Your chicken farmer, Alex! Chucktown Acres

This is a CHICKEN FACTORY – the chickens barely have room and this is the only life they know. Where’s the pasture?

Let’s look at a couple of examples: 

1. Organic Chicken. To have a “Certified Organic” chicken, the chicken farmer is not always required to raise his chickens outside. He’s not required to give them fresh air and sunshine year-round. He’s only required to supplement the factory chickens with organic feed and organic bedding. There is one section of the “Rules” that says that the farmer must give the animals appropriate access to the outdoors, fresh air and sunshine. Conveniently however, the next sentence says that the farmer may suspend those “Ideal Conditions” (for the sake of the animals) for a variety of reasons. You guessed it… at pretty much ANY TIME that farmer could argue that it would be “un-safe” for those animals to have access to the outdoors, to fresh grass, to sunshine, etc…. Therefore, he never “HAS TO” follow the rules.

2. Organic Produce. Most of the organic vegetables, fruits and crops grown in the US are not grown by small, happy farms with real people plucking the fruits at ideal times. These are massive operations that have guidelines that they stick by… set up by the USDA. The biggest misunderstanding about organic produce is that there are “No chemicals allowed” if they are labelled “Organic.” Unfortunately, this is not true. A quick google search will reveal to you that there are over 100 “organic approved” pesticides, herbicides and fungicides used for Organic production.

Hopefully these two examples bring to light some of the misunderstandings that people have about the word organic.

If you want to be an organic farmer, you have very intensive record keeping to deal with, not to mention the dues you have to pay out to the USDA every year to be in their club. For most small farmers, it’s a lose/lose situation. It’s too expensive, too cumbersome and you’re not giving the people what they want in the first place. 

Real people want real food grown by a real farmer. You want to know who is growing your food and how it is grown. Very few people have the time or the desire to read into the 100 approved “Organic Pesticides” to make the decision on whether they want to trust farmers across the country to feed them safely.

This is why I always promote the mantra: “Know your farmer, know your food.” 

The labels, the food industry and the big box stores are not looking out for you, your family and the health of your loved ones. You want food that you can trust. It’s important to you. That’s why you signed up for this newsletter… because you care.

Hopefully this was helpful for some, disturbing to a few… and thought provoking for many 🙂

Cheers,
— Farmer Alex