Is McDonald's putting the chicken before the egg?

That is how it appears, according to a 20/20 investigation of a factory chicken farm that supplies eggs to McDonald's.

Mercy for Animals, one of the leading animal rights organizations, sent someone undercover into Sparboe Farms, a factory chicken farm. What he found was not surprising, nor uncommon in factory farms across the US: overcrowded battery cages; dead chickens rotting in the same cages as live ones; cruel treatment such as stuffing chickens in co-workers' pockets and throwing them around; debeaking chicks; and more.

When 20/20 showed the footage to McDonald's, they immediately pulled their business from Sparboe, stating in a press release: 

“McDonald’s expects all of our suppliers to meet our stringent requirements for delivering high quality food prepared in a humane and responsible manner. Based upon recent information, we have informed our direct supplier, Cargill, that we are no longer accepting eggs from its supplier, Sparboe.  This decision is based on McDonald's and Cargill’s concern regarding the management of Sparboe’s facilities...

...Regarding the undercover videos, the behavior on tape is disturbing and completely unacceptable. McDonald’s wants to assure our customers that we demand humane treatment of animals by our suppliers. We take this responsibility – along with our customers’ trust – very seriously..."

Clearly a lot of this is hogwash. They do not have stringent requirements, because all of their animal products come from factory farms, which are always substandard. 

However, the excerpts from the press release above and below do reveal why their actions in this case are so important, and how we have a rare opportunity to make real change happen:

"...McDonald’s cares about how our food is sourced and we have a long history of action and commitment to improve the welfare of animals in our supply chain. We are a founding member of the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply (CSES) and are participating in an unprecedented three-year study that compares traditional, cage-free, and enriched laying hen housing systems on a commercial scale. For our customers, that means we’re working with scientists and suppliers to determine the most optimal hen housing method considering impacts on hen health & welfare, food safety, environment, and other important factors.

"McDonald’s is proud to be recognized as a leader in the restaurant industry for serving safe, quality food. Customers can feel good about eating at McDonald’s.”

So why is this so important?

It's important because McDonald's is a big business whose primary purpose is to make money. They listen to one thing, and one thing only: money and the people who give it to them. 

The consumers who give them money are demanding humane treatment of the animals/animal products they consume. 

And whether we like it or not, McDonald's -- along with other colossal corporations like Walmart -- are market leaders and drivers. They are the customers for Big Ag, and just as McDonald's will listen to their customers, so will Big Ag.

This is not the first time corporations have changed their behavior due to their customer's demands. For example, McDonald's stopped using their signature"clamshell" containers due to consumers' concerns over the environmental impact of styrofoam. And Pepsi experimented with "real sugar" instead of corn syrup in the midst of public concern over soft drinks causing obesity. Costco stopped buying veal from a factory farm that was not treating the baby cows in a manner that sat well with the consumer. 

I could go on. 

And now it is time for McDonald's to listen to their consumers again.  

With McDonald's on high alert, we have an opportunity to influence their behavior. We can ask them to increase their standards and demand cage-free eggs. 

(It is important to note that cage-free is not humane, but it is better. And in a battle against the multi-million dollar Big Ag machine, we are gonna win slowly and with a thousand small steps. Cage-free is one pretty big step.)

The most important thing we can do is contact McDonald's today. 

We should tell them we are concerned about animal welfare. We want them to get cage-free eggs for all of their fast-food restaurants. We want them to step up like Burger King who is leading the fast-food industry with cage-free eggs, phasing out of gestation crates for pigs, and a veggie burger on the menu. We want them to be the sustainable leader they claim to be in their press release.

Here is how you can contact McDonald's: 

Phone: 1-800-244-6227

Tweet: @McDonalds

Sign the change.org petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/urge-mcdonalds-to-stop-torturing-hens-for-egg-mcmuffins 

 

It is not often that an opportunity comes along like this to help improve animal welfare on a massive scale. 

Foie gras: A sick delicacy

There are many meat delicacies that even as a former meat eater I questioned: Caviar or glorified fish eggs, Escargot or a mucussy slug with a shell, and Fenghuang or Chinese chicken feet.

But Paul Shapiro's latest article in the Atlantic highlights another delicacy that deserves a hard examination and serious questions: Foie gras. Not only is there inhumane treatment of the ducks and geese in the "harvesting" of fois gras, but it is also sick.

