Organic, etc.
Important environmental benefits of organic farming:
1. Organic farming maintains the quality of the soil
2. Organic farming fosters biodiversity
3. Organic farming reduces pollution from nitrogen run-off
4. Organic farming avoids the heavy pesticide and herbicide use typical of conventional farming
5. Organic farming uses less energy for a given yield than conventional farming
6. Organic farming stores more carbon in the soil, thus off-setting carbon dioxide emissions
In Britain, bodies like the Soil Association and the Biodynamic Agricultural Association (Demeter) have set standards higher than the European Union's standards for organic egg production. For example, where the EU regulations allow flocks of up to 9000 chickens to be housed in a single shed, the Soil Ass. allows a maximum of 2000 and in many cases, sets a limit of 500. The Soil Ass. and Demeter also have higher standards for the quality of the pasture, setting longer intervals during which the grass must be rested before chickens can be returned to it.
Like human females, dairy cows do not give milk until they have given birth, and their milk production will begin to decline some six months after the birth. So after they reach maturity they are made pregnant by artificial insemination roughly every year. Although the natural lifespan of a cow is around 20 years, dairy cows are usually killed at between 5 and 7 years of age, because they cannot sustain the unnaturally high rate of milk production.
Fish farming is the latest agricultural revolution and the fastest growing form of food production in the world. In 1970 it contributed only 3 percent of the world's seafood. Now about a third of the fish and other seafood we eat is farmed; the weight of farmed fish produced exceeds that of the global production of beef. Almost all of this is highly intensive production. In the fjords and coastal inlets along the coast of Norway, Britain, Iceland, Chile, China, Japan, Canada, the United States, and many other countries, cages or nets that may be more than 200 feet long and 40 feet deep have been lowered into the sea and secured to platforms from which workers feed the fish. With salmon, 50 000 fish may be confined in each sea cage, at a stocking density that is equivalent to putting each 30-inch salmon in a bathtub of water.
It is much less likely, however, that bivalves like clams, scallops, oysters, and mussels could experience pain. So when these shellfish are sustainably produced, there isno strong ethical reason against eating them.
If we really want to save energy, we should buy only fresh, unprocessed local food, grown outdoors, and eat it raw, or with minimal cooking.
Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement argues that if not having some foods all year round is a constraint, it is much less of a constraint than 'to be forced to eat standarized, tastless industrial food products full of preservatives and artificial flavourings' and species of fruit and vegetables 'with characteristics functional only to the food industry and not to the pleasure of food'.
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/publications/consumers.html
http://www.farmgatedirect.com
http://www.ethicalfoods.co.uk
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk
http://www.farma.org.uk
http://www.organicfood.co.uk
http://www.whyorganic.org
http://www.seafoodchoices.org
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/goodstuff/shrimp
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/may/2003/165
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/publications/fish.html
http://www.oceansalive.org
