Letter to the editor: Agriculture proud
s e c voi
From Anthony Pannone, agricultural leadership, education and communications graduate student Tuesday’s article, “Film director discusses farming,” in The Battalion conveys the idea that one person might change our food system. In doing so, the article pits one type of agriculture versus another — industrial vs. sustainable — as if one way to farm trumps the other. As an advocate for U.S. agriculture and aspiring professional agricultural educator, it’s my duty to discuss three things that might confuse readers and thus add to the misinformation available to consumers. First up, the term “grass-fed.” The term implies that cattle eat grass — true! Cattle eat grass because they are ruminants, but some cattle do not eat grass their entire lives. These cattle are known as corn- or grain-fed because toward the end of their
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because it is labor, land and time intensive. U.S. agriculture needs all types of production methods to remain the world’s premier food system. In presenting my perspective, my hope is you realize a movie or a news article is not always representative of the entire story. If you want to understand more about sustainability and where your food comes from, please talk to some farmers and explore the variety of farming practices so you can evaluate the pros and cons of each based on what’s best for your palate, pocketbook and core values. We should be thankful we have abundance of food and choices and don’t live in Cuba or North Korea where options are more limited. Aggies, I urge you to be curious, to listen first and then ask questions. This is Texas A&M University — the best damn agricultural institution in the world. The answers to your questions are closer than you may think.
thebattalion The Independent Student Voice of Texas A&M since 1893
Trevor Stevens Editor in Chief
The Battalion is published daily, Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and Tuesday and Thursday during the summer session (except University holidays and exam periods) at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Offices are in Suite L400 of the Memorial Student Center. News: The Battalion news department is managed by students at Texas A&M University in Student Media, a unit of the Division of Student Affairs. Newsroom phone: 979-845-3315; email: editor@ thebatt.com; website: http://www.thebatt.com. Advertising: Publication of advertising does not imply sponsorship or endorsement by The Battalion. For campus, local, and national display advertising, call 979-845-2687. For classified advertising, call 979-8450569. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Email: battads@thebatt.com. Subscriptions: A part of the Student Services Fee entitles each Texas A&M student to pick up a single copy of The Battalion. First copy free, additional copies $1. Call 979-845-2696 for mail subscriptions.
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lives they eat a mix of forage and grain. (Most times you’ll see “grain-fed,” which implies the cattle eat only grain.) Some farmers choose to raise grassfinished cattle and some choose grain-finished. Each have their reasons, and I encourage you to spark conversations with different farmers to learn why. Listening to one filmmaker’s story ain’t the same perspective as a farmer’s, whose livelihood depends on the treatment of animals and the land. Next up, “sustainable farming.” Dictionary.com’s second definition of sustainable is “pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse.” If you speak with farmers or email one of many agricultural specialists at A&M, you’ll learn the word sustainability has more meanings
than Taylor Swift has had break-up songs. If farming — whether cotton, vegetable, fruit, nut or animal — has not been and is not sustainable then that raises this question: How have farmers continued to produce an abundance of food and fiber? Third, “Polyface Farm.” The farm is controlled by Polyface Inc., which is a business run by self-proclaimed lunatic farmer, Joel Salatin, who since appearing in the movie “Food Inc.” has become the epitome of “sustainable farming.” Why all farmers are not considered epitomes of sustainability baffles me. Anyways, mentioned in the article but not named is a grazing method called “mob-grazing,” where for a specific period of time a farmer moves a group of cattle to focus grazing on a small area then moves to a new spot, allowing the land to rest before the cattle return to graze. Though this seems like the ideal grazing method, and after reading the article you might believe every farmer should use the method, it doesn’t appeal to every farmer
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