Yes sick.

As Mr. Shapiro, the the senior director of farm animal protection for The Humane Society, points out:

Foie gras, French for fatty liver, is a so-called delicacy produced by force-feeding ducks or geese several times per day until their livers become diseased and enlarge up to ten times their normal size. Most people wouldn't want to eat any part of a diseased animal, but in the case of foie gras, it's the diseased organ itself on which consumers dine.

Unlike fish eggs, slugs with homes, or feet, you are actually eating a diseased organ.

In the thoughtful piece, Shapiro explains the inhumane forced-feeding process called gavaging that ducks and geese have to endure in order for their livers to achieve full-disease capacity to create the delicacy. I encourage you to please read it.


The U.S. is consistently and sadly behind many countries when it comes to animal welfare regulations. And foie gras is no different. Gavaging to harvest foie gras is banned in over a dozen countries: Argentina, six provinces in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the U.K.

There are small strides being made in the U.S., but hardly comparable to a ban. Celebrity chefs, such as Charlie Trotter and Wolfgang Puck, have boycotted the use of foie gras. And California -- our country's first state-wide ban -- goes into effect in 2012.

Chicago's city council unfortunately overturned a nearly unanimous ban on foie gras after outcry from restaurant owners and anti-regulation groups.

So I encourage folks to do what you can in your communitities. Speak out to restaurant owners, vendors and grocers about you distaste for the recipe of slow animal suffering that creates foie gras.

Typically, foie gras is sold at high end places, and these types of establishments are very sensitive to their customers concerns.

Please check out "The Animals That Love Pain: How Factory Farming Explains Abuse" and next time you go to a restaurant that serves up diseased liver, have a chat with the owner.

It is time for the U.S. to get up to speed on this issue.

Farm Tour: Keswick Creamery

Located in the heart of Pennsylvania farm country sits a farm with roughly 80 cows, some chickens and horses, the makings of an organic vegetable garden, and a family that has devoted itself to humane, progressive, and sustainable farming.

I had been buying cheese from Keswick Creamery before I started the HumaneFoodFinder. In fact, Mel -- one of the owners of the farm -- was the first person I spoke to about the animal welfare practices on her dairy farm. She was not only gracious in explaining their practices in the midst of a busy day at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market, but like many who devote their livelihoods to humane farming, she was enthusiastic about sharing this information that is absent in the industrial farming world.


Mel helped inform my standards for humane.
At that time, I was reading a lot of materials and trying to navigate through commendable farm groups' standards -- like Animal Welfare Approved and Certified Humane -- and less-than-commendable "humane washing" from the likes of Land O'Lakes, Perdue and such. Mel walked me through Keswick's humane standards: when de-horning calves they use anesthetic to numb the area so the calf does not feel pain; they do not dock their cows' tails; their cows are grass fed on pasture; their cows are not over-milked.

Now, more than a year later, I was attending Keswick Creamery's annual open house.
Like so many farmers who sell at farmers markets (although not all), Keswick invites consumers to visit their farm and see where their food comes from. I was excited to see one of the early inspirations for HumaneFoodFinder up close and personal.

While driving to Keswick, we passed the types of farms I had read about, but never seen in person. On the highway, we passed several factory chicken farms, or what the industry calls "grower houses."

They were large, windowless structures with several fans in the wall circulating the rancid ammonia-filled air inside; they were generally isolated from other buildings; they sometimes had roaming livestock nearby to give the illusion that what existed inside would not be abhorred by all who saw it.

After a highway lined by a variety of farms, both factory and small, we turned up a long road and arrived at Keswick Creamery. We were greeted by Mel and her five year old daughter, Madeline.

Roaming nearby were the cows, all with ID necklaces, not ear tags as most cows have. Their ages ran the gamut from two to nine years old. A typical dairy cow is sent off to slaughter for hamburgers at the ripe old age of four, as she will probably have infections in her utters, be too sick to produce enough milk, or has been milked to capacity.

Meeting the cows.
We went into the pasture, and Mel started introducing them. She knew every cow by name, and Madeline was in search of her favorite cow, Ikea. The cows are named with the first letter of their mothers' names, so they were clearly running out of "I" names.
As we walked among the cows, Mel would whisper comments to me about the different cows, as Alex and Madeline went on the search for Ikea.

