not that long ago they were just put down since they would cost more to feed out than they were worth. To claim that supporting milk is supporting the veal industry conceals far, far, far more than it reveals.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last month issued a voluntary standard for "grass-fed" marketing claims, but according to grass-fed beef producers it won’t hold up to the consumer’s perception of the term. Producers of grass-fed animals have waited for years for the department to develop certification standards and procedures, like the organic certification and seal, to distinguish grass-fed animals from conventionally raised animals. . .

Mackey called the USDA’s new marketing claim for grass-fed beef “a joke.” “The new [grass-fed] rules are very inferior,” he said. “They will give Americans a false sense of quality.”

Asked why the government would issue such a watered-down standard for a term that evokes a very different perception among consumers as to how animals are raised, Mackey said that “the powers that be are scared.”

No one who is paying attention is ever happy with any national standard. The decline of organic ag into industrial organic is a direct consequence of the national standard. The standards are not only looser than some would like, they mainly benefit the largest interstate operations. The whole concept of national standards is a ruse to drive down quality and drive out small operators. The USDA is the hand maiden of industrial ag. Industrial ag isn't scared, it's just exploiting opportunity as ever. Statists need to finally wake up to the fact that their unceasing efforts to regulate at the national level are precisely what big business requires to take over. It doesn't matter to them what the standard is. The more convoluted and draconian the better since they can afford to jump through any hoops so long as they are uniform everywhere. It's a small cost for them and a large cost for their small but numerous competitors.

The burgeoning movement of sustainable food means “people are waking up to the lies that have been told” about the true cost of food in terms of health and the environment, and that directly “threatens the vested interests”of agribusiness, which has almost unlimited access and influence to farm and food policy makers.

“Don’t let 'grass-fed' be bastardized,” he pleaded with the audience. “I saw [the marketing claim for] ”˜natural’ be bastardized ”¦ and if you see [the claim ”˜natural’] in any supermarket, be skeptical.”

These are self inflicted wounds. Organic, natural, whatever. Buzz word bingo. The problem is national standards, not their content. One size does not fit all, it fits none. It's either too loose or too tight or shaped wrong.

The list of food production categories helping to shape the future of the food supply chain, include organic, local, ethical and sustainable foods. Mackey pointed out that for thousands of years, humans ate organic food. It wasn’t until the last 75 years or so that food was produced with chemicals to increase yields.

Nonsense. See Fossil Fertilizer and Rock Fertilizer for a truer history of agricultural chemicals, including their roles in geopolitics. Google guano islands act for one piece of a far larger puzzle.

Whole Foods sold $600 million in organic produce in 2007, Mackey said. The goal is to generate $1.5 billion in organic produce sales by 2010.

This is the real story here. It's a big business disparaging competitors, engaging in false narratives, and selling like mad. You really can't count on business folks (or their captive journalists) to tell you true things. You can count on them for advertisements and spin that enhance their competitive positions. That's their job.

Mackey was most proud to announce Whole Foods recently received approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to upgrade the animal welfare component of federal organic standards with a “transparent, organic rating system.”�

The first three points of the rating program rely on tenets of pasture-based systems such as providing animals minimum access to pasture and ensuring farm traceability. But the fourth and fifth ratings are much more difficult to achieve, he said. The fourth point mandates no physical mutilation of animals and transporting them humanely for slaughter.

The highest rating would go to producers that provide on-farm birth and slaughter, which is currently illegal in the United States.

The joke comes full circle. It is not illegal to raise your own meat animals, it's just illegal to sell them. Mackey and his fellow travelers are the reason why this is so. There are ways to get around it. If you come to my pastures I can sell you a live animal. What you do with it is your business, and I won't mind if you have the local mobile facility come here and slaughter your animal, then take the sides back to their shop to age, cut and wrap. Few folks need that much food at one time though, so it's a limited market.

On-farm birth and slaughter is not a real smart idea in any event. Specialization is good. It's good for the animals and good for the environment. A mature cow has vastly different nutritional needs than a growing steer. It's bad for them both to share pastures. The management methods differ as well. That's why there is specialization in the industry.

