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I don't get it. They can't buy their own walnuts or almonds? Is there a nut shortage in Europe?
Weird. But I guess it's a nicer tradition than buying people expensive cr@p that they don't really need.
For years they would load up on German chocolate to give when visiting friends in the States...
Now, not so much because they are available here and even with a 100% markup can be bought for around $2... at least the one that can be bought there for $1
I've never looked for for Smoke House Almonds in Europe... probably do exist.
A few years ago a colleague asked if I could send a case of Beringer Wine to Vienna... a very pricey request... so I go in touch with Beringer and was routed to the their International Sales person who told me they do have limited distribution in Austria and gave me the contract information...
The guy was happy to help and personally delivered a case to my friends for their New Year's celebration...
Another person wanted Lemon Pledge and I did the same.. found out the same J and J product in Germany is called Pronto... was hard to find and eventually I did track it down...
And dairies are being shut down to accommodate almonds. So probably the price of dairy products will go up. Great.
I don't mind. Cow milk sucks. I kinda like cheeses, but they don't like me. And dairy farming is seriously unsustainable itself. That said, replacing produce with nuts ...
But then, like I been saying here: "More Almonds! Less people!"
One side of the family have been operating a small dairy farm over 200 years... about 25 milk cows plus calves and such... also chickens and pigs.
The farm consists of 60 acres with most in excellent grass and a little in forest.
So how is this unsustainable?
No chemical fertilizer used... only cow dung from the cows.
When my friends came to visit one summer... they could not get over my grandparents didn't own a can opener or have garbage service....
Grandma would put up preserves in mason jars... never bought anything that generated trash... one summer I brought a case of Del Monte Cling Peaches because the blight got her peaches... she did say the peaches were almost as good as hers and my Grandfather used the empty tins in his woodshop...
Whatever table wastes would go to compost or to feed the pigs... they also did their own butchering...
Never owned a car... did have an old 1950 Tractor bought new that was their pride and joy...
Dairy Farmers, at least those like my Grandparents were the epitome of sustainability... the land was a trust from one generation to the next...
One of the neighboring farms went fallow when no one in the next generation wanted the life... the fields were soon overgrown and present fire hazards to the community... not everything has to be reinvented and I'm thankful for the time I was able to spend with them...
Shopping would be for staples... like flour, sugar and cloth... almost like the Amish except my family embraced the tractor and milking machines...
For years they would load up on German chocolate to give when visiting friends in the States...
Now, not so much because they are available here and even with a 100% markup can be bought for around $2... at least the one that can be bought there for $1
I've never looked for for Smoke House Almonds in Europe... probably do exist.
A few years ago a colleague asked if I could send a case of Beringer Wine to Vienna... a very pricey request... so I go in touch with Beringer and was routed to the their International Sales person who told me they do have limited distribution in Austria and gave me the contract information...
The guy was happy to help and personally delivered a case to my friends for their New Year's celebration...
Another person wanted Lemon Pledge and I did the same.. found out the same J and J product in Germany is called Pronto... was hard to find and eventually I did track it down...
One side of the family have been operating a small dairy farm over 200 years... about 25 milk cows plus calves and such... also chickens and pigs.
The farm consists of 60 acres with most in excellent grass and a little in forest.
So how is this unsustainable?
No chemical fertilizer used... only cow dung from the cows.
When my friends came to visit one summer... they could not get over my grandparents didn't own a can opener or have garbage service....
Grandma would put up preserves in mason jars... never bought anything that generated trash... one summer I brought a case of Del Monte Cling Peaches because the blight got her peaches... she did say the peaches were almost as good as hers and my Grandfather used the empty tins in his woodshop...
Whatever table wastes would go to compost or to feed the pigs... they also did their own butchering...
Never owned a car... did have an old 1950 Tractor bought new that was their pride and joy...
Dairy Farmers, at least those like my Grandparents were the epitome of sustainability... the land was a trust from one generation to the next...
One of the neighboring farms went fallow when no one in the next generation wanted the life... the fields were soon overgrown and present fire hazards to the community... not everything has to be reinvented and I'm thankful for the time I was able to spend with them...
Shopping would be for staples... like flour, sugar and cloth... almost like the Amish except my family embraced the tractor and milking machines...
Now you are just kidding, right? You aren't really suggesting that the lovely anomaly you just described is in ANY way representative of modern corporate dairy farming, right?
Meanwhile - various aspects of dairy farming are grossly unsustainable. And I do mean "gross".:
Quote:
Mountains of Manure
The USDA estimates that more than 335 million tons of “dry matter” waste (the portion of waste remaining after water is removed) is produced annually on farms in the United States, representing almost a third of the total municipal and industrial waste produced every year. FWhat’s more, animal feeding operations annually produce about 100 times more manure than the amount of human sewage sludge processed in US municipal wastewater plants. FOne dairy farm with 2,500 cows produces as much waste as a city with around 411,000 residents. FUnlike human waste, however, in most cases the law does not require that livestock waste be treated.
