Last month, more than 150 people fell sick from spinach tainted with E. coli bacteria. The spinach has been traced to a California-based produce company. While this means trouble for large-scale agricultural producers, Brian Bull reports the outbreak might help smaller, independent farmers:
Transcript
Last month, more than 150 people fell sick from spinach tainted with
the E. coli bacteria. The spinach has been traced to a California-
based produce company. While this means trouble for large-scale agricultural
producers, Brian Bull reports the outbreak might help smaller,
independent farmers:
Bill Warner owns an organic spinach farm. He sells his crop at local
farmers’ markets and restaurants in Wisconsin and to some restaurants
in Chicago. Warner says he thinks the E. coli incident will steer
consumers toward smaller, organic farms like his.
“We just will tell people that in every step of the way we
do, we’re eating our spinach. We drink the same well water that we
water with. So it may get people more back to, ‘Y’know we don’t want
the big conglomerate foods, let’s go back to buying from who we
know.'”
Warner says many, if not most, organic farmers are extra careful.
They don’t seal their spinach in bags, and don’t use manure in their
fertilizer. Instead, they use a vegetable-based compost and wash
their greens with clean well water. Warner says this helps alleviate
the risk of E. coli bacteria contamination.
The Environmental Protection Agency says it will start monitoring the air around some large livestock farms this winter. The EPA says it will help them develop better air quality standards for these farms. But critics say the project is too soft on polluters. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says it will start monitoring the air around some
large livestock farms this winter. The EPA says it will help them develop better air
quality standards for these farms. But critics say the project is too soft on polluters. The
GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Thousands of farms have agreed to be a part of a voluntary air pollution monitoring
project. Big hog, poultry, and dairy operations produce a lot of manure. The manure
releases gases that can cause health problems. As part of the agreement with the EPA,
the farms will be immune from most federal lawsuits while the monitoring is done.
Jon Scholl is with the EPA. He says this voluntary approach will bring more farms into
compliance faster than direct enforcement:
“We have 2,568 agreements covering 6,267 farms that have a written agreement with the
agency that they’re going to come into compliance with applicable air quality laws, and
we think that’s significant and certainly much better than taking it on a case by case
basis.”
Critics of the voluntary project say there is enough evidence now to force these large
farms to comply with air quality laws. They say the Bush Administration lacks the
political will to do so.
Frank Baffi's barn in southern Michigan (photo by Mark Brush)
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
There are fewer farmers raising pigs, cows and chickens these days.
But the amount of meat being produced in the U.S. continues to increase.
So livestock farms haven’t exactly disappeared. They’ve just gotten bigger.
In the third part of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports these big operations have kept food costs down, but those cheap prices come with consequences:
Transcript
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
There are fewer farmers raising pigs, cows and chickens these days.
But the amount of meat being produced in the U.S. continues to increase.
So livestock farms haven’t exactly disappeared. They’ve just gotten bigger.
In the third part of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports these big operations have kept food costs down, but those cheap prices come
with consequences:
When you picture a typical farm, chances are you probably think of a farm just like Frank
Baffi’s.
(Sound of farm)
He grows corn and oats on his land. He’s got chickens, a couple of horses, two ducks,
about 30 beef cows. And in this fading red barn, he’s got pigs:
(Sound of claps)
“Hey Pig! C’mon! Get up!”
(Sound of pigs)
In fact, the pigs have been the most profitable thing he’s raised on this farm. Baffi says
he used to sell more than fifty thousand dollars worth of pigs every year. It was enough
to make a living on.
(Sound of pigs)
But as time went on, selling pigs became less profitable. In the 1980s, his expenses went
up and the price he could get for his pigs went down. Baffi says he was faced with a
decision. It was the same decision that many small livestock farmers faced at the time:
“I think it was a whole trend that if you weren’t big you had to get out. It was if you had
20 cows it was you gotta be milkin’ 30, or if you were milking 30 it was oh, you gotta be
milkin’ 100. The reason they weren’t making any money is that they’re not making
enough money for what they sell.”
Frank Baffi blames the drop in prices on the increase in global trade. He says US
producers started to compete with operations overseas, where expenses can often be
cheaper. To keep up, producers in the US got more efficient, and as they did so, prices
continued to drop. Baffi says he tried to get bigger, but he just didn’t have enough
money.