Cow/calf operations mainly keep cows. They live on less productive and seasonal pastures. They put in the bulls for a couple of months a year until all the cows catch, then they take them away. The whole deal is timed so that the best forage is available after the cows calve when they suddenly need lots more food during lactation. If they have that food during gestation they and their unborn calves get so fat it can kill them to give birth.

Once the calves are able to thrive on grass alone they are weaned so that their mothers can recover from the ordeal, regain body condition, and get back in calf again after a while. Those calves are then raised in mobs on good pasture. The better the pasture and the more they eat, the faster they grow and the healthier they get, so long as it's not a twinky (grain) diet that makes them fat and sick.

It makes perfect sense for man, animal and environment to specialize. I've done it all but now just do finishing. I buy weans from local cow/calf operations and raise them up. I call it Gary's charm school. They never have a bad day in part because there are rules. They are all well behaved and calm. They have all the good pasture they want, shade and water at all times. The get a fresh paddock at least once a day. In effect, I'm the boss cow except that I never whack them in the ribs like a real cow would, just for drill, just to make sure they know their place in the whacking order. I even sort them by size so that the weak sisters and poor doers don't end up getting bullied (or is that cowed?) by the bigger boys and the mean girls.

I do some of the stuff Mackey advocates. None of my calves are branded. It's not necessary since they don't roam around unsupervised. I always know where each one is and how it's feeling and doing. None get ear notches or other identifying marks. They have no tats or piercings either. However, the boys are castrated. The last thing I need is for animals that weigh 5 or 6 times as much as I do to decide to test my leadership, and that's what every bull does eventually. He's your buddy, he's your friend, then he kills you. I walk among them every day. I'd be dead by now if I kept bulls. Steers don't have that rebelliousness. They're placid and satisfied with comfort and good groceries.

Steers will ride hot heifers. Heifers even ride hot heifers. Every kind of kine will ride hot heifers. Only the bulls can stand and deliver, but they all ride. So, I don't keep heifers after they come in heat. They go to run with the cows at that time. They all ride one another until the bulls settle them all. After that is just the rib whacking stuff.

Moving animals around from pasture to pasture does them no harm. It is a little stressful the first time. Everything is stressful the first time. Moving them a long distance cooped up for hours in a trailer is stressful. It's stressful for people too. But rides that take an hour are no problem. That means that I have a 40 or 50 mile radius to work with for each move. Fashion forward operators even take their cattle for frequent rides just to keep them used to moving. The real issue is that these animals are used to being handled and don't fear it. I never hurt them. I don't hit them, shock them, twist their tails or chase them with snarling dogs. I don't even speak harshly or loudly to them, or tell them lies. They come when I call, and go where I point. Mostly. They get confused if I ask them to do something new, but once they map a new behavior all I have to do is indicate which one is required. I'm a cow whisperer, so to speak.

None of this is about ethics, compassion and any other phoney emotion. It's all just the sensible business practices of an observant human. It's also sound environmentalism in the sense that the environment continuously improves with these methods. I raise as many wild critters as tame ones, everything from soil fungi to eagles. They like this place too. Unless you object to food animals, thinking that they are better off never being born than ending up on a plate, you can't do better. But consider: if my pastures were plowed up to grow beans and corn then there would be much less life here and a far worse environment. There would be few animals of any sort and no diversity to speak of, just a few bugs and plants. A vegetarian world is a comparatively barren world.

The day will come when we make our own food and no longer need to grow any plants or animals. We may grow a few bacteria in vats, or maybe just nano-assemble everything from air, water and rocks. Then we can turn the world into a natural park that is managed lightly and used only for recreation. Until then we can't afford food nonsense. There are too many of us to do it poorly. The backward dream, the fantasy of return to some golden era before industrialization, is false in every way. Things weren't better back in the day, and you can't get there from here anyway. Even if you fully accepted the bad old days and wanted to return to that reality (rather than the false fantasy) you are coming at it from the wrong direction. That matters.