Youngblog

I totally agree. I think this everyone should watch this movie and read Michae Polan's _In Defence of Food_.

Hey, good to hear from you Ben. I think the movie is great, but I would like to see a more in-depth accounting of the actual efficiency of mass agriculture vs. organic farming. I'm still unsure as to whether the current world population can be sustained without the massive economies of scale that we've developed in agriculture, and this really worries me, because if we can't, then there could be a pretty scary correction as the current system becomes increasingly unsustainable.

I'm also curious about the LDS ranching operations in Florida and other states, and the extent to which they may be contributing to the problem or practicing sustainable agriculture:

http://www.mormonstoday.com/020104/B1DeseretRnch01.US.FL.Orl.shtml

From that article I gather that the ranch is a typical "feedlot" with all the negative connotations that the term brings with it. :/ However, maybe they do more grass feeding since they do have all of that land. It would be interesting to see more details.

I think the world's population can easily be sustained without having to resort to all the "efficient" changes that has been made by the food industry recently. People need to start eating and thinking differently though. I thought the movie, Food Inc., did a great job of showcasing how inefficient the whole food industry actually is. So many resources are wasted on growing corn for cattle, shipping it to the feedlots, then coming up with ways to treat the meat after they have become sick from being raised on a diet of strictly corn. When you take a step back the whole process just seems so silly and wasteful. The honest truth is that people need to eat less meat and more vegetables/fruits. Since our industry has been skewed to make meat and processed foods look relatively cheap it can be hard to pay the extra money for real whole foods. However, my wife and I have been doing this since September with great success so far. Quality over quanity is our new mantra. Since we have been doing this our budget has remained constant. This is mainly because we have shifted from eating the tradition American amounts of meat and instead buy more vegetables. Anyways, I have lots to say about this.. as you can probably tell. :)

If you haven't already I would really recommend reading _In Defense of Food_ as it does deeper into some of these questions. Also, this is a must watch lecture about sugar and why high fructose corn syrup is really evil (from an economics point of view):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Thanks for the video. That was good. I watched it a couple days ago and decided to cut back significantly on sweets.

I do think that the other link I sent you brings up some good points about how agriculture without GMOs cannot sustain the present population and has some additional environmental impacts:

http://joepastry.com/index.php?cat=137