USDA aims to tighten grazing standards for organic cows 6

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1. 

   Wolverine Posted 2:05 pm
   05 Nov 2008

   Three Boos For USDAThis is actually very bad for the environment.  You're conflating animal rights with the environment by praising this.  Cattle are non-native, unnatural animals that do great harm when they graze natural areas, especially in the western U.S.  The natural environment would be far better off if they were never let out of their barns.

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2. 

   Pangolin Posted 3:26 pm
   05 Nov 2008

   Just try and milk an american bisonAfter she's given you a good goring and trampled you to death you're not going to have very much in the bucket left to make cheese out of.
   Sorry Wolverine but even the local natives only eat acorn meal a few times a year and the immigrants never do. As long as we're eating animal protein keeping the 1200 lb. bio-reactor alive and harvesting 13 times their weight in milk they yield  per calf is a better deal.
   It's a nice fantasy but the return of the buffalo commons is a long way off.

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3. 

   caniscandida Posted 4:28 pm
   05 Nov 2008

   Don't blame the cows!It is true that we have here yet another case in which animal-rights ethics and environmental ethics perhaps come into conflict.  But it is not necessarily more than a short-term problem, so long as we are seriously committed to reducing and reforming the dairy industry.
   Meanwhile, the individual cows who are alive and hungry today certainly do not deserve to be punished.  We can let them have their pasture, in the short term, provided we allow their herds to dwindle away naturally.

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4. 

   SkyHunter Posted 5:05 am
   06 Nov 2008

   Milk=vealWhether it is organic or not is irrelevant.
   
   In order to keep cows producing milk they must be kept impregnated.
   
   If you drink milk at all you are supporting the veal industry.
   
   http://www.tomregan-animalrights.com/archive/veal.html

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5. 

   sustainableearth Posted 3:34 pm
   08 Nov 2008

   grazingActually, cattle are grazers just like bison were, so they help fill the niche that bison used to, although I agree that public lands are often sensitive and shouldn't necessarily be grazed.  Well managed pasture, on the other hand, is good for the environment in that it can sequester a lot of carbon.  Pasture based farming and strict grazing standards are a big plus for the environment when done right.

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6. 

   flomiller Posted 12:42 am
   25 Nov 2008

   grass versus grainTrampling may well be a significant localized issue, and the environmental effects of grazing will vary according to farmers' management practices, but feeding cattle grain instead of grass is vastly more consequential in terms of climate change. Even if the grain is grown organically, there's the energy put into growing, processing and distributing it.

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