"This one is really pushy," she would say. "This one doesn't like Madeline for some reason, and that one loves attention."

We strolled in the pasture, petting the cows and talking about why Mel and her husband Mark ran the farm as they did. How they got rid of a vet who couldn't understand why Mark would go through the trouble to numb the horns before debudding a calf. How they make sure their "family cows" are going to a good home and how they make sure their male calves are not going to a factory farm. How they work 12-15 hours each day, seven days a week. How they have chosen this lifestyle.

Mel thinks her cows are different.
While learning about Keswick, I also learned that Mel thinks her cows are different. She told me about all the times that Mark had to rebuild the stalls in the barn where the cows stay during the winter. "They kept knocking them down because they wanted to be close to each other. I don't know if it is just my cows or all cows, but Mark stopped rebuilding the stalls, so now they just lay together."

She also told me about how her cows are sad when the weather is too cold to graze. They stare longingly at the pasture and don't seem to understand why they can't go out there. It was hard not to think about the majority of farm animals who never get to see pasture, except maybe on the way to slaughter, and only through the slotted holes in a truck.

Keswick cares for the cows after they leave the farm.
One of the most cruel and hidden elements of the factory farming system (in addition to the short, painful life of a dairy cow), is what happens to the male cows and the post-milking life of a dairy cow. It is no secret that the dairy industry supports veal, and there have been numerous investigations leading to public outcry regarding the inhumane treatment of baby cows. It is also no secret that dairy cows are over-milked for their two most productive years to maximize output, and then slaughtered- some are too sick to stand, or "downer cows," but are slaughtered nonetheless.

Mel is keenly aware of this and only sells her males to farms that pasture their cows and let them graze. Mark, when delivering the cows, investigates the environment to make sure it's suitable for a cow. They also sell their old dairy cows to families to become family cows, since they can still produce some milk and can then live out their lives with a family. My ears perked up like Winston's when I heard about the chance to buy a Keswick family cow. Luckily for Alex (and our landlord), there is a long waiting list for a Keswick cow.

As we continued on our tour we saw where the cheese is made. It was funny that I wasn't as interested in the cheese, given that I buy it every week and love to cook. But this tour was about the cows. Yet, I would be remiss not to mention how the cheese is what makes Keswick such a successful business. And at the end of the tour, we were treated to delicious delights: a melted cheese and salsa dip, roasted potatoes with feta cheese, and hot apple cider.


Back to reality. As we drove away from the farm, I spotted another "grower shed" that advertised having natural chicken. Yet it stands in stark contrast to Mel and Mark's farm.

And that is what HumaneFoodFinder is all about:
Because all those "animal units" (another industry term) in the "grower houses" are local if you are from Pennsylvania. And according to the propaganda on some properties, they are natural. And if you talk to the operators, they may even try to tell you the chickens are happy. But unless customers are allowed to visit the farm, inside and out, you will never really know.

This Sunday in DC: Learn about the plight of farm animals!

Argh... Super upset that I will be out of town this weekend at a wedding, but I encourage folks to attend this! I recieved this email alert from FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement), and it looks like a great event.

The alert reads:

Join Us in Promoting Compassion this Sunday!

Farm Animal Rights Movement and A Well-Fed World invite you to join us in DC this Sunday to educate the public about the plight of farmed animals. We're promoting a compassionate vegan diet in honor of the first annual Food Day.

When: Sunday, October 23rd, 12-5pm

Where: Washington, DC - Dupont Circle (Q & 20th NW); Metro: Red Line
Details: This is a free public outdoor educational event with speakers, powerful "Make the Connection" human-animal art display, large-screen videos, pay-per-view videos, and free food. The benefits of animal-free food and farming will be highlighted. Special attention will be given to the ideal nature of plant-based food and farming relative to the popular, yet inadequate, "humane" and local production of meat, eggs, dairy, and other animal products.

Join us! Stop by to check out the event or help out.

If you'd like to volunteer, e-mail jen@farmusa.org

If you go, please shoot me an email and let me know how it was! I will post your responses on the blog!

