Circles+not+Lines-Sustainable+Circles

Jenny and Nic and Calder

The chicken feed not only feeds the broilers but, transformed chicken crap, feeds the grass that feeds the cows that, as I was about to see, feeds the pigs and the laying hens" (341).

"Is what I'm looking at in this pasture a system for producing exceptionally tasty eggs? If so, then the cattle and their manure are a means to an end. Or is it a system for producing grass-fed beef without the use of any chemicals, … Depending on the point of view you take-that of the chicken, the cow, or even the grass-the relationship between subject and object, cause and effect, flips" (212-213).

"But the relationship between cows and chicks on this farm takes the form of a loop rather than a line, and that makes it hard to know where to start, or how to distinguish between causes and effects, subjects and objects." (345)

"There [the pigs] will feed the grasses, so the grasses might again feed the cows, the cows the chickens, and so on until the snow falls...proof that in a world where grass can eat sunlight and food animals can eat grass, there is indeed a free lunch." (p219)

Circle's Not Lines Draft (Jenny): What does it mean to be "sustainable?" A sustainable farm is a system that takes the form of a loop rather than a line, and that makes it hard to know where to start, or how to distinguish between causes and effects, subjects and objects. It’s a "circle," not a "line." "The pigs will feed the grasses, so the grasses might again feed the cows, the cows the chickens, and so on until the snow falls...proof that in a world where grass can eat sunlight and food animals can eat grass, there is indeed a free lunch." Because of the way we are treating our earth, we are looking a severe damage and consequences. Without sustainability used in our everyday lives, we see our earth being damaged right before our eyes. Our green house gas emissions are escalating so fast that we are at risk of total global warming. I don't know about you, but I'd like to keep our earth the way it is, polar bears included. Each time you buy a package of Tyson chicken from the supermarket, you are "voting" to promote that company and essentially their values. By buying mass produced chicken, you are sending the message that you "vote" to keep that business going, all because it costs less than locally grown meat. However, by purchasing food from local farms that use grass-fed animals, we support the farmers who are sustainable, and actually help our earth, rather than damage it. We are not only making a healthier, more sustainable choice, but also a moral decision.

Draft (Calder): In a self-sufficient farm, food energy is recycled. The energy is passed from one organism to the next and eventually travels back in the form of a loop. Grass takes sun energy to covert nutrients into sugars. Farm animals eat the grass. Manure from the farm animals becomes nutrients and feeds the grass. So where does the cycle begin? Well... it depends on how you look at it. If the cows are the product, then they need the grass to grow, but the grass needs manure from the cow to grow. The benefit of not knowing where things start and end is knowing that there is no waste.

There are few self-sufficient farms. Industrial farming has monopolized our culture; however, industrial farming is a linear system. In this linear system, nothing is recycled, there are resources that become products but products don't become resources.The problem with this system is that the resources get depleted extremely quickly. Soon we'll have used up all the materials that can sustain our species.

In order to counteract this impending crisis, we need to act together to leave behind the industrial system that has become custom to us and resort to new methods. Methods which involve recycling resources like local, self-sufficient farms. Humans are a resilient species and one that has solved many problems in the past, so why shouldn't we solve this one?

Draft: (Nic) "But the relationship between cows and chicks on this farm takes the form of a loop rather than a line, and that makes it hard to know where to start, or how to distinguish between causes and effects, subjects and objects." – Joe Salatin

When you look at a farm what do you see? A line of events that happens one after the other that ends with waste. Farms today that aren't sustainable are most likely operating in a linear format. This format being at the start where materials are brought in like feed or energy in some way and it ends with waste being produced that is not used and is just put into the world.

If we are too keep up with this linear format, then we would keep pushing the world to the tipping point of global warming or to a point of using all raw materials where we have none left. This is one of the major causes of our planet going into chaos.

You may be thinking that you aren't on a farm so what does it matter? Have the farmers do it not me. Well, why do you think farmers don't do this method more? Farmers don't do it more often because we are not supporting as consumers for these kinds of farms. We aren't supporting these kinds of farmers because we are buying from companies that ship their products such as chicken from China or Beef from Turkey. If we were to support local farmers near you that are going in circles rather then lines, then you would have found your answer to what you can do to help the planet.