California Farmers Voting Yes on Prop. 2
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California voters go to the polls tomorrow to vote on a slew of propositions, including Proposition 2.
It is cruel and inhumane to confine animals in cages so small they can’t turn around or stretch their limbs. All animals deserve humane treatment, including those raised for food. Vote YES on Prop #2 to protect animals from unacceptable abuse. Source: Yes on Prop 2
I figured everyone in the real/traditional food community in California would be voting YES on Prop 2. I was surprised to hear people saying they were planning to vote no. They said they were concerned about hurting small farmers, and they wanted less regulation in farming.
That made sense to me, but at the same time I kept seeing all the farmers at my local farmer’s market wearing YES ON PROP 2 t-shirts and stickers.
I decided to ask small farmers what they think.
I interviewed two small sustainable California farmers on the issue of Prop. 2.: Rebecca Thistlethwaite of TLC Ranch and Kathy Lindner of Lindner Bison.
Rebecca Thistlethwaite and her husband Jim Dunlop run the run the TLC (Tastes Like Chicken) Ranch in Las Lomas, California. Rebecca also writes the wonderful Honest Meat blog.
TLC Ranch raises pigs, laying hens, and the occasional lamb or beef steer using all organic practices. We rotate our animals around 20 acres of certified organic pasture, feed certified organic grains and several tons of organic vegetables each week, and do not kill predators (we use guard dogs instead). Our animals are cared for humanely and the land is treated as a valuable resource. We use the rotation of our animals to rebuild the fertility of the soil, control invasive weeds, and heal the land. Source: Local Harvest
Cheeseslave: Are you voting YES or NO on Prop 2?
Rebecca Thistlethwaite: Both of us at TLC Ranch are voting YES on Prop 2.
Cheeseslave: Why? Please share why you are voting the way you are.
Rebecca Thistlethwaite: These practices are the worst of the worst in factory farming. In the name of cheap, unhealthy food they treat animals not like living creatures but like expendable ‘units’ of production. They factor in death losses of up to 50% as “just part of doing business”. No animal should have to suffer this extreme cruelty and no human should be relegated to eating this poor quality food.
Cheeseslave: If Prop 2 passes, do you think it will hurt small farmers (like yourself)?
Rebecca Thistlethwaite:Prop 2 will only help us. The farmers this could hurt are big corporations, not small farmers.
Cheeseslave: What do you think about the argument that we should have less regulation in farming (this is an argument for NO on Prop 2)?
Rebecca Thistlethwaite: California is the most regulated agriculture in the world, but it should be. We have one of the most populous states, grow the most pesticide & water intensive crops, and everything we do ends up in the ocean. Yet despite all these regulations, we continue to have the worst water quality and the worst air quality, mostly due to agriculture.
Lindner Bison is committed to improve the quality of life and educate others about sustainable agriculture and family farming through respectful production of grassfed and grass-finished bison.
Lindner Bison uses and strives to improve ethical food production methods
which embrace:
- humane animal husbandry
- sustainable agriculture
- earth-friendly practices
- superior flavor & nutrition
- freedom from added hormones, antibiotics and animal byproducts
Source: Lindner Bison
Cheeseslave: Are you voting YES or NO on Prop 2?
Kathy Lindner: Yes.
Cheeseslave: Why? Please share why you are voting the way you are.
Kathy Lindner: We believe it can be better than it is.
Cheeseslave: If Prop 2 passes, do you think it will hurt small farmers (like yourself)?
Kathy Lindner: We all now live in a world where information and opinions are available quickly via the internet. Many of us feel we have adequate knowledge to make a decision for others. We don’t. The decision we make is for ourselves. We believe only that our farming systems define us as a society, as human beings.
Any time a business is asked to change its methods of doing business, it may impose a financial hardship until better ways of doing things are adapted. This proposition allows several years to implement. Clearly, this is about more than money. It should be.
We believe in the resourcefulness, the strength and the integrity of small farmers who want do the right thing and are empowered by those other small farmers who break from tradition to pioneer and lead the way. Most of us have no idea what is meant when we say ‘they are the true heroes of our time.’ Small farmers need and deserve our support.
We share the belief with others that it can be better, in the long run, for the greater good. If prop 2 passes, we believe it actually places a higher value on true small farming operations, v. large scale, commercial farming models.
Cheeseslave: What do you think about the argument that we should have less regulation in farming (this is an argument for NO on Prop 2)?
Kathy Lindner: For the most part, regulation is undesirable. Increased regulation at any level is usually the result of a perceived injustice or abuse of some kind.
Regulations are at best a guide, and at worst a weapon. Integrity in farming practices –- or any other business for that matter — cannot be ‘regulated in’, any more than quality control can be ‘regulated in’. Whether we’re talking a more humane life for farm animals, the use of chemicals v. earth friendly/sustainable practices, or basic food quality — regulation is a fall back position. Any final ‘regulation’ is done by consumers.
All any of us can do is vote with our food dollar, and vote with our conscience. Big Food, and the regulators that got us to this point, are following with interest. Where are current food dollars are being spent? How was that food produced?
As for us, how well we digest a meal and the energy it gives us is directly tied to what we know about how that food was raised and harvested.
Photo credits: Lindner Bison and Tana Butler’s (author of the I Heart Small Farms blog) Flickr Photostream
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03/11/2008 at 1:20 pm Permalink
Thank you so much for this! What beautiful photos and lovely farms. It’s good to get this info straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Or in this case, straight from the farmers’ that raise the chickens mouth. California has some of the best food quality in the country specifically because we have such concerned citizens who care about food.
