“None of Your Pigs Got Sick While You Were Feeding Organic”

A while back, in the middle of the pig sickness from a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my neighbor about the pigs. I was explaining to him how much I struggled with needing to use penicillin, but that I was, and still am, amazed at how well it worked. One minute the pigs were on a very rapid road to death, and the next, they were better.

“Sure, it’s great. It really worked,” he said, “but don’t forget that none of your pigs ever got sick while you were feeding organic.”

I have twice as many pigs on the farm right now than I ever raised to slaughter on organic grain, so it is not an adequate “scientific” comparison, but anecdotally it is compelling. Over three years of feeding organic grain to four different batches of pigs, none of them got sick. In the first year of feeding non-organic grain, not only did half of the pigs on the farm at the time get sick, two of them died.

The germ theory of disease explains that the pigs got sick because they happened to come into contact with a pathogenic organism, a bacteria in this case, given the disease response to penicillin, that invaded their bodies. The non-germ theory of disease explains that the condition of the body, not the pathogenic organism, is the cause of disease. The pathogenic organism is merely making a home in an already diseased body. A non-diseased body exposed to the same pathogen will not become ill.

I have no idea which, if either, theory is correct, nor really, do I care. I am willing, however, to seriously entertain the idea that the germ theory of disease might not be the whole story.

Why would non-organic feed make my pigs sick? What is it about the non-organic feed? First, it might not be whether the feed is organic or not. That is not the only difference between the organic feed and the non-organic feed. The organic feed that I fed was composed of real grains and various supplements that are supposed to promote a healthy organism, such as kelp, diatomaceous earth, and probiotics. The non-organic feed that I was feeding when the pigs got sick was composed almost entirely of grain and plant “by-products,” and furthermore, no specifically health-promoting supplements were included. Most of the supplementation in the non-organic feed was to make up for the nutritional deficiencies inherent in the by-products. In essence, the distinction is one between whole and processed foods. In other words, a non-organic feed based on real grains and health promoting supplements could be every bit as disease-preventing (health promoting) as the organic feed that I used to feed (I actually have some anecdotal experience with such a thing — the local grain that I fed over the winter was such a non-organic feed. I was very pleased with how well the pigs did on that feed).

There are, however, some very important differences between organic and non-organic feeds that could be directly responsible for one feed producing health and the other feed producing disease. The non-organic feeds are composed almost entirely of genetically modified organisms, primarily corn and soybeans, and beyond that, nearly all of the supplements, at least in the particular feed that I was feeding at the time, that were included were synthetic, the product of industrial chemical and manufacturing processes. In addition, the source of the by-products used in the feeds — grain plants — were (most likely) heavily sprayed with various pesticides and grown in soil with almost zero natural fertility. Organic feeds contain no genetically modified organisms, and other than synthetic amino acids (lysine and methionine) the supplements included in the organic feed that I fed were all natural, although they were most likely processed industrially. In addition, the plants that produce the grains used in organic feeds are not sprayed with synthetic chemical pesticides (although these days they are increasingly sprayed with “organic” pesticides), and perhaps more (most) importantly, the soil in which those plants are grown is maintained (should be maintained) at a high level of natural fertility.

Was it the genetically modified organisms? Was it the by-products? Was it the pesticides? Was it the infertile soil? Was it the lack of health-promoting supplements? Did non-organic feed kill my pigs? I don’t know, but it is definitely possible.

[Note: The non-ogranic feed that I was feeding at the time of the illness was Nutrena Pork Track. It is, of the four different feeds that I have fed, by far the worst. It has extremely low palatability and the animals did not grow well while I was feeding it. The industrial non-organic feed that I am currently feeding is Blue Seal Pork Maker Mash. This feed, while primarily a by-product feed, does contain probiotics, a health promoting supplement, and the pigs do well on it]

 

How Many People Do You Want to Starve?

Writing this post without including abstruse theories that may or may not be of interest to people not trained (theory and philosophy are a matter of interest and training, not intelligence — Not, “gee, she’s smart,” but, “wow, she’s really interested and really well-trained.”) in the rules of the particular forms of theorization and the content of those theories will be difficult. Nevertheless, I want to get this out, so I will do my best not to make the eyes of those uninterested and untrained in such things glaze over (if Jen doesn’t see within the first sentence or two of a post nouns or verbs that suggest that the post will be a practical post about life on the farm, she clicks through to the next post. She wants to read about bottle feeding lambs, not the construction of local-regional infrastructures, and definitely not about the theoretical basis of the linguistic dominance of mainstream cultural prejudices).

I am involved in a project that includes a member that is as blindly committed to the ideology of industrial-scale synthetic-chemical based agriculture as I am blindly committed to the opposite — in spite of the fact, by the way, that I currently feed industrial chemical grain. The difference between him and me is that I “see” and acknowledge my blindness, to which I am nevertheless committed by belief and a mostly unwavering faith (this idea of belief and faith are the hearth stones of my own epistemological theory). The project group had its first meeting the other day and this guy and I got in our first “fight” within five seconds of being introduced. He is, in his own words, though not the words over which we argued, “against organic.”

