I'd say that awareness of grass-fed beef must have reached a new peak when the former head of the CIA, R. James Woolsey, writes an op-ed in the Washington Post (reprinted in the Star Tribune as "$100-a-barrel oil: It's the cows") pointing out the absurdity of our corn-based farm system.
Edit: I should have said the absurdity of "part of" our corn-based farm system. Thanks to Jacob for pointing this out.
As Woolsey writes, feeding cattle with corn -- a type of food they are not able to digest correctly -- makes them sick, leading to the widespread use of antibiotics on farms. Which of course leads to the types of antibiotic resistance we've all been reading about in the press.
Woolsey uses his piece to propose the idea that the corn we're feeding to cattle could be used instead to produce ethanol, leaving the cattle to feed on grass.
The fact that he wrote it as a dialog among members of OPEC and their K Street lobbyist only made it all the better.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
It's the Corn
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2 comments:
"pointing out the absurdity of our corn-based farm system"
He was advocating using the corn for expanded ethanol production. That hardly seems like he was calling a corn based farming system absurd.
Jacob,
It would better for me to have said that he is pointing out the absurdity of part of our corn-based farm system...the part that feeds corn to cows.
I would think it would be better to get rid of the corn altogether and create systems for cellulosic ethanol from plants that don't require the energy inputs of corn. But since there would need to be some sort of transition from the current system for all the farmers who are set up to grow corn, Woolsey's suggestion made some sense to me at least during that period.
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