Re: Mad Cow and sustainable agriculture

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

                Ms. Ryan,



        Unfortunately, the main cause of BSE is not a modern "chemical"
practice, but an old "organic" one.  The idea that when something dies, you
grind it up and re-use it is no boon to Dow Chemical or the packing houses.
And, speaking of the packing houses, it strikes me that cats and other
animals have not fallen ill to prion disease from the offal in manufactured
feeds.  I think that prion transmission is probably (as most scientists seem
to think) a fairly rare phenomenon requiring very specific conditions.



        You have to take into consideration that livestock animals are fairly
inbred and are therefore more likely to be subject to the transmission of
this kind of disease.  Also, it seems that I read that the cases of
hypothesized transmission were among people who could have been subject to
inhalation or sub-cutaneous introduction of fresh cow proteins in large
amounts.



        All the specifics aside, I think that your observations about
agricultural practices bring up an interesting point.  Agriculture seems to
straddle the line between infrastructure and plain business.  If one wants to
treat agriculture as more of an infrastructure (as it seems you are
recommending) then the question is whether the current petit bourgeois
ownership is desirable, or whether the development of agri-business is
actually preferable on a dialectical basis.  It would seem that, in rural
areas, making land holdings as large as possible could give a communitarian
perspective to the business of agriculture.  Also, a situation where
ownership would have to be corporate or cooperative would seem to lend itself
better to public health and infrastructure policy-making.  However, the
transition from a system where workers are dependent on the land itself for
their primary income, to one where the land is another asset in a larger
economic concern, would be fraught with peril.




        Right now, I am leaning towards the conclusion that corporate
agri-business is actually preferable.




        peace





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