Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System andNationalEmissions of](fwd)

[Ken Hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't get it. What would it be like not to separate livestock from grain?
Have the livestock wandering through your grain fields? What system of
agriculture ever suggested that. Maybe I am being flippant, but what you say
makes absolutely no sense to me. Livestock are not separated from pasture
usually except where there is no pasture. Are you seriously suggesting that
there is some compelling reason to put livestock back in grain fields rather
than feeding them hay, and grains grown in other fields and letting them
pasture? Perhaps you could give me some references that explain the great
virtues of such a system. Do the MOnthly Review people suggest this! Anyway
your original statements made a big deal about transporting grain long
distances. I agree that this is neither here nor there except as an act of
gross economic stupidity to use distant grain rather than local given the same
price. You seemed to place some importance on this but I see that you meant
something else that still makes no sense to me. Do you think that there is some
special significance and organic holiness in cattle stomping through grain and
shitting and thus returning goodies to the soil or what? It is recycled on
fields from feedlots nows, and in pastures surely there is no metabolic rift as
anyone who has walked on cowpaths can tell you. The cow patties are there in
all their natural glory. I always wondered about the Lord suggesting people lie
down in green pastures.
   Cheers, Ken Hanly


Louis Proyect wrote:

> Ken Hanly:
> >available locally. Even hay may be trucked long distances in case of local
> shortages, but this would be the exception not the rule. Feed materials are
> >bought by feedlots from the nearest sources.
>
> You don't seem to get the point. It is not simply about closeness or
> distance. It is about ORGANIC processes. The separation of livestock from
> grain is what Marx called a "metabolic rift". A miss is as good as a mile
> on these questions.
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/