At farms where animals are allowed to graze on pasture, much - if not all - of their manure is excreted directly onto the land, serving as a fertilizer and recycling nutrients back into the soil. On industrial livestock farms, however, animals drop their manure in the houses where they live. From there, the manure must be cleaned out, transported, and stored, each step of which can negatively affect the environment. Simply cleaning out livestock houses can waste vast amounts of water—a dairy operation that utilizes an automatic “flushing” system can use up to 150 gallons of water per cow per day. F Sustainable Table | Waste Management
Quote:
Fresh Water – Without a doubt livestock has one of the largest water footprints on the planet. It may be hard to believe, but the standard American diet requires a whopping 4,200 gallons of water per day (including animals’ drinking water, irrigation of crops, processing, washing, etc.), whereas a vegan diet only requires 300. The easiest way to reduce demand for water is to eliminate the consumption of animal products. http://os.care2.com/all/10-reasons-w...nsustainable#2
I'm no vegan. Nor do I recommend veganism. But, you asked "in what way is dairy farming not sustainable?" So, there you go. To say nothing of dairy's many other negative impacts on both environment and consumers.
I would say it's not dairy farming being the problem... but corporate agribusiness...
It's the same with the conglomerate hog farmers or millions of acres in gmo corn...
Doesn't mean there are not sustainable ways to farm... plus there is a the whole organic push... my cousins are organic produce farmers and to do so they must grow everything in glass houses... much more costly yet it extends the grow season and they do not use pesticides.
The East Bay regional park district uses cattle to mitigate wildfire danger by reducing fuel load... after an outcry several years back it was decided to stop the cattle grazing... it was a disaster in terms of fuel load... the cattle are back and until the Bison return... I'm fine with cows.
True... wildland fire is a part of nature and some plants depend on this cycle... that said... the danger is too great a risk in this day and age from my standpoint.
The dairy side of the family all live well into their 90's with vitality... it is a slower pace with harder work... no pasteurized milk or hormones fed to the cows and people today are actually embracing this... plus the seasons are nice... spring pasture, bringing in the hay for winter, calving and deep winter time to work in the workshop so that everything is ready for Spring.
I would say it's not dairy farming being the problem... but corporate agribusiness...
It's the same with the conglomerate hog farmers or millions of acres in gmo corn...
Doesn't mean there are not sustainable ways to farm... plus there is a the whole organic push... my cousins are organic produce farmers and to do so they must grow everything in glass houses... much more costly yet it extends the grow season and they do not use pesticides.
The East Bay regional park district uses cattle to mitigate wildfire danger by reducing fuel load... after an outcry several years back it was decided to stop the cattle grazing... it was a disaster in terms of fuel load... the cattle are back and until the Bison return... I'm fine with cows.
True... wildland fire is a part of nature and some plants depend on this cycle... that said... the danger is too great a risk in this day and age from my standpoint.
The dairy side of the family all live well into their 90's with vitality... it is a slower pace with harder work... no pasteurized milk or hormones fed to the cows and people today are actually embracing this... plus the seasons are nice... spring pasture, bringing in the hay for winter, calving and deep winter time to work in the workshop so that everything is ready for Spring.
There is something to your protest that dairy farming is not "the problem" - corporate ag business is. Certainly Big Farming is guiltier than mom & pop farming. And even organic farming is now going Big. But it does go beyond that.
"Organic" doesn't automatically mean "sustainable". "Sustainable" doesn't necessarily equate to healthy. It is possible to organically farm healthy produce in sustainable ways. And it is also possible to farm healthy non-organic produce sustainably. All kinds of ways to look at the issues.
However, no matter how you shake it out, dairy and meat farming is unsustainable at the levels of consumer demand our culture presents. The quote I singled out previously - that a herd of 2500 head of dairy or beef cattle produces as much pollution as a city of over 400,000 people - speaks the truth of the issue. There is no way that small farms using sustainable pasturing can supply demand.
To top it off, dairy is not well tolerated by the majority of those who consume it. We have been conditioned to believe cow milk is this elixir gift to our health from the gods. It ain't. And the science on that is extensive and deep. I'm not going to bother linking such information so easily found.
That said, almonds have only one downside: intense water requirements. Other than that, they are completely healthy for just about everybody. Extremely so.
In spite of all, though, the funniest reality of all this to contemplate is:
We don't have a Big Farm problem
We don't have an almond problem
We don't have a dairy farm problem
We don't have a water problem
We don't have a pollution problem
We don't have an affordable housing / development problem either
We have a population problem.
Too many people demanding too much is what causes all of this.
6 billion fewer people: poof! No problem.
I think the time has come for a serious engineering evaluation of water pipelines from places where there is far too much to places that need it.
When the spring thaw gets underway, we will once again see massive flooding in many places in the US. All we really need is to pump excess water from the humid midwest to the arid west.
The time has come for a water pipeline.
The time has come for fewer people learning to live within our natural means. No water pipelines required.
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