The Agrarian's Alcove

So, in light of the recent chaotic news about meat being a potential carcinogen I have been asked to do a post about it. First off, let’s talk about what the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) really said. The IARC ranks the potential of cancer causing agents in 5 categories 1 : ·          Group 1: Carcinogenic to humans ·          Group 2A: Probably carcinogenic to humans ·          Group 2B: Possibly carcinogenic to humans ·          Group 3: Unclassifiable as to carcinogenicity in humans ·          Group 4: Probably not carcinogenic to humans Now, according to the press release, red meat is considered as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans. Now, please don’t stop reading here and thinking your suspicions were confirmed.  According to the arti...

Food waste is a major concern all around the world. It comes to play in political topics such as agricultural sustainability, economic matters, environmental concerns and feeding the world. The agriculture industry has its fair share of food waste, but so does every individual I know (at least here in America). I know I am definitely guilty. The problem has become so large that Congresswoman Chellie Pingree wants to propose legislation to help address the problem on our home turf. Pingree says that “40% of food in the U.S. is wasted.” 1 That is a ridiculous amount for such an advanced country to be losing. Pingree also said that there are four levels to our food waste problem: 1)                        restaurant and retail 2)                      institutions (school,assist...

Hey everyone! I just would like to preface this by saying that over the next few days I will have the amazing opportunity to meet and interact with Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin is an amazing influential character in the animal industry. She specializes in animal welfare. If you do not know who she is, please take a second and look her up before reading this blog. Now, onto the important matter here. Hormones are a hot topic in the food animal circles, whether you’re a consumer, producer, retailer, etc. I want to state that I do not want to tell you how to think. I really want to give people the facts and maybe a small part of my opinion. Before we can truly believe something, we must first know the hard facts. Since this post is such a big deal, I will start by stating my opinion so that you know where I stand and can determine what parts of this blog are facts.  I believe that hormones in animal agriculture are safe to humans, increase productivity, and are efficient to the ind...

Water shortage in the U.S. is a big deal right now. California's in a seemingly hopeless drought, and the people all around are blaming it on the animal food industry. In animal agriculture, water is used for the animals' intake, cleaning barns, irrigation for crops to feed the animals, cleaning carcasses and finally, at the consumers' end, cooking food. That's a lot of water! Nathan Runkle, founder and president of Mercy for Animals, makes big arguments about how much water the industry uses. He says that to make one pound of beef 1800 gallons of water are used, and to produce a gallon of milk 880 gallons of water are used(1)! When I read this I was astonished. But then I realized even though he claimed to have gotten the information from National Geographic, he didn't say how old the numbers were. A little more research and I found that his numbers, while possibly true at some point in time, were definitely not accurate today. Carl Bailik, from the Wall St...