Ag's message

[ninnymary]

I agree with Bay. Just tell me what's in the food. I will decide whether to buy it or not and how I want to spend my money. I respect commercial ag for all the work they do and the foods they give us. I just hate all the bashing that goes on with them versus organic or their prices. I don't tell you how to spend your money so please don't tell me how to spend mine.

Seedcorn, my harshness is not directed at you at all. It's aimed at those that call others names.

Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree, label the stuff as best you can and let people decide how they want to spend their money. To me part of the problem is that you have to have standardized rules enforceable by law for the labels to mean anything. That means the rules (laws) have to be in writing. So the people depending on those labels need to know what the labels are supposed to mean. The consumer has that responsibility.

As soon as you put some things in writing people start looking for loop-holes. There are some clever people out there, not all are lawyers. I used to work for big oil, which is a highly regulated industry. Where I worked it was career-threatening if you knowingly violated a law and you were expected to know the laws that applied to what you were doing. There were people looking for the loopholes, but it was about as bad to do something that caused bad publicity. You could be forgiven, maybe, if you did something technically legal but if you showed bad judgment in bringing bad publicity it was not a good thing for your career. Certain big oil companies had a reputation as far as cutting corners, we knew who they were, that's due to guidance from upper management. Where I'm heading with this is that "big oil" wasn't normally the big problem, it was small oil, the independents that had a reputation of cutting those regulatory corners. I image big ag is much the same. The major big ag companies are more likely to follow the rules as compared to some of the marginal companies. Big ag doesn't want the bad publicity.

A side issue, our regulators were a lot harder on big oil as compared to the independents. I once had a regulator tell me that if they enforced the rules on the independents like they did us, they would put the independents out of business.

In the construction end of the business I quickly learned you get what you inspect. We put our own inspectors in the fabrication and sometimes manufacturing sites to watch the stuff being put together. Our inspectors job was to insure we get the stuff according to out specs. Some fabricators were better than others, but usually if you didn't have good inspectors you did not get what you paid for. Our management hated putting inspectors in the fabrication yards, that cost money. They wanted to let he fabricators self-inspect to keep out costs down. Yeah, right. That was a constant battle. Where I'm heading with this is that we are in a stage of government where we want o reduce the cost of government and reduce regulations. We don't want to spend the money on regulators. I'm all in favor of reducing government costs and reducing regulations where we can. But if you want those labels to mean anything we need to be paying for people to inspect to make sure the regulations are being followed. And we better have some regulations for them to follow. If you want the stuff labelled you need to be willing to pay for those labels to mean anything.

I'm not trying to say that big oil or big ag are perfect. Every employee is a human being. Sometimes some pretty rotten individuals can climb that management ladder, maybe even often. it's the regulators that keep them in line, not their ethics and conscience.

Seed, I don't agree the problem is the lawyers. Somebody is paying those lawyers. There is a huge money-making industry out there making a lot of money selling column inches, getting advertising for popular blogs, selling books or maybe t-shirts, and sometimes giving speeches to the true believers. They don't have to tell the truth, there doesn't have to be any basis in reality for anything they say, the true believers will order that t-shirt. They won't make any money dealing in reason and truth. The more outrageous the stuff they say the more profitable it is. Hormones have been outlawed in chickens since 1959. Since hormones have to be injected to work, if they are fed digestion breaks them down so they are useless, its' not economical to inject that many chickens any way. Cattle and some other animals it's a different story, they are bigger than chickens. But how many out there truly believe hormones are fed to commercial chickens as a matter of course?

 

[Nyboy]

I remember perdue chicken claiming they fed marigold pedals to their chickens. And thought what a strange thing to feed a chicken.

 

[thistlebloom]

That would make the yolks a deeper orange.

 

[Nyboy]

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, marigold petals was listed as an ingredient in Chicken layer feed when I checked the ingredients list. I think that was Purina Layer but I'm not sure. I feed mine marigold petals when I'm cleaning out the garden in fall/winter Even dried marigold petals turn the yolks more orange.

 

[seedcorn]

Maybe of interest. Dannon yogurt just informed all their dairies that they had to feed their dairy cows non-GMO products. It will add $200+ to their protein source. Take a wild guess who is behind this move? Shocked me.....

@ninnymary Never took anything personnal. If it doesn't state all non-GMO, you can assume it has GMO as non-GMO grain sells for a premium. MY COMPLAINTS with organic is that they say one thing but feed GMO. I'm sorry as I have ZERO tolerance for that-actually, I'm NOT sorry. Yes, there are some small farmers that do it correctly but a lot of them are not certified organic. I have no problem with that as well. I am very sensitive to liars in AG.

 

[baymule]

I buy non GMO feed for my chickens. It is twice the cost as regular layer feed. Two 50 pound bags is $51.90

 

[thistlebloom]

Maybe of interest. Dannon yogurt just informed all their dairies that they had to feed their dairy cows non-GMO products. It will add $200+ to their protein source. Take a wild guess who is behind this move? Shocked me.....

I can't imagine, who?

 

[digitS']

if they enforced the rules on the independents like they did us, they would put the independents out of business.

Recently, US DofJ rules on American companies violating other countries laws went out the window. At times, it seemed to be an empty gesture and I wondered if it only applied to smaller companies. Perhaps not?

I have a neighbor who takes her dog out for a walk every morning. "Scruffy" dog wants to come too but I notice that she takes the obedient one and leaves her roommate's Scruffy in the house. He will find a way out of the fence and, apparently, isn't broken to lead.

She recently put a new lawn chair on her porch. I'm wondering if struggling around the neighborhood over winter has weakened her desire to have either dog out of the yard.

She is a recent returnee to the neighborhood. It has to be over 10 years since she last lived here and I think she remembers an earlier time when it was easier for her to get around.

Scruffy is my name for the little dog who often turns up in front of my house. I don't know now if I should call his yardmate "Big Ag" or not.

Steve