Also, don't forget to stop by the Dupont Circle Farmers Market from 8:30-1 and support humane farms like Keswick Creamery, Clear Springs Creamery, Smith Meadows and Everona Dairy.

Have a little faith in Chipotle

Chipotle is a restaurant that many people have asked me about throughout its tenure in the ranks of fast food restaurants. Chipotle began in 1993, but many people did not hear about it until it opened up shop(s) on their main street.

I always dismissed Chipotle as another big corporation trying to "humane wash" their food, with no rBGH and pretty pictures of cows on their walls. After all, they are a fast food chain and McDonald's had a 87 percent stake in the company. Even though McDonald's sold its shares in 2006, I never looked back. I always ordered the vegan burrito... until now?

The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation just released this moving video about factory farms.

The video, "Back to the Start" features Coldplay's The Scientist, covered by country music singer, family farm advocate and co-founder of Farm Aid, Willie Nelson.



The description of the video reads:

The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

So what is this? Is it just humane washing like Horizon Organic or the Happy Cows Come From California ads?

I oddly don't think so...

It appears that Chipotle is taking, and has been taking, a critical step toward going where no fast food chain --and few restaurants-- have gone before. The foundation is a fairly new initiative, and here is what it is aiming to achieve:

The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation is committed to creating a more sustainable and healthful food supply and to raising awareness concerning food issues. This is realized through the support of family farmers and their communities, educators and programs that teach younger generations about food matters, along with support for ranchers and farmers who are working to develop more sustainable practices.

The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation is a non-profit organization established by Chipotle Mexican Grill. Over the last several years, Chipotle has contributed more than $2 million to help fund initiatives that support sustainable agriculture, family farming, culinary education, and innovation that promotes better food. This has included such beneficiaries as: The Jamie Oliver Food Revolution, the Lunch Box, the Nature Conservancy and Veggie U, Niman Scholarship, Culinary Institute of America, The Land Institute, and FamilyFarmed.org. The Cultivate Foundation will continue with this tradition of giving started by Chipotle.

Hmmm... these are some noteworthy and respectable groups to be in bed with a fast food company...

And on their nascent website they are promoting a budding partnership with FamilyFarmed.org, an organization that works with family farmers to build local food systems. The campaign, Wrap What You Love, raised $96,000 for the organization.

Now this is getting interesting....

I did some digging around on the Chipotle website and what I found surprised me, and made me want to hold off on the zucchini casserole tonight and actually go out to Chipotle. Here are excerpts from their animal care section:

PIGS: There are ranchers whose pigs are raised outside or in deeply bedded pens, are never given antibiotics and are fed a vegetarian diet. It's the way animals were raised 50 years ago before huge factory farms changed the industry. We believe pigs that are cared for in this way enjoy happier, healthier lives and produce the best pork we've ever tasted.

We call this style of ranching naturally raised, and since 2001, we have sourced 100% of our pork from producers who follow these guidelines.

BEEF COWS: When we started purchasing naturally raised beef in 1999 we could hardly find any suppliers that met our standards. We’ve put a lot of work into poking, prodding, convincing, and occasionally applying guilt to ranchers in order to get more and more suppliers to meet our naturally raised standards.

Today, thanks to increased demand, we purchase 85 percent of our beef from ranches that meet or exceed our naturally raised standards. We're still working on it, and we won't rest until 100% of our beef is naturally raised.

DAIRY COWS: Currently over 35% of the dairy we serve at Chipotle comes from pasture-raised cows. We are working all the time to increase the number of our suppliers who provide pasture-raised dairy... We’re definitely working on it. Stay tuned.

CHICKEN: By U.S. law, all chicken available today must be raised without added growth hormones. But we’re overachievers. Our ultimate goal is to have 100% of our chickens raised without the use of antibiotics. We also want to avoid any supplier that uses additional additives in their feed, like arsenic. They see this as a way to make chickens grow faster. We think arsenic sounds a lot like poison.

It doesn't seem possible for a huge national chain, with over 1,000 restaurants, to serve humane food. But you can look at models that have worked, like Organic Valley, and see that it is possible. By building a network of local, sustainable and humane farms, you can create a uniform product and sell it nationally.

Clearly Chipotle has some work to do. Only 35 percent of their milk comes from pastured cows. And they don't list their farmers. But what can we do to make sure they stay their course, and all their animal products (not just a percentage) come from humanely treated animals?