But just down the road there’s a pig farm that is making a profit. Frank Baffi’s neighbor
is Bruce Barton. His dad started the family in the hog business in the 1950s. Barton says
early on his Dad could see what was coming:
“He pretty much expanded because he could see that small farmers were struggling to
survive and ya know we had buy the feed in larger lots you sell your hogs in larger lots.
There was going to be less margin for each hog. You just had to have more, more of
them.”
The Bartons raised about 11 pigs when the started out. Now they raise about 100,000.
That may seem like a lot, but their operation is small compared to those that raise over a
million hogs a year.
The size of these big farms trouble many environmentalists. These farms are forced to
deal with large volumes of manure. On average one pig can generate close to two tons of
manure a year. Multiply that by one million and you get the picture. Smaller farms can
spread the manure as fertilizer on their land without much problem and large farms can
use the manure too. It’s just that they need a lot of land to spread the manure on. If they
put too much on a field, it can pollute streams and drinking water wells, and researchers
say, these farms are only going to get bigger.
Jim MacDonald researches farming trends for the US Department of Agriculture. He
says small farmers can make a go of it if they’re able to find a niche market, like
producing organic meat and milk. But MacDonald says the demand for these niche
products is still tiny compared to the demand for things like chicken nuggets and hot
dogs:
“The overall trend so far, I think, continues to be towards larger operations producing
what we might call generic or commodity like products and their prices continue to fall.”
Prices are falling because these farms continue to get bigger and more efficient. That
means fewer and fewer people are farming. So the idyllic picture we have of the small
farmer is fading.
(Sound of Frank’s farm up)
Last year, Frank Baffi lost more than a thousand dollars on his farm. He mainly relies on
his social security check for his income. A row of empty metal crates line his barn:
“This is where I’d have pigs and this is where they would have their babies. There
probably all used up but I just haven’t had the heart to tear them out. Because I always
thought that I could at least get back to where I was. And the way it looks, you know, the
profitability of this thing, it don’t look like I’m going to go there.”
So the choices you make at the grocery store influence how farms are changing. It’s only
normal: most of us pick the cheaper product. But some people who live near these large
facilities say consumers don’t know the full cost of their choices.
Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways. (photo by Mark Brush)
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
Dairy farms are getting bigger. Many keep thousands of cows in buildings the size of several football fields. These big dairy operations can make a lot of milk. That translates into cheaper prices at the grocery store.
But some worry these large farms are polluting the land around them. In the fourth story of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush visits a big Midwestern dairy farm:
Transcript
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland. Dairy farms are getting bigger.
Many keep thousands of cows in buildings the size of several football fields. These big dairy
operations can make a lot of milk. That translates into cheaper prices at the grocery store. But
some worry these large farms are polluting the land around them. In the fourth story of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush visits a big Midwestern dairy farm:
(sound of giant fans)
About a thousand cows are in this building, eating, lolling around, and waiting for the next round
of milking.
There’s a sharp smell of manure hanging in the air. Big fans are blowing to keep the cows cool,
and to keep the air circulated.
Stephan Vander Hoff runs this dairy along with his siblings. He says these big farms are good for
consumers:
“We’ve got something here and we’ve been able to do it in such a way that we’re still producing
at the same cost that we were fifteen years ago. It costs more now for a gallon of gas than a
gallon of milk. And so, that’s something to be proud of.”
Vander Hoff’s dairy produces enough milk to fill seven tanker trucks everyday. They also
produce a lot of waste. The cows in this building are penned in by metal gates. They can’t go
outside. So the manure and urine that would normally pile up is washed away by water.
Tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater are sent to big lagoons outside. Eventually, the
liquefied manure is spread onto nearby farm fields. It’s a challenge for these farmers to deal with
these large pools of liquid manure. The farther they have to haul it, the more expensive it is for
them. Almost all of them put the manure onto farm fields.
It’s good for the crops if it’s done right, but if too much manure is put on the land, it can wash into streams and creeks. In fact, this
dairy has been cited by the state of Michigan for letting their manure get into nearby waterways.
(sound of roadway)
Lynn Henning keeps a close eye on Vander Hoff’s dairy.
(car door opening and closing)
She steps from her car with a digital camera, and a device that measures water quality.
