Dear Mother: April/May 2007

(Page 3 of 9)

April/May 2007, Issue 221
Letters from our readers 
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This was one of the most informative stories in that issue. I wish you could publish it in regular newspapers and magazines so that people who are not so much interested in health or the environment could read it.

RELATED CONTENT

HETTY TARBELL
Naperville, Illinois

Our syndication service offers many of our articles free to newspapers across the country. Everyone can encourage their local papers to sign up. For information, visitwww.ogdenpubs.com/syndication. —Mother

Consumers Drive Farming Practices

I don’t agree with everything in Mother Earth News, but if we all thought the same it would be a pretty boring world. I think “Why Grass Fed is Best” (“News from Mother,” December/January 2007) contains a common misconception about farmers.

Regarding high-grain diets and feedlot confinement, it says, “… many beef producers have chosen to use this unnatural, inhumane practice ...” I have a problem with the word “chosen.” Profit margins on most farms are small; farmers have to farm in a way that makes money. I think consumers have to take part of the responsibility. For the last several generations, people have wanted cheap food. Economics of scale (i.e., feedlots) give them that. Look at what happened in the organic sector when farmers realized there was a market. More are changing their production practices all the time, as there is good money to be made in organic products. Notice who’s calling the shots: Consumers are driving demand, and farmers are responding.

I don’t disagree with the facts as you presented them. I just wish more people would realize what “cheap everything” is doing to the long-term viability of our living on Earth.

ERNIE PETERS
Hays, Alberta

We agree completely with you, Ernie. We should have said “many producers have chosen or feel forced to use …”—Mother

Wind Power: A Big Fan

I find your article on the wind farm debate a needed one (“Whither Wind?,” February/March 2007). I don’t understand people who oppose wind farms as a source of power. I think they should be forced to move next to coal-fired power plants or to put up oil derricks in their back yards, just so they are reminded every day of what they support by their opposition to wind farms. The arguments against wind farms are feeble and unrealistic. I see wind farms as the only feasible large-scale environmentally sound source of power we have going at the moment. Everyone should be thankful for them!

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