"The Omnivore's Dilemma" - 3

In part II of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan begins to talk about the organic food industry.  He visits several farms including Gene Kahn's Cascadian Farm and Joel Salatin's Polyface farm.  Before I go into the big organic and small organic industries, let me define "organic."  If you're a chemist, the real meaning of organic is a substance that contains carbon, but another meaning of the word has evolved through pop culture: Organic also refers to a food that was not grown/raised with hormones/antibiotics and/or pesticides.  It would be very difficult for CAFOs to have organic practices because if they did, most of their corn-fed cows would die.  In addition, growing corn or other major crops without artificial fertilizer is a ton less efficient.  As you can see, organic farms have a severe production disadvantage by abandoning conventional practices but have a superior advertising advantage because of the USDA Organic stamp printed on the labels of their products.

Cascadian Farm was founded in 1971 by Gene Kahn.  At that time was the start of an organic movement; people were beginning to favor going "back to the land" by eating more so-called natural foods (144).  Today, Cascadian Farm is among the organic giants that sell most of the organic products in stores.  You would think that farms like these would feel more stereotypically farm-ish than CAFOs or monocultures of corn.  Surprisingly, they are just as industrial-looking.  Pollan describes Petaluma Poultry, one of the large organic farms:

The chicken houses don't resemble a farm so much as a military barracks: a dozen long, low-slung sheds with giant fans at either end.  I donned what looked like a hooded white hazmat suit – since the birds receive no antibiotics yet live in close confinement, the company is ever worried about infection, which could doom a whole house overnight – and stepped inside...Running along the entire length of each shed was a grassy yard maybe fifteen feet wide, not nearly big enough accommodate all twenty thousand birds inside should the group ever decide to take the air en masse...This is one of the larger ironies of growing organic food in an industrial system: It is even more precarious than a conventional industrial system.  But the federal rules say an organic chicken should have 'access to the outdoors,' and Supermarket Pastoral imagines it, so Petaluma Poultry provides the doors and the yard and everyone keeps their fingers crossed.
(171)

Some people would not even consider this organic.  Some people would say that it is just as bad as CAFOs.  But in the end, it is approved by the USDA as an organic practice.  I believe that these "industrial organic" farms are much better (for people's health, for the environment, for the animals) than the conventional ones, even though they nevertheless treat the living animals more like products rather than animals.  At least it is one step towards a healthier, better way to producing and selling food like this.  The farm I found that is actually part of the environment and is perfectly humane to the animals is Polyface Farms.

Polyface Farms is significantly smaller than the industrial organic farms and sells food on a local level, which is how the food business should work in my opinion.  The cows are free to roam about specified grassy areas until after they take the "first bites" of the grass.  By only taking "first bites," the grass can grow back even thicker.  Chickens are also free to roam around.  They eat grubs that grow in cow manure and lay several eggs every day.  The chickens here are hand-slaughtered by breaking an artery in the neck, which is apparently hardly painful for the chickens.  The farm also creates their own compost from manure for fertilizer.  The practices at this farm are all natural; they produce no waste, unlike CAFOs.  In order to buy something from the farm, you actually have to go there or to one of the nearby stores where they send some of their food.  I can't imagine how better our food system would be if everything was sold locally and people adjusted to eating seasonal foods.  Today, it's encouraged that people buy organic foods, but many complain about how expensive it is.  If you think about it, conventional foods are just as expensive as organic foods.  What you don't pay in money for the conventional foods, you pay for in pollution, obesity, taxes, and disease.