Industrial V.S. Pastoral Essay

No some other(a) book has ever made me want to be a enhanceer more (or at every) than The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan. No other book has placed such a dark cloud of doom and graveness over such a obviously simple topic such as victuals production. Im of blood line not talking about ii identical models. One model is of industrial culture contrasted by pastoral agriculture. In his research Michael Pollan visited fires of both styles, got to enjoy the onsite operations, followed the food to its ultimate destination, and fin tout ensembley ate a meal created with the very ing expirationients he spend a week investigating.Michael describes the farm consume by George Naylor, which is of the industrial model, as organism fairly easy in c only of manual labor just now highly difficult in the detective work. investigator work usu whollyy isnt something that gets brought up often when talking about farms here(p passingicate) it is referring to the journalistic track ing that Michael Pollan had to do with Mr. Naylors staple crop gamboge. The difficulty in following a bushel of corn from the Naylor farm is his corn, along with the majority of corn grown in the U. S. will fin totallyy wind up in a lot everything we eat and use. He does a pleasing job of painting a prototype of this river of corn and how it ebbs and flows throughout our lives eroding whatever dietary connection we once competency have had to temperament. Nature is after all a system based on diversity and here we see an stainless nation built on and render by a single plant. The atomic number 6 in our flesh has level(p) been tested and the findings were we ar, after water, predominately corn. I was borrowle to suppose that there were too legion(predicate) chapters in this book about cornIt scantily kept going and going only when once I realized how such(prenominal) it is entwined in our lives and how perhaps this is the only(prenominal) government note of some iodine illuminating that truth it kickoffed to come along unavoidable. As those carbon tests showed we are what we eat, Pollan shows in his book we are what we eat eats. unspoilt as diversity is the spice of lifespan in an ecosystem so too is it necessary for the physical health of animals. We humans know that very easily and apply it promptly to our own diets nevertheless what happens when we dont allow nature to run its bloodline in the meals of our meals?The nutritional content suffers vastly to the acid where our entire notion of powerful foods is skewed. An example used by Pollan is our fancy of the nutritional content in red meat and fish. It is considered self-evident that an excess of red meat will cause all sorts of health problems. Likewise it is pretty well known that most fish, especially salmon, is large in the good omega 3 fats and should be a staple of our diets. izzard 3 fats are produced in the leaves of plants art object omega 6 fats are produ ced in the seeds of plants.If a alarm was deceive cater he would produce a fitter steak than the fillet of a farm elevated salmon. This is because that salmon is most managely raised on corn. One would think that the project side of this coin would be an native farm. Well that same person would plausibly be very shocked to strike what Michael Pollan had to say about organic. People susceptibility even incur duped by places like Whole Foods. As it is described in the book organic should realistically be read industrial organic for the farms and slaughterhouses are hardly different at all.In fact, instead of steering it onto a altogether new track the organic rules and regulations only make it that much harder to run a traditional industrial operation. What the author shows as the antithesis to industrial is pastoral. In this section he visits the polyface farm of Joel Salatin which is reminiscent of a farm you might find in the picture Babe. It is actually a huge minis tration to read about because up to this point in the book you are starting to fountainhead if this kind of farm even exists.In this parallel universe monoculture is a filthy word and the practices found in industrial food production are nothing short of reprehensible. This model mimics nature therefore it is complex and interdependent separately and every plant and animal are so entwined in each others existence it really begs the question what came first the chicken or the bullock block? But that is the whole point of polyface farming. except through diversity (and remaining in the local market) can sustainable agriculture be achieved. Or put other way, all of our environmental/agricultural problems start from attempting to create a monoculture ecosystem.Ruminants graze the grass chewing about ? of the blade succession simultaneously dropping cow pies. The coffin nail part of the grass that cows do not eat is favored by the chickens that follow in the hoof prints out fron t them. Around this time the cow patties start to grow ripe with larvae which become free protein for the chickens. While the chickens scratch around the cow dung they consequently spread the muck for the farmer. This is only a small function of the pie in terms of the interactions between all species that live and work on polyface.This is similarly one of the cycles of nature that if left to its own devises extinguishes the farmers need for pesticides and other harmful chemicals. Salatin could be seen as the conductor while all the other organisms of the farm are the musicians and the instruments he sees how nature works and makes sure all the conditions are perfect and helps nature along. With his many inventions and quirky optimistic attitude one cant help but picture a cartoon character. some(prenominal) times throughout the reading I was reminded of the industrial regeneration and not just because the industrial food chain was natural out of it.I found it interest how th e industrial food chain resembled the industrial revolution in conditions only. It was bleak, mechanical, and the conditions the animals are kept in are just dire and unsanitary. The mass wave of human intention and change that came out of the industrial revolution is absent from that food system but are absolutely present at polyface. Obviously this is just one farm so the analogy might be weak but I feel the conditions of this one farm, if recreated and multiplied, could produce some awing ideas and inspire positive change.