__________________________________________________ __________
From: diderot >
Subject: collateral included deaths in organic rice production [faq]
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 09:21:44 EDT
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animal s,rec.food.veg
Message-ID: >

>faq: collateral included deaths in organic rice production
>posting frequency: monthly to a.a.e.v., t.p.a., r.f.v. and other
>newsgroups as requested. corrections or additions are solicited
>.
>
>a.a.e.v. and t.p.a. are regularly visited by a number of vegetarians who
>believe(?) their dietary choice: 'saves animals' or is, somehow, 'less
>cruel' than an omnivorous diet.
>
>simply, this assertion does not pass even the most cursory, minimally
>applied logic, not to mention any degree of even the simplest research.
>
>the facts are that modern, large-scale cereal grain production comes at
>a minimum cost of _several deaths per pound_, whereas grass-fed meat
>production, whether from production agriculture or hunting is counted
>_several pounds per death_. it is absolutely inescapable that: from
>death comes life, and agricultu is, always has been, and always will
>be a bloody, bloody business. anybody who believes that by eating a
>pound of pasta instead of a pound of venison they are 'saving a life' is
>delusional.
>
>evaluating organic production is instructive for several reasons: many
>well-meaning, good-at-heart people believe organic = 'better, healthier'
>(it is not, necessarily), and the number of included collateral deaths -
>while considerably fewer than in 'conventional' production - are much
>more visible; more personal; more illustrative for those who favour
>responsibility and information.
>
>this analysis of collateral included deaths is a refinement and
>extension of an earlier abbreviated case study posted to a.a.e.v. in
>october 1998. additional information and analysis based on further
>interviews and observations is included in this iteration.
>
>---------
>
>although i no longer straddle a tractor or herd a combine, i have driven
>both - literally - thousands of miles. i am still engaged in
>agribusiness, and we have organic as well as conventional farms, organic
>'truck farms' and ranching operations. in production agriculture, i am
>most familiar with: rice, grain sorgham, cotton, sunflowers and
>soybeans. the facts, data, assumptions and conclusions, while developed
>on two organic rice farms (900 and 160 acres) and one 'conventional'
>rice farm of 1340 acres in colorado county, texas, are probably
>more-or-less applicable to other cereal grains grown in other localés.
>
>production on the organic farms is about 3500-4000 pounds/acre for the
>jasmine farm (900 ac) and the shortgrain farm (160 ac), while on the
>'conventional' longrain farm, it is 9000-11000 pounds, annualised. our
>organic operations produce seed rice and none of it goes (directly) from
>our farm to your table (although it does indirectly and we thank you for
>your partonage). because of economics and ability to produce, we will
>be adding an additional 1500-2000 acres of organic rice production
>within the next three years. although organic is considerably more of a
>pain-in-the-ass to grow, the r.o.i. is better than twice that of
>conventional rice.
>
>a very conservative annualised estimate of vertebrate deaths in organic
>rice farming is ~20 pound (arithmetic follows). this works out a bit
>less than two vertebrate deaths per square foot, and, again, is *quite*
>conservative. for conventionally grown rice, the gross body-count is
>*at least* several times that figure. collateral included deaths from
>'conventional' agriculture are more inferential than from 'organic'
>production (explained later) and, although the number of deaths is fewer
>in organic v. conventional, they are far more visible in organic
>production.
>
>the vertebrate deaths come from: frogs (5+ species), toads (common
>bufo), anole lizards, shrews (3 species), voles, mice, rats, snakes, a
>couple of kinds of turtles, cats, rabbits, skunk, nutria & muskrats,
>raccoons, possums, deer (never less than a pair of fawns harvested per
>50 acres), pheasants, quail, pigeons, cattle egrets, sparrows,
>starlings, waxwings, .... although all of these are not harvested
>*every* time, they are the 'regulars.' occasionally a canvasback, teal,
>heron, mallard, black duck, coot, spoonbill, crow, hawk, kite, eagle,
>buzzard ... is shredded, as is the occasional feral pig or lost calf,
>coyote or dog.
>
>for information, an acre has 43,264+ square feet. the vast majority of
>the deaths are (as one would imagine): frogs, toads and anole lizards;
>rodents and insectivores.
>
>- when cutting the rice, there is a - literal - green waterfall of frogs
>and anoles moving in front of the combine. sometimes the 'rain' is just
>a hard shower (± 10,000 frogs per acre) crossing the header, other times
>it is a deluge (+50,000 acre). never is it a drought; never a mist.
>sometimes, the number of frogs swimming across the cutter-bar is so
>massive, we have to reduce travel speed of the combine - there is just
>too much rice lost by being pressed into the rather thickish 'arroz con
>gracielà paté' which travels across the screens, rather than falling
>into the hopper as good grain should.
>
>these numbers may sound extreme to those who believe there is a wildlife
>de-population crisis, but considering one can easily see 10-20-30+ frogs
>(and several anoles) within the top few inches of a foot stand of rice,
>the numbers making gracielà paté are trivial.
