From: Zphobic (zphobic@softhome.net)
Date: Mon Feb 11 2002 - 13:53:03 MST
The solution (with a nod towards the Dr. Seb):
LESS PEOPLE!
We might have to factory farm for a while still. But we need to encourage
people to have only 2 or 1 or NO children. And in 50 or 100 years, as the
population decreases, we can switch more and more back to healthy organic
farming. How'zat?
- Zphobic
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Ridge" <richard_ridge@tao-group.com>
To: <virus@lucifer.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 4:05 AM
Subject: RE: virus: Cannabinoid receptors and munchies : reprise
>
> > its not necessarily the corporation itself, or indeed its desire to sell
> > "food" which is the problem. The problem with food in general is the
> > intensive farming methods used by farmers throughout the western world.
>
> Is it? I could be being excessively cynical, but much of your post has the
> look of a post-hoc rationalisation to me. It often looks like much
> anti-globalisation protest is essentially a stylistic protest against
> advertising and branding; its intellectual progenitor was Johnny Rotten,
not
> Karl Marx. When asked, the elaboration is always about poor working
> practices (or the like), but the original complaint always appears to be
> outrage about companies having the temerity to sell products and advertise
> them. I can think of very few cases where this order is reversed. You get
> the impression that if Nike didn't advertise, then no-one would care about
> sweatshops.
>
> Just out of interest, would it actually be possible to support the current
> UK population through sustainable and organic growing practices alone
(plus
> banning factory farming) ? This is obviously a hypothetical question,
since
> we would have recourse to imports, but if all of said imports are also
> produced through intensive agriculture this would seem a moot point. For
> that matter, if british agriculture were to go over to these kind of
> practices, would not the market be immediately inundated by cheaper
imports
> achieved through intensive farming? As a further question, if McDonalds
> increased staff pay would it actually be able to sell anything? It's not
> exactly in the high quality end of the market and increasing costs would
> probably leave most of its tepid offerings overpriced. Assuming that we
> increased both the labour costs for McDonalds and the food costs (farming
> practises of the kind you seem to be advocating are not especially
> costs-effective since they do nothing to deliver any economies of scale),
> and that the same was happening to the supermarkets and other businesses,
> would not the result be that food budgets for the poorest sections of the
UK
> population would start to look more than a little bit stretched?
>
> All of which isn't to invalidate your argument, but it is to point out
that
> you've reduced a complex issue to an attack on a corporation for
essentially
> responding to market conditions. It has after all been a consensus by
> government and public for fifty years that cheap food was the main
> requirement for british agriculture (largely due to rationing during WW2)
> and it is this that has led to the situation you have described. For
> example, when you said "due to the vast amount of meat which they (and
other
> fast food chains) buy," you probably should have said "due to the vast
> amount of meat which they (the public) buy." It's not as if they're aren't
> alternatives.
>
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