(sound of crickets and walking through the brush)
She weaves her way down to the edge of this creek.
“This is the area where we got E. coli at 7.5 million.”
High E. coli levels mean the water might be polluted with dangerous pathogens. Lynn Henning is
testing the creek today because she saw farmers spreading liquid manure on the fields yesterday.
Henning is a farmer turned environmental activist. She works for the Sierra Club and drives all
over the state taking water samples and pictures near big livestock farms.
Henning says she got involved because more of these large animal farms expanded into her
community. She says when the farmers spread the liquid manure, it can make life in the country
pretty difficult:
“The odor is horrendous when they’re applying –we have fly infestations–we have hydrogen
sulfide in the air that nobody knows is there because you can’t always smell it. We have to live
in fear that every glass of water that we drink is going to be contaminated at some point.”
Water contamination from manure is a big concern. The liquid manure can contain nasty
pathogens and bacteria.
Joan Rose is a microbiologist at Michigan State University.
“If animal wastes are not treated properly and we have large concentrations of animal waste
going onto land and then via rainfall or other runoff events entering into our water – there can
be outbreaks associated with this practice.”
Rose tested water in this area and found high levels of cryptosporidium that likely came from
cattle. Cryptosporidium is the same bug that killed people in Milwaukee back in 1993. Rose
says livestock farmers need to think more about keeping these pathogens out of the water. But
she says they don’t get much support from the state and researchers on how best to do that.
For now, the farmers have to come up with their own solutions.
(sound of treatment plant)
Three years ago, the state of Michigan sued Stephen Vander Hoff’s dairy for multiple waste
violations. The Vander Hoff’s settled the case with the state and agreed to build a one million
dollar treatment system. But Vander Hoff isn’t convinced that his dairy was at fault, and thinks
that people’s concerns over his dairy are overblown:
“If we had an issue or had done something wrong the first people that want to correct it is us. We
live in this area. So why would we do anything to harm it?”
Vander Hoff is upbeat about the new treatment system. He says it will save the dairy money in
the long run.
The Sierra Club’s Lynn Henning says she’s skeptical of the new treatment plant. She’ll continue
to take water samples and put pressure on these farms to handle their manure better. In the end,
she doesn’t think these big farms have a place in agriculture. She’d rather see farms go back to
the old style of dairying, where the cows are allowed to graze, and the number of animals isn’t
so concentrated.
But farm researchers say because consumers demand cheap prices, these large farms are here to
stay and there will be more of them. Because of this, the experts say we can expect more
conflicts in rural America.
The EPA has a new agreement with animal farmers who participate in a study of air quality and its relation to animal waste, which is often kept in lagoons like the one above. However, environmentalists worry about the agreement and what it may entail. (Photo courtesy of the Natural Resources Conservation Service)
Environmentalists don’t like a new agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the livestock industry. It will give some livestock farms limited immunity from environmental laws while the EPA measures pollution on their farms. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith reports:
Transcript
Environmentalists don’t like a new agreement between the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and the livestock industry. It will give some livestock
farms limited immunity from environmental laws while the EPA measures
pollution on their farms. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith reports:
Animals at so called “factory farms” produce a lot of manure. As it
decomposes it lets off a cocktail of gasses, which can contribute to smog,
and health problems, such as asthma. But, federal regulators say they don’t
have an accurate way of estimating emissions from these farms.
Under a new EPA agreement, some livestock operations will work with federal
regulators to monitor emissions. The farms allow air quality monitoring, and
in exchange, the EPA will agree not to sue them for environmental violations
during the 2 year program. That’s where the problem arises, says Andrew
Hanson, with Midwest Environmental Advocates.
“The way government is supposed to work is that it’s supposed to
protect you from air pollution, not enter into deals that allow facilities
to continue to pollute without threat of enforcement.”
The Environmental Protection Agency will accept public comment on the
agreement, until March 2nd.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamara Keith.