>
>most times, judging from the visible continuious population swimming
>across the header, it is somewhere between 10K & 50+K per acre
>harvested. a good, reasonable, annualised (but still conservative)
>number of amphibian and anole deaths through the combine is 35,000 of
>all species harvested per acre, combined average for two cuttings. in
>spite of these seemingly large numbers, far, far more frogs & lizards
>escape than are combined. i would guess that the 35,000 amphibian
>deaths represents less than 20% of the total population, and probably
>far less, but that is just a guess - plenty, plenty, plenty are not
>killed.
>
>most amphibians are harvested during the first cutting in mid-summer.
>during the early fall second cutting, the population is not as great, so
>the body count is lower during the second bite at the apple (so to
>speak), so the 35,000 (conservative annualised average) is front-loaded,
>probably 25,000 + 10,000 deaths.
>
>- rodents and insectivores get hammered pretty much year-round, with all
>the dirt work, cultivation and harvesting activities and, for rice
>specifically, the near-continuious cycle of flooding and drying the
>fields. i have seen responsible estimates of rodent/insectivore
>population of 9-35 square meter, and i think the 35/meter is probably
>more accurate (in this area, anyhow) judging from the 500 yard-long,
>foot-wide windrows of drowned grey and brown on the lee-side levee
>whenever the rice is flooded. very conservatively - since nobody sees
>plowed-up or planed-in mice (whose deaths have to be substantial in
>number) assume 3/4th of one collateral included death per square foot,
>or ±33,000 rodents and insectivores killed per acre of production.
>again, this is a *very* conservative measure and covers a lot of
>activity year-round. the *real* number of rodent/insectivore deaths
>probably well exceeds two/square foot.
>
>- a lot of birds get combined-up, and nutria, and more than one or two
>deer, but another substantial source of death during all operations is
>being crushed & buried. the tires on tractors and combines are 42"
>wide, and there are two on each side. there is no way to tell how many
>frogs, toads, snakes, turtles, ... get blended into the mud, but it is
>not an insignificant number. other than amphibians and
>rodents/insectivores, the numbers of other deaths is difficult to assign
>a competent number, but the number is not small.
>
>the arithmetic: for 3,500 pounds/acre harvested, there is a toll of
>35,000 amphibians and 33,000 rodents and insectivores, or 68,000, plus,
>say, (to make the math easy while still being conservative) 2,000 from
>mud-mixed frogs and snakes + birds + nutria and muskrats and cats and
>coons and possums + ... + ..., or ± 70,000 deaths per acre of harvested,
>production-farmed organic rice. this works out to ~20 deaths per pound
>of rice - conservatively.
>
>---------
>
>for conventional farming, using every _________icide when needed, the
>body count is at least an order of magnitude higher, although the deaths
>are far less visible.
>
>one can stand between the larger organic field and the 1340 any time
>between april and june and hear the difference. in the organic field,
>you cannot discern an individual frog. it is an overgrown, jumbled
>layered cacaphony of croaks, cheeps, grunts and miscellaneous ribbets.
>on the 1340, one can hear and identify individual frogs and toads. the
>difference is that the billions of amphibian eggs that were laid when
>the 1340 was flooded at the same time and in the same fashion as the 900
>didn't make many tadpoles and fewer frogs due to applications of
>pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and fungicides.
>
>closer to harvest, after the application of other _________icides, the
>1340 is nearly mute and still.
>
>the rodents and insectivores go the same route. at the end of a row, in
>the 1340, rarely does one see any significant number of small fuzzies
>scurrying over the levee; in the organic fields, the end of the row
>looks like a scene from ~ben~.
>
>one can tell the difference after harvest, also. on the organic field,
>as the combine passes, the wall of birdlife: hawks of several varieties,
>crows, kites, buzzards, egrets, herons, ... descends to glean both
>escapees and paté. on the 1340, there are still quite a number of
>birds, but nowhere near the solid covering of the organic side.
>
>---------
>
>none of these figures include displacement or deaths due to
>transportation or infrastructure, nor any pest control measure during
>storage or transporation.
>
>nor are insect deaths counted, and insects are animals, too, but most
>involved-in-body-count vegetarians prefer to ignore or minimise deaths
>of other than cute or furry critters.
>
>are there ways to reduce collateral included deaths in modern production
>agriculture? not really. reductions can be made with more hand-work in
>smaller fields using 'appropriate technology', but when tractors and
>combines get involved, deaths go up. the overall animal population and
>mix in the area farmed has a lot to do with what kind of deaths are
>seen, too. this case study references a semi-tropical mixed-use area
>with short-grass prarie, woods, row-crop farming and rice cultivation.
>there are more large vertebrates of different species in this ecosystem
>than there will be in an area that is horizon-to-horizon monoculture.
>where we will regularly harvest deer, nutria and wild pigs, etc., all of
>these would not normally be expected in northern california, for
>example.
>
>from death comes life. agricultu is now, always has been and always
>will be a bloody business.
>
>buon apetité.
>
>cordially,
>diderot