1) Go out to a Chipotle, eat their food, and talk to a manager about their sustainable food. If they have response cards, fill one out.

2) Contact them to say you support their sustainable and humane food initiative and want 100 percent humanely raised animals (including dairy!).

3) Make sure they stay their course and are transparent by posting on their Facebook wall and asking them to share what farms they buy from.

4) Share this information with friends and families and ask them to do the same.

As Walter Sobcheck said in the Big Lebowski, "Has the whole world gone crazy?" Can a fast food chain actually be humane? Either Willie Nelson really needs the money (again); the lead singer of Cold Play, Chris Martin, really is crazy (as evidenced by his child named Apple), or a fast food company is taking a giant step forward in the right direction.

We shall see, but for now, I have faith.

News of the Day (NotD): Freedom for Yvonne, Germany's Runaway Cow

By Bill Chappell for NPR.

HuMAIN takeaways:

The fact that an escaped cow, headed to slaughter, could garner international attention says something about our compassion for animals... even the ones we eat. The issue with factory farms and industrial slaughter is that the eater has no connection with the animal.

But ah... here is a story about freedom -- something every human cherishes, something we can relate to -- and we can't help but root for Yvonne. Instead of wanting her on our plates, we want her roaming free.

So what if Yvonne lived here? We would undoubtedly root for Yvonne
just as loudly in the U.S. as we do for her in Germany...

So why don't we root for the roughly 5 million cows living (if you can even call it that) on factory farms in the U.S.?

Read the entire article here: http://n.pr/oW4sH2.

Follow @publicbill on Twitter!

First farm tour: Reedy Fork Farm

I have been writing about humane food for over a year now. I have eaten at restaurants and sourced their foods, and I have spoken to farmers about their animal treatment -- both of which have informed this blog. I even sourced a local and humane wedding.

But I have never actually gone and seen a working dairy farm.

That changed this weekend when Alex and I went to visit our friends, Susan and Andrew, who --like so many others before them in DC -- moved away for better things. In their case, it was to Durham, NC, which is a town partly defined by a thriving local food movement.

I had just written about what makes Organic Valley stand out among, what Michael Pollan labels, the supermarket pastoral (which is what we, the consumers, envision a farm should look like, idyllically displayed on a carton of eggs, a package of chicken, or a rack of lamb).

I had been wanting to expand the humane food finding expedition to include farm tours, and this trip presented itself as a great opportunity. I asked Alex, Susan and Andrew if they would mind going on a farm tour, and they were all excited.

After doing a quick search on the "Who's your farmer" section of Organic Valley's website, I called an OV farmer to see if we could come by this weekend.

George, the owner and operator of Reedy Fork Farm, was more than happy to accommodate guests, although after seeing how busy he is, I could only come to one conclusion as to why he was happy to add two extra hours onto his 15+ hour day: because, like many small farmers, you love your work so much that you are willing to give the land your sweat and tears so that you can keep it in your family.

We arrived at Reedy Fork Farm on Saturday at 2 pm. On the drive there I was nervous and giddy at the same time. Nervous because I did not know what I would find- would I see something that would make me turn my back on animal farming altogether? Giddy because I was entering a new phase of HumaneFoodFinder and seeing a working farm for the first time.

We were greeted by a large barn with "Reedy Fork Farm" on the side and an Organic Valley placard on the front lawn. A tall man with a bouncy step approached us and told us to park under the tree. George was welcoming, and it was clear that he was eager to show us around.


I want to point out that Reedy Fork Farm is unique because it wasn't always organic. George was a conventional farmer before his wife and daughter encouraged him to go organic, and was then approached by Organic Valley to join their co-op. Now the improvements to his farm, his animals, and his wallet are apparent.

George first took us over to the hutches where the calves are kept until they are old enough to go to pasture. They were curious and timid. When I first saw them in their individual stalls I did not know what to think. Is this normal to have them separated from their mothers and each other? I was so overwhelmed with George's generosity, pride in his farm and honesty that I didn't want to come out of the gate, so to speak, questioning him on the calves, when really... I did not know if this would be considered the best way to treat them.

And I am relieved I didn't ask. After visiting the farm, I did some research on my go-to guru for farm treatment: Humane Farm Animal Care. It is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. solely devoted to humane treatment of animals on farms, and they have created a standards of care for young cows.