Ethanol often is made from corn, and one of the by-products, distillers grains, can be eaten by cows (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)
From cows come dairy products and beef, the by-products of the cow - manure - can be anaerobically "digested," and the by-products of that process can be used to carbonate soft drinks. It might seem like an environmental and economic dream, but some are not supportive of this idea. (Photo by Bram Dejonckheere)
It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduce air pollution; provide a market for farm goods; create scores of jobs… all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith
reports:
Transcript
It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduces air pollution, provide a market for farm goods, create scores of jobs – all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. Tamara Keith reports:
The project is called Harrison Ethanol. It will include an ethanol factory, using millions of bushels of corn to produce the gasoline additive. At the same location, thousands of dairy and beef cattle will live in fully enclosed barns. And then there’s the small power plant, which will be fueled by manure produced by the cattle. Wendel Dreve is the project’s director.
“I think the nicest way of describing our project is it’s a vertically-integrated, agriculturally-based industrial development.”
Dreve began working on the project nearly 4 years ago. He’s retired from the oil and gas industry and built a home in eastern Ohio farm country. His neighbors approached him about starting up a corn-powered ethanol factory – something that has not existed in Ohio in a decade.
“I told them that I didn’t think we could build a ethanol plant in Ohio because there are no state subsidies, so we had to figure out a way to raise the revenue streams internally and the only way we could figure out to do that was to employ animals.”
The 12-thousand cattle housed on site, will eat the main byproduct of ethanol production, a corn mush called distillers grains. The cattle will generate money too, from sales of milk and meat. But the cattle will create manure… lots of manure… about 50 million gallons of it a year. Dreve has a solution for that, too: a power-generating anaerobic digester.
“It eliminates nearly all of the odor, it processes all of the wastes from the entire facility. So it’s like an industrial waste treatment plant on site.”
60 times a day, manure will be flushed out of the animal barns and into the digester. A large, cement structure, where the manure is broken down by microbes.
“And at the other end, you get water and methane and carbon dioxide and some solids.”
The methane will run power generators, creating “green energy,” which can be sold at a premium. The carbon dioxide from the manure will be sold to make carbonated sodas. This would be the first anaerobic digester powered by cattle manure in Ohio, and one of only a handful nationwide. Dreve says his digester will be much better for the environment than open-air manure lagoons, the cheaper method most commonly used by farmers.
But not everyone agrees. Bill Weida is an economist and director of the Grace Factory Farm Project which opposes large concentrated animal farms. Weida says most anaerobic digesters are paid for with some kind of government assistance. Harrison Ethanol is no exception. The project received a 500-thousand-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the digester.
“No one in their right mind who is looking for an economic investment would build a digester. The only reason you’d build one is if you had some sort of a government subsidy that would help pay for it.”
Harrison Ethanol also is receiving seventy-million dollars in financing assistance from the state of Ohio. In fact, the company indicates it got some very good legal and accounting help, to find the perfect location for the project to take advantage of state and federal tax credits. Add to that federal ethanol subsidies and federal subsidies for corn production, and Harrison Ethanol is getting plenty of help from taxpayers.
Ken Cook is executive director of the Environmental Working Group. He says ethanol might reduce air pollution and reliance on foreign oil, but it is not economically viable without those huge taxpayer subsidies.
“The worry is that what we’re really doing is bailing out failed agriculture policy with heavily subsidized energy policy. We’re going into the corn industry with another set of subsidies to basically turn corn, that would have been exported at a loss, into corn that is used to make fuel at a loss to taxpayers.”
That’s not how state officials see it. Bill Teets is a spokesman for the Department of Development which has been working to bring several ethanol plants to Ohio.
“We think that this is a great project because you help farmers, you create manufacturing, you have something that helps benefit the environment and it seems to be a good type of project that we can really benefit from.”
And if everything goes as planned, Wendel Dreve will build 2 more ethanol and cattle operations in Ohio. He’s already secured tax dollars from state and federal sources for those plants.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamara Keith.
To go from these chickens... (photo by Romula Zanini)
...to chicken filets requires quite a bit of processing and a lot of waste. The EPA tightened its regulations on how much pollution is allowed to get into waterways... but some critics note the regulations are not as strict as when first proposed. (Photo by Rene Cerney)
The largest meat and poultry processing plants in the country must follow new rules regarding how much pollution they release into waterways. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:
Transcript
The largest meat and poultry processing plants in the country now must follow new
rules regarding how much pollution they release into waterways. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:
The new rules apply to about 170 plants in the country that turn cows and chickens into
hamburgers or filets. Wastes will have to contain fewer nutrients like ammonia and nitrogen
before it’s released into water. Mary Smith heads a division within the Water Office of the
Environmental Protection Agency. She says the rules are not as strict as when first proposed.
