By rachels522
A tale of two farms
This week my Sustainability class began a unit on agriculture. We began the unit today by visiting two farms in the Monteverde region. One was a large-scale farm that produced pork and beef. The other was a small-scale farm run by a farmer and his wife. We evaluated the farms on their sustainable practices.
The pig farm is a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) operated by the local Monteverde Cheese Factory. In an effort to be more sustainable the farm sends its whey (leftovers from the cheese making process) to the pig farm to be consumed by the pigs. The pigs eat a diet of whey and supplements of corn and soy. The pigs only fully digest 70% of the corn and soy. The 30% is defecated then cleaned by workers and fed to the cows.
While the farm is clearly making efforts to be more sustainable, it is clear that it is still failing in many ways. The grey water and waste from the cows is put in lagoons that are supposed to clean the water before it is released back into the environment. This exerts many greenhouse gases.
Obviously, farm is not completely sustainable on a biological scale, but in my opinion the ethical concerns of the farm far outweighed the greenhouse gas concerns. The 2,000 pigs were in cages so small that they couldn’t even turn around. There is excrement absolutely everywhere. The females were kept constantly pregnant. These animals clearly live a miserable life in the 6 months of their lives before they are sent to slaughter. I can’t even begin to describe the horrible noises emanating from these animals; it sounded like absolute torture. The cows were not allowed to graze grass; they survive solely off of a diet of cleaned pig excrement. The cows themselves were lying in piles of their own filth. Perhaps the scariest part of this farm is that CAFOs in the United States make this farm seem small scale and like they treat their animals humanely.
After visiting the CAFO we visited a small-scale local farm. An elderly farmer who clearly cared about the quality of life in his animals cared for the 12 pigs. They were allowed to wander about the farm and play in the grass. The other animals on the farm seemed just as happy. Not only were the animals happy… my whole group was pretty excited about seeing all of the baby animals on the farm. There were piglets, chicks, kittens, and a baby cow. We also each got a chance to milk the mother cow!
While it is easy to idealize the small-scale farm it is clear that this farm is not perfect for the environment either. There is a large amount of methane produced in the pig and cow feces. Furthermore, precious cloud forest was cut down to make room for the pastureland.
This trip will stay with me for the rest of my life. Every time I am offered pork I will remember the human-like eyes of the pigs as they stared miserably out of their cages. I can’t say that I will never eat pork again. But I will only eat pork when I know the animals were raised in a free range situation. It is clear to me after this trip that it is absolutely necessary that the world reconsider its attitude towards meat and the way that we produce our food. After this trip I will think of meat only as a special treat, not as a basic part of my diet. Imagine what an impact could be had if everybody only at meat twice a week instead of multiple times a day!