Reedy Fork Farm was doing everything right: the animals are kept in big, clean stalls, able to see and interact with each other, go to pasture, and drink milk. George told us that as they got older they would go out to pasture all the time; ladies to produce dairy, gentlemen for beef.

George explained how the calves used to be when raised conventionally. They were fed a heavy grain diet and attracted more flies. Thus George had to pay for pest removal services. Today, the calves eat an organic diet and there are hardly any flies.

After the calves thoroughly nuzzled and licked our hands, we headed to the actual dairy. George explained that the dairy cows got milked twice a day; that's instead of three times a day on conventional farms. George gets paid per-pound for milk, and before he went organic, the price was determined by.... well, read for yourself from USDA's 24-page explanation of the "...complex pricing system that has evolved in the United States to deal with milk production, its assembly (collection), and its distribution..." (A post on this is surely in order!)

Now George's milk price (and that of other OV farmers) is determined every December, and because they know how much money they will get every month, they don't need to over-milk their cows in slow seasons. This has allowed George to open an organic feed mill to supplement his dairy income.

Today, George does not over-milk his cows. Organic Valley recommends that OV cows only produce 50 pounds a day (not the 70+ that you get from a factory farm), and due to the heat, George's cows sometimes produce less. Or should I say, they get milked less.

The cows also produce milk for almost twice as long! A conventional cow at Reedy Fork Farm was productive for 4-5 years (from age 2 until it reached age 6 or 7). But now that they are organic, they produce milk for 8-10 years, (from age 2 until they are 10-12 years old). George also does not need to have a vet on-hand as often; perhaps once every month or two to check for pregnancies, which means much less of a need for veterinary care than when he was conventional. Organic Valley gives their farmers recommendations on how to care for their animals in an organic, holistic way and it is clearly working.

After our tour of the dairy, we all piled into George's truck (Winston included, of course) and went to see his pastures. The farm has about 500 acres, and the cows cut the grass for him by grazing. This was perhaps my favorite part of the trip: We got to play Crossing Guard for the cows as they were herded to be milked.

I've said it once, and I will say it again: Winston is a ladies man. As the cows crossed the street, they all stopped to check out their exciting new dog visitor. One even went so far as to kiss him. But then we started hearing a low, bellowing sound; it was the bull who was clearly not happy that his ladies were paying attention to someone other than him. Sound familiar, male fans of HumaneFoodFinder? As the bull made his way toward the crossing, George advised that we stay behind the car and he ushered him across without incident. I am pretty sure Winston is still glowing from his brief and public bovine relationship.

We didn't have a chance to see the beef cows up close as they were set back shading themselves under trees, but we did talk about them. George uses a small slaughterhouse in Siler City to slaughter his cows when ready. He does not send them to the (sadly) normal industrial slaughterhouse where tens of thousands of animals are "processed" every day.

We spent an entire two hours with George, and he hurried back to the entrance to milk the cows. Susan and Andrew bought some meat from George's wife, Cherry, and we watched the milking. The cows did not seem stressed, although they were curious about our presence. Their tails were not docked, and they were swishing them. A monitor ensured that they were not over-milked.

When we left the farm, we never had a chance to say goodbye to George. He was milking the cows, and had a long day ahead of him yet. It was four o'clock. On our ride home we were all tired from the sun, the immense amount of information we had taken in and the long drive. In the end, we knew it was nothing compared to George's or other small farmers' days.

While this was an incredible way to first experience a dairy farm, I know that most farms are not like Reedy Fork Farm. Big companies, like Dean Foods, which owns Horizon Organic, is one of largest milk conglomerates in the U.S. According to the USDA, farms that have under 100 dairy cows only produce 20 percent the U.S. That means that the majority of U.S. dairy farms stand in stark contrast to George's.

And while Organic Valley is a needed market reinforcement for small, humane farmers, it is not a necessity. On our tour George told us that he had a hard time convincing his father to go organic. But when George explained the methods involved and the positive changes that would occur from switching from present-day conventional farming to organic, his father said that was a lot like how he did things when he worked the farm in 1950.


It's incredible to imagine a world where every farm is humane and manageable. It used to be like that. What happened?