That’s in part because of concerns from the industries that it would cost too much. Smith
says the limits are tougher than what the law was before. But she adds these aren’t the only
industries that release waste into the water.
“So we can’t really kind of single out the meat industry, necessarily. Everyone, in a sense,
needs to do their part. But it’s another piece of the puzzle in terms of getting cleaner water.”
The new rules mark the first time poultry plants will have these kinds of limits. The EPA
estimates meat and poultry plants use 150 billion gallons of water each year. That water needs
to be cleaned of wastes like manure, blood, and feathers before it’s discharged.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.
Source: The Humanure Handbook. Jenkins Publishing, PO Box 607, Grove City, PA 16127
www.jenkinspublishing.com
Books can be powerful. Sometimes they can even change your life. As part of our ongoing series on individual choices that impact the environment— “Your Choice; Your Planet”—the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Curtis Gilbert brings us the story of one book that changed his mother’s life… a book that so profoundly affected her that she felt compelled to share its teachings with strangers. It wasn’t the Bible or the Koran… or “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” And the part of his mother’s life that it changed is one so exceedingly private that most people don’t even like to talk about it. He’ll explain:
Transcript
Books can be powerful. Sometimes they can even change your life. As part of our ongoing
series on individual choices that impact the environment — “Your Choice; Your Planet” —
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Curtis Gilbert brings us the story of one book that
changed his mother’s life…a book that so profoundly affected her that she felt compelled
to share its teachings with strangers. It wasn’t the Bible or the Koran… or “Chicken Soup
for the Soul.” And the part of his mother’s life that it changed is one so exceedingly private
that most people don’t even like to talk about it. He’ll explain:
There’s a sound — something familiar to everyone who lives in a Western, industrialized
country — but it’s a sound you’ll almost never hear at my mother’s house.
(sound of toilet flushing)
Five years ago, my mom turned off the to water to her toilet. She put a house plant on top
of the seat and opposite it built a five-gallon bucket in a box that took over all the duties
of its porcelain counterpart.
“Well I had seen ‘The Humanure Handbook’ in the FEDCO Seed catalog — and it just sort of
intrigued me. And I decided one year that I would read it since I was curious about it year after
year. And I read it and then I began to feel really bad every time I flushed the toilet.”
That’s because every time my mom flushed the toilet she was rendering undrinkable several
gallons of otherwise perfectly good water. And what’s more, she was whisking away valuable
nutrients that she could have just as easily returned to the earth.
That’s right… Humanure is a contraction consisting of two words: human and manure.
Here’s how it works: You use the humanure bucket in pretty much the same way you’d use a flush
toilet. Everything’s the same, except that instead of flushing when you’re done, there’s another
bucket right beside the humanure bucket and it’s filled with sawdust. You use a little cup to
scoop up some sawdust and then you just dump the sawdust in the humanure bucket when you’re
finished using it. That’s it. And the crazy thing, the thing that always surprises people when
I tell them about my mother’s humanure project is that it doesn’t smell bad.
“Anytime anything’s stinky in the humanure, you just cover it with sawdust and it doesn’t stink
anymore, except of course what is already in the air, which is like any toilet.”
Once a day my mom takes the bucket brimming with sawdust and humanure and dumps it into her
massive compost pile. There, it mingles with her kitchen scraps, weeds from the garden, and
just about every other bit of organic matter she can find… and in two years time the humanure
cooks down into dark, rich, fertile soil.
For the first couple of years, my mom was content just to operate her own humanure compost
heap and let her garden reap the benefits — but the more she did it the more of a true believer
she became. Strict adherence to the faith wasn’t enough for her anymore. She had to become a
missionary. She bought a case of Humanure Handbooks and set up a booth at an organic gardening
festival called Wild Gathering.
“And I think I sold one at that Wild Gathering. And then after that I was giving them away right
and left to my sisters and nieces and friends and whoever! And I used them all up and then this
last year I decided that not only was I going to get another box of Humanure Handbooks, I was
going to collect humanure at Wild Gathering!”
My mom knew she’d a lot of buckets for the project, so went door to door at the businesses
in town. She didn’t say what she needed them for, and luckily they didn’t ask. She collected eight
buckets full in all — not quite the payload she was hoping for. Attendance at Wild Gathering was
pretty low that year, due to rain, but relatively speaking, sales of the Humanure Handbook were
way up.
