Month: January 2017

How often do you speak to a person in a face to face conversation anymore?  Actually have intelligent exchange of opinion, belief and sincere concern with or without feeling comfortable?  If you had one, great for you.  If it was comfortable, great for you.  If it was uncomfortable, even better for you!  You cannot have comfort without discomfort.  Get used to it.  But, have the conversation and have more of them with more people.

We used to have the news that we could depend on to report the news.  Yes, report the news.  Not create it, or spin it to whatever the belief is of the newscaster or the corporation that owns it.  We can no longer depend on it, and we need to speak with each other.  And it starts at home, and with neighbor and people we bump into wherever we may be.  Be kind.

If you recall back in April 2016 I wrote about how we as a people in the physical world have become disconnected from real human interaction and with our world.  I travelled back (not far) to my childhood home where my 81 year old mother still lives on 20 acres.  I went about the surrounding communities with her to church, lunch and to a couple of the local stores.  I felt like there was something big missing.

Today, I see and feel the disparity and the sadness of what the future of my youth has become.  So much, to the point, when even years after having gone back to school and actually graduated after 8 years.  Still having tuition payments 15 years later and a great family. I am sincerely fearful for my children’s future.  I am also an optimist and truly believe God will provide.

There are companies that are taking the effort to make a shift change to educate communities to be an asset and future employee of their company.  And it works. This is exactly the approach I am developing to replace the CAFO and bring back the rural animal and human food crops.  It only makes sense to redevelop the small communities where many of us remember our youth.

In Monon, Reynolds, Buffalo, Brook, Monticello and many small towns in rural Indiana the streets are as vacant as the faces I look into.  Where people and kids used to walk, run and ride bicycles, or have pick-up basketball or baseball games at the park (yes, I know it’s cold for some of these things). Something is missing in the community and neighborhood that I fondly remember.  I do believe they are still there, just disguised under a layer of worry, fatigue and financial paralysis.

I know I cannot put blame on the CAFO all by itself.  But we can directly trace it back to our dependency on cheaper, easier and comfort has lead us into larger and more personal impact to our demeanor and reliance of others.  We once used to work hard and was physically tired at the end of the day.  It also provided a sense and feeling of accomplishment.  Today, most of the work is not physically difficult, although may be tiring, but the accomplishment we felt is missing.

We all have the ability to ensure we do not allow human, emotional, logical and true concern to be lost, and use these powerful attributes to fight against that what disconnects us.  Our own decisions or lack of decisions to further shape and grow our future will defeat us if we do not sincerely love one another on at least a basic level, and let others know by our own words and actions.

It is hard and those around you can be part of the solution or not.  Please be strong and believe and make an intelligent, caring and courageous effort.  And most of all, know that God is always near.

Happy New Year!  This is my first anniversary blog on the dire concern I have for our earth and people. I am thankful for my and my family’s health, home provisions which God has given. Although not much has changed for the better as far as our U.S. and global planetary care is concerned, unfortunately.  There will need to be continued effort to educate the people and to know they are only strong together as communicating communities.  Not only on a small local scale, but within and throughout the social networking community connecting all individuals.

Recently in a Wisconsin, state audit found the DNR lacked staff to adequately run its CAFO permit program, and agricultural pollution has fouled hundreds of lakes, streams and sources of drinking water.  So now the Wisconsin State regulatory failures of the waste water discharge permits have become a big news.  And the threat of federal takeover of the EPA is being made.

Part of the change the Wisconsin DNR leaders want, is to have the CAFO’s to be more involved in the pollution discharge permit drafting, The legal documents that spell out standards and techniques aimed at keeping millions of gallons of manure they produce annually out of the state’s lakes, streams and drinking water.  Huh, perhaps the educated citizens living in the surrounding homes and locality would be best to understand and know what is best for their land.  Not the cow in the barn!

Now remember;

The top 5 states for cattle in feedlots with capacity more than 1000 head (as of Jan 1, 2016) 1. Texas           2.43 million       2. Nebraska  2.20 million     3. Kansas     2.09 million      4. Colorado   .870 million        5. Iowa    .620 million

The Chesapeake Bay is overrun with Chicken farm CAFO’s.  This is not the only area in the country of course, but a great example of extreme excess waste (chicken shit and waste water from washing eggs).

• 507,000, 000 chickens
• 1.5 billion pounds of fecal material per year
• More human waste than New York, Washington, San Francisco and Atlanta combine

The way the Chicken farmer is contracted to work for Perdue for example and Perdue will provide the delivery of chickens, food and even the pickup of the grown chicken when ready for processing.  Yet they will not take responsibility for the waste they create.  Leading to the combined animal agriculture waste contaminating our waters, some say up to 60% of the overall causes for water contamination.

Even now there continues large corporations to look for communities, families with large properties, and a need for employment, to take advantage by building these type of facilities.

Mercersburg, PA – Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch is applying for state permits to build a $90 million cage-free egg-laying operation in Montgomery Township.  The company is applying for a CAFO permit. TeamAg Inc., a Herbruck’s consultant, recently notified Franklin County of the application to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Control concerning Herbruck’s plan to build the 2.4 million chicken, 334 acre compound.

Other notes to consider;

1. About 10 billion land animals in the United States are raised for dairy, meat, and eggs each year.
2. Factory farming accounts for 37% of methane (CH4) emissions
3. Manure can also contain traces of salt and heavy metals, which can end up in bodies of water & accumulate in the sediment, concentrating as they move up the food chain.
4. When manure is repeatedly over applied to farm land it causes dangerous levels of phosphorus and nitrogen in the water supply, and in such excessive amounts, nitrogen robs water of oxygen and destroys aquatic life.
5. Burning fossil fuels to produce fertilizers for animal feed crops may emit 41 million metric tons of CO2 per year
6. Globally, deforestation for animal grazing and feed crops is estimated to emit 2.4 billion tons of CO2 every year.
7. Corn, wheat, and rice, the fast-growing crops on which humanity depends for survival, are among the most nitrogen hungry of all plants.
8. Large-scale animal factories often give animals antibiotics to promote growth, or to compensate for illness resulting from crowded conditions. These antibiotics enter the environment and the food chain.
9. Factory farms contribute to air pollution by releasing compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane.
10. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that confined farm animals generate more than 450 million tons of manure annually, 3 times more raw waste than generated by Americans.
11. The waste lagoons on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) not only pollute our groundwater, but deplete it as well. Many of the farms use the groundwater for cleaning, cooling, and drinking.