The title of this post, “how many people do you want to starve?” is a classic move in a language game by proponets of industrial chemical agriculture that French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard calls “terror” in his very important book The Postmodern Condition and elsewhere (the term language game of course has a complicated technical definition [see Wittgenstein, from whom Lyotard borrows the term], but for our purposes, just think of it as any game — it has players,  it has moves, and most importantly, it has rules). Terror, without going into the details, is the threat or actual fact of being excluded entirely from a language game and/or effectively being rendered silent by the imposition of an overwhelming force within the language game — not the sort of legitimate overwhelming force of the incredible talent of Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, but the sort of illegitimate (terrorism is always an act of the illegitimate) force of playing in a game where the referee has been bought — no matter how you play you will be called for fouls, your points will be rescinded, you might even be thrown out of the game, regardless of the evidence you could muster that you did not travel, that the point was good, or that there was no cause to be thrown out of the game, if you were even granted the right to muster such evidence, to make such language game “moves.”

In response to the suggestion that industrial synthetic chemical agricultre should be abandoned in favor of non-industrial organic agriculture, industrial synthetic chemical ideologues rather than engage in level-playing field type language game moves almost universally and immediately (reflexively) resort to terror: “well, of course we could adopt organic practices, but then you would have to decide how many people in the world you want to starve.” By this move, the proponet of organic agriculture is constructed as a mass murder, and has effectively been ejected from the game, or, in another way of thinking about it, the terroristic move has drastically changed the rules of play — the rule is no longer that the basket is set at ten feet, it is now set at thirty-five feet, and not even Michael Jordan can dunk on a thirty-five foot hoop.

The important thing to note here is that the terroristic phrase always reflects a deeply ingrained dominant cultural prejudice and is therefore only apprehended as terror by those who do not share that prejudice. To the vast vast majority of spectators, not to mention players, the terroristic move is perfectly normal (of course it is true that without synthetic chemicals, a lot of people would starve). Terror, in other words, can only be made use of by those already in a position of power (this is very different than what is the case in political terror). There is no analogous terroristic move available to the proponent of organic agriculture. Regarding terror, those not already dominant are impotent.

Because terroristic phrases always reflect a deeply ingrained cultural prejudice, the phrase itself speaks volumes. There is no need to say anything more. It is accepted on faith, without evidence or further argument, in this case that industrial synthetic chemical agriculture is necessary to feed the world, without it, people, huge numbers of people will starve. The task of the terrorized, therefore, if they are even permitted to make a counter move in the game, is to undermine that faith, to convince the faithful that that in which they have invested the considerable energy of their faith is not true. God does not exist. Organic agriculture can feed the world. The terrorized can muster all the evidence she wants, the reality is that faith is not evidence-based, and terror rests on brute barbaric force.

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Note for the purposes of setting the record straight (of making my counter move) that the prejudice that yields of organic agriculture are so low as to pose a starvation threat to vast numbers of people in the world are rooted in “scientific” studies that were performed in, I think the 1970s. Basically the “scientists” took fields that had been chemically farmed for decades, did little or no organic soil amending, planted seeds, and then did nothing to manage pests. Low and behold, the yields were horrendous. If you want to know the truth about the yield potential of organic agriculture, take a look at the history of the advertising for Miracle Grow. For decades, the folks behind the synthetic-chemical based Miracle Grow were amongst the main proponents of the low yield argument. Just a few years ago, however, because of the surge in interest in organic practices, they came out with an organic Miracle Grow formulation, and in the advertisements for it, guess what they argued…they argued that organic practices can yield better than synthetic chemical practices. There is only one thing that can undermine terror, paradigm shifts. The Miracle Grow language moves show we are almost certainly witnessing a paradigm shift in agriculture. Soon I will be the terrorist: How many people do you want to give cancer? How many rivers do you want to pollute?

 

It’s Official

I will no longer be feeding certified organic grain.

I feel as strongly about genetically modified organisms as I do about becoming a full-time farmer, so I will only feed conventionally grown grains that are guaranteed free of GMOs. The problem with this guarantee, however, is that most conventional grains, and occasionally some organic grains, are tainted by GMO grains, so really the best that I can do is only feed varieties of grain that are not themselves GMOs.

My goal now as far as feeding is concerned is to raise 100% locally fed pigs and chickens. The only thing that I will feed them that is not local is minerals. There are plenty of farmers in the area that grow grain corn and other small grains for sale as animal feed.

I will continue to manage the land and the animals (other than their feed) that I take responsibility for without synthetic chemicals.

While for the past day or so I have been very uneasy about this decision, I am excited by the prospect of being able to sell pork and chicken directly to my neighbors and geographic community members and to have my pork and chicken sold in local stores and restaurants.

I am also excited that now I will have enough wiggle room between my prices and my costs to offer discounts to people with low incomes.

This was a very hard decision to make. My farming identity, while young and immature, has from the start been thoroughly intertwined with organic principles and practices. To abandon even a part of those principles and practices makes me feel as if I am abandoning a part of my identity, which is deeply unsettling, but having had the experience of waking into a number of substantially different incarnations in my life I know that I will either settle calmly into this new one or turn away from it back toward the old one or to a different new one if the dissonance is too great.