“I sold more at this last Wild Gathering. I think I sold five or six. And I gave one away for
Christmas this year to Natasha, who had been having plumbing problems. And I started my spiel and
she was really quite interested. And, I think we may have a convert there before long.”
Conversion. The ultimate goal of any evangelist. My mom admits that she doesn’t know of anyone
she’s actually brought into the fold — but she likes to think she’s planting seeds. Just
introducing people to the idea that there’s a alternative to flush toilets, she says, is a huge
step forward.
“This is really a shocking idea to a lot of people and a lot of people who come to the house will
not use it. I have to make the water toilet available to them.”
My grandmother won’t use it. Neither will my mom’s friend, Rochelle. And then there’s my
girlfriend, Kelsey. Last summer the two of us spent several days at my mom’s house in Maine
before taking a road trip back to where we live in Minnesota. After quietly weighing the
ramifications of sawdust versus water toilets, Kelsey finally decided to brave the humanure…
well, sort of.
Curtis: “So you used it for some things, but you’ve told me before that there were some things
that you couldn’t bring yourself to do.”
(laughing)
Kelsey: “No, I couldn’t. I did not have a bowel movement during our entire visit to your
house, over the course of four days.”
I’d like to think that Kelsey’s physical inability to make full use of the sawdust toilet
was an anomaly, that most people would have no problem going to the bathroom at my mom’s house
in Maine… But I doubt that’s the case. And that’s not the only reason I’m a little skeptical about
my mom’s vision of a world humanure revolution.
Curtis: “It occurs to me, and I’m about 100 pages into the book at this point, that this is
all well and good for people living in rural areas, but I live in a city. Where am I going to
put a compost heap?”
Mom: “You know, there could be chutes in buildings. There would have to be temporary storage.
Trucks would come in and take it out. Great huge compost piles would be built and it would work
down very… I think that where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I’ll admit it; I’m still skeptical. I mean I believe in humanure, sure. But I also haven’t
put a house plant on top of the toilet in my big city apartment…and I probably never will.
Call me a summer soldier in the humanure revolution if you will, but when I go home to my
Mom’s next Christmas, I’ll be flushing with sawdust and I’ll be proud.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Curtis Gilbert.
David Hammond's inspiration to experiment with a low-carb diet. (Self portrait by David Hammond)
Each year, Americans spend tens of billions of dollars on diets and diet aids. Low carbohydrate diets like South Beach, the Zone, and Atkins are all becoming household words and companies are scrambling to cash in. As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice, Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Hammond looks in the mirror as he investigates the potential environmental impacts of the low-carb diet:
Transcript
Each year, Americans spend tens of billions of
dollars on diets and diet aids. Low carbohydrate
diets like South Beach, the Zone, and Atkins are all
becoming household words and companies are
scrambling to cash in. As part of an ongoing series
called “Your Choice, Your Planet,” the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Hammond looks in the
mirror as he investigates the potential
environmental impacts of the low-carb diet:
(sound of shower door closing, shower being turned on)
Every day it’s the same. As I wait for the shower to
warm up, I fight off an assault on my self-esteem.
First, there’s my naked reflection in the bathroom
mirror. (Ugh.) To my right, a stack of clothes that
don’t fit anymore. And in front of me, the most
damning thing of all… the bathroom scale.
I know I should ignore it, but its pull is irresistible.
Hammond: “Okay, here comes the big
moment of truth. Ohh… you gotta be kidding
me. Well, according to my scale, I am four pounds
heavier than yesterday. I don’t know how
that can be possible.”
You see, I’m fat. Not “oversized.” Not “full-figured.” Fat. I weigh 268 lbs and desperately need
to lose some weight. None of my clothes fit. My
cholesterol is through the roof. And my wife? Well, she
seems to have cornered the market on migraine
headaches.
(shower fades out)
But what kind of diet? I needed a diet that would
work within my lifestyle, not totally change it.
Because giving up meat wasn’t an option for me, I
figured low-carb was the way to go.
A recent Roper Report estimated that up to 40
million Americans were reducing their
carbohydrates.
40 million carb counters can’t be wrong, can they?