03/11/2008 at 2:02 pm Permalink
Our family just came home from a visit to northern California, which is home to many small family farms. We saw numerous signs, bumper stickers, and banners all over Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties in support of Prop 2, especially at the gates of pasture-based farms. So it was pretty clear to us that small family farms support Prop 2.
But on the way up we drove Rt 99 and I-5; on the way back we drove I-5. Both of these highways go right through the heart of CA’s industrial agriculture industry in the Central Valley – especially notable for the malodorous confinement feedlots for dairy and beef. Not surprisingly, support seemed to go against Prop 2, based on signs and bumper stickers, etc.
I’ll be voting FOR Prop 2 tomorrow.
03/11/2008 at 2:10 pm Permalink
Wow, Anna, that is really interesting!
I remember there was a big anti-raw milk billboard in or around Fresno a while back (not sure if it’s still there) — it was funded by companies including Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland. Of course Fresno is where Organic Pastures raw grass-fed dairy is located!
I’m going to be at the polls when they open and I too (obviously) am voting YES on Prop 2.
03/11/2008 at 9:02 pm Permalink
Here’s the thing – those two farmers are *already* practicing what Prop 2 preaches. So I’m not sure that I can take their word for it that this will not hurt small farmers, because it already will not hurt those two farmers.
At the same time, a small farmer who is not already practicing in accordance with Prop 2 guidelines will, of course, say that it will hurt them, because they will have to spend to bring their farm “up to code”.
I’ve driven by those farms/aminal factories up the 5 and it’s truly disgusting. Both visually, and well, olfactorily.
But I’m not sure that the best practice here isn’t to avoid the regulation, vote no on 2 in order to preserve the status quo, and then truly vote in the only way that really matters – with our pocketbooks. If more people financially supported farmers like those above, the market would take over, more farmers not using humane practices would convert, and it could all be accomplished – without regulation/government interference, which often seems to cause more problems and expense than it solves.
04/11/2008 at 12:33 am Permalink
Alan Greenspan thought the financial markets would regulate themselves and look what happened. He admitted he made a mistake. With no regulation, greed usually wins.
04/11/2008 at 1:38 am Permalink
Succinctly said.
04/11/2008 at 3:29 pm Permalink
With respect, it’s a nice sound-bite, Julie, but the two markets are not the same. We can choose which farmers we want to give our money too – pastures, free-range or industrial. This proposition failing will not harm farmers currently following its suggested practices. Those farmers choose to follow humane practices for their own purposes, and the passage or failing of the proposition will not change that. They are idealists (NOT a bad thing in my book), and make choices for reasons other than “the government said so.”
In a sense, to pass this prop will “force” people to spend their money on farmers who are only following humane practices because they were told to – but the farmers will still lack the *desire* to be humane. Without extra research into past practices, it will be difficult for consumers who so desire to choose to support a farmer who’s in it for the big picture, bacuse all farmers will be using similar practices (except, I think, those who exclusively pasture).
(Sorry – I know it’s kinda convoluted thinking on my part, and a little hard for me to express in writing.)
04/11/2008 at 3:37 pm Permalink
Princess Edamame, you make good points.
One thing to consider is that only 5% of the American population buys “free-range” eggs right now. (Free-range vs. pastured is a whole other discussion.)
I think this is largely because most people shop at regular grocery stores and they don’t find free-range or pastured eggs at their local store. I find free-range eggs at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s but most people do not shop there.
Of course I buy truly pastured eggs from my local farmer’s at the farmer’s market. But most people do not buy eggs at the farmer’s market — either they don’t find them there or they don’t have a farmer’s market open year round or close to them, or they don’t know about it.
So I agree with you, ideally people will buy eggs from small farmers and those farmers will do the right thing because they want to, not because they are regulated to do so.
BUT most people aren’t going to buy those eggs. So shouldn’t we do SOMETHING about the 95% of chickens that are suffering RIGHT NOW?
Also this is not just about chickens. This is about pigs, and we know that they are smarter than dogs. Prop 2 enforces basic standards for humane treatment of these animals.
Just my thoughts on the matter…
04/11/2008 at 9:49 pm Permalink
Anna- thank you for this post and including our perspective. I only want to say that the lovely photos of our farm were taken by Tana Butler, author of the great farming blog, http://www.iheartfarms.com. She is also a professional photographer and works hard to make her blogging and photographing a viable economic profession.
I do also want to add that yes, I do believe most government regulation is onerous and it would be great if all farms and businesses were regulated by the “invisible hand” of free-market capitalism, but that will never happen. Until we have REAL truth in advertising, enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, and the end of subsidies to big corporations, we will need government regulation, for better or worse.
04/11/2008 at 9:58 pm Permalink
Hi, Rebecca!
Thanks for mentioning that about the photos. I did give Tana and her I Heart Farms blog credit in the photo credits at the bottom of the post — maybe it is not obvious enough…
I hope Prop 2 passes tonight!
04/11/2008 at 11:54 pm Permalink
And the very things you point out, Ann Marie, are the reasons I love this blog. The education you provide will help people make the right/ethical choices in their food purchases.
05/11/2008 at 12:37 am Permalink
PE -
Thank you so much.
I was personally so blown away when I found out about this stuff — I just feel the need to share it with others. It truly is my passon.
Thanks for your support. As Dr. Weston Price said, “You teach, you teach, you teach.”