What if we didn't use the latest technologies to produce our food??

I happened to stumble onto a very useful and resourceful website the other day (www.sustainablebeef.org) and thought that I would share some of the information that I found there.

As an Extension Agent, I am charged with providing information to the public that is non-biased and research based.  I can say with absolute certainty that the results of this study pass both tests.  Dr. Judith Capper and Dr. Dermot Hayes recently published results from a study titled "The Environmental and Economic Impact of Removing Growth-Enhancing Technologies from United States Beef Production". 

There is not enough room to list all of the pertinent information regarding their study in regards to how it was conducted and what controls they used and whatnot, but I thought that I would take the time to share some of the information garnered from it.  According to this study, if farmers and ranchers wanted to produce the same amount of beef that is currently available and had to do it without using growth-enhancing technologies it would take:

• 10 million more cattle in the U.S. beef herd (equivalent to doubling the # of beef cattle in Iowa and Kansas)
• 3 million more fed cattle harvested (which would require 4 additional packing plants with a total capacity of 10,000 head/day to harvest them)
• 81 million more tons of feed (enough feed to fill 1,010 Rose Bowl stadiums)
• 17 million more acres of land for grazing and growing feed (similar to the size of the state of West Virginia)
• 138 billion more gallons of water for producing feed and maintaining animals (enough water to fill more than 200,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools)

PLUS, 18 million more metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) would be released in the United States alone (which is equivalent to the annual emissions given off from 3 million U.S. cars)

I understand that there is a market for beef that is produced without using these technologies and I would never suggest that a person using these methods to meet a demand should stop doing so.  I just found these results interesting and thought I should share.  For the full report, feel free to visit http://www.sustainablebeef.org/resources.shtml

Beet harvest is under way

Actually sugarbeet harvest in and around Sidney started last week.  However, with the warmer-than-normal temperatures there was fear of the beets rotting in the storage piles so harvest was momentarily stopped.  With a return to cooler and more normal temperatures, beet harvest has once again resumed.  If there are not any further delays, and all goes well, all of the beets in the valley should be out of the ground in about 3 weeks.  Although there is not official report that can be made, weather conditions this summer and fall should have made for a fairly good amount of tonnage and sugar content.  Stay tuned for details.