My gut told me that low-carb dieters must be
demanding more meat and poultry. But
was there an environmental impact?
For advice, I turned to the Sierra Club. They have a
program focused on concentrated animal feeding
operations — better known as factory
farms. These are operations where thousands of animals,
sometimes tens of thousands, are housed
together in relatively small spaces.
Environmentalists say the problem is their manure.
So much of it is produced, in such a small area that
simply spreading it on nearby fields can lead to
severe water pollution.
Anne Woiwode is the Director of the Sierra Club’s
office in Lansing, MI. She said that manure is not
the only problem. A bigger threat may be the
antibiotics that the animals are given to promote
their growth.
“Up to 70% of the antibiotics used in
this country right now are being fed to animals so
that they are fattened quickly. And because
animals are consuming so many antibiotics, you
are actually creating super bugs or super
bacteria.”
As far as my diet is concerned, with all this talk
about manure, bacteria, and super bugs, I wasn’t
sure that I needed to diet after all. I’d pretty much
lost my appetite.
Well, almost… it is still barbeque season after
all.
What I need is a low-carb fix that I can feel good
about. A local butcher mentioned Roseland Farm.
It’s located in southwest Michigan, near the Indiana border.
They’re one of the region’s largest, certified organic
farms. It’s a family farm. Merrill Clark is one of
the owners.
“We’re a 1,800 acre certified organic beef farm, we also
raise some grains and other garden vegetables on
a smaller scale but we are mostly known for our
beef. We’ve been, I’ll say certified organic, for
nearly 20 years.”
Certified organic means that Clark and her family
feed their cattle with crops grown without pesticides
or synthetic fertilizers. They also don’t give their
cattle antibiotics or growth hormones.
Nearly a quarter of their farm is devoted to grazing,
so the Clarks avoid the manure problems of factory
farms. They just leave the manure where it drops
and it becomes natural fertilizer.
Natural grazing also reduces the need to feed the
cattle grains like corn and soybeans. When used for
cattle feed, those grains are usually inefficient and
expensive to produce.
Even though the Clark family runs a large organic
farm, they know that in the scheme of things, they are still very small.
Merrill Clark says that’s fine.
“If some major Kroger or Meijer’s wanted to buy all of our
meat, I don’t think we would want to. We sort of
feel connected to our label and our own name and
our identity. It’s just so interesting this way. You
meet great people. Because you’re face to face with
your own customers.”
In my case, Merrill and I didn’t actually meet face-
to-face, but we bonded. We talked long after the
interview was over. And I was impressed enough to buy
a 35-lb cooler full of ground sirloin, strips, and
fillets. Enough to get me through those first few
weeks of my diet.
So even though I’m still fat, and tomorrow, the
bathroom scale was going to be just as unforgiving,
I’m starting to feel a little bit better about myself. For
the first time, I feel connected to my food. I feel a
bond to the farmer. And I feel like I was supporting
something worthwhile. And you know what, it
feels good.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David
Hammond.
Large scale hog farmers typically store their animal manure in large open air ponds called waste lagoons. They mix the liquid and sludge in the lagoons to fertilize their farmland. The process often poses problems for pork producers. But some farmers are using trees as a solution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richie Duchon has more:
Transcript
Large scale hog farmers typically store their animal manure in large open
air ponds called waste lagoons. They mix the liquid and sludge in the
lagoons to fertilize their farm land. The process often poses problems for
pork producers. But some farmers are using trees as a solution. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richie Duchon has more:
As hog farmers spray liquid manure on their land, they risk saturating the
soil with nutrients.
Environmental officials fear that these nutrients might be running off into
nearby lakes and streams, which can cause harmful algae blooms.
This is forcing farmers to spray the waste on more and more land.
Researchers are exploring other options for the waste.
The plan involves drying the waste lagoons and planting poplar trees on
top of them.
The trees would absorb many of the nutrients from the sludge. And they
hope this would reduce the amount of land needed to get rid of the
manure.
Frank Humenik is a researcher at North Carolina State University. He
says the sludge from the dried lagoons would stay in place while the
trees grow.
“The poplar trees restrict its movement, because they take up so much
moisture, and they also take up some of these nutrients, and give us a
harvestable wood product.”
Researchers are still running tests on water near the sites. And they think
the poplar trees will make the land reusable in about ten years.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Richie Duchon.
