PF
The Land. Bugger I didnt know.Thats great. Was it the Land NSW or?

Yes The Humane Society NSW is fantasic I agree.

As Yabby will tell you I am a dreamer. I will disclose one of my greatest dreams I would like to achieve before I leave this earth.

Thats is to have the Humane Society NSW in charge of Animal Welfare with hand picked staff from RSPCA and some of the others under their umbrella along with good farmers.(mind you I never asked them)

To find a company to compete with elders and awb and work through the UN with a programe which would enable to have good farmers to teach proper free range farming.

I know you said you thought that would be a nightmere and I am listening.?

With world shortage of food these people like Pace ALP just to mention a few can not expect everybody to sit back.

There are people with vast amounts of funds happy to move in and cash in on the adverse efects of all the publicity some of these intensive farmers have created world wide.

People overseas are more aware of diseases that are caused by intensive farms.

I suspect that some see it as the best darn brand for advertsing their new free range products.

The problem is of course doing this on such a large scale they would require farmers prepaired to train sea change people and migrants who would eventually possible work under some sort of franchise - possible so we could keep control of standards.

Clearly the Governments wont support it because they are in bed with the cruel indusrty.

So it really does come back to- A few good men with good will and more importantly some good farmers interested to teach and educate or perhaps to extend their own label.

Contact with members of all animal groups too ask them if they would like to participate assisting to find farms and property suitable.
( Thats the tough one)
Is the favour still happening? Let us know so we can ask again if required.

Nicky, nobody claimed you were alone in being a fanatic, there are quite a lot out
there. But we have separate issues here. Animal liberation as an ideology, animal
welfare-which society on the whole supports, then environmental issues due to
factory farming.

I read your URL written by Mark Bittman, who writes cookery books. He is writing
one on vegetarian cooking this time, so its not surprising that he is no doubt looking for more customers for his books!

I see no separation in the article between natural farming, ie grazing, and intensive
factory farming, which is due to consumer demand for marbled meat in say the
beef industry. The environmental outcomes are also quite different, one is sustainable,
the other is much like many human activities, dependant on cheap oil.

*30 percent of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock
production*

Umm, so what? Herbivores eating grasslands and predators eating herbivores
is as natural as you can get. You could leave the dead herbivores for the ants,
or all the land could burn with high heat intensity as the other option.
As conservationists are finally learning, too much fuel load is asking for trouble,
as when fire hits eventually, the damage is untold worse.

Lots of soils are simply not suitable for constant cropping or cropping at all.

As to feedlotting in Australia, off the top of my head there are something
like 28 million cattle in Australia, half a million of them in feedlots, with most
of the meat going to Japan and Korea,as that’s what they want and pay for.

That’s maybe 2% of the herd, the other 98% is free range. With sheep its
not far off being the whole herd. Free range beef and lamb is our main activity,
unlike some overseas countries.

In WA the RSPCA certainly does prosecute farmers, plus AFAIK the Govt hired
some further livestock inspectors, so its not as bad as you make out.

Your dogs would soon learn to hunt, if they were hungry, its in their genes.

Yabby said

In WA the RSPCA certainly does prosecute farmers, plus AFAIK the Govt hired
some further livestock inspectors, so it’s not as bad as you make out.

Pale replies

You mean the DPI put on another six people don’t you? And AQIS
Please explain to what advantage you see this as being to the Animals
Also what training you think these people have if any in particular and what Have they been mainly directed to BOL Be on the Look Out For

Yabbs s said=
Your dogs would soon learn to hunt, if they were hungry, it’s in their genes.
Unless your dogs are very old, I’d wager quite a large sum of money on the fact
that if they spent a few minutes with my dogs, learning about the joys of chasing
rabbits, you’d be shocked at your babies’ ability to scrunch them up for joy or
food.
Pale relies.
Err; Yabbs are you not shooting yourself in the foot and your argument down the drain.
I mean I know you love to torment but hey where is this ` new age ` caring farmer. You know that farmer that has been the selling the official position of compassion and the super softies bending over backwards to protect all animals from unnecessary cruelty and re educate those cruel Arabs.

Spreading throughout ME our soft hearted Aussie live exporters compassion. Umm.

BTW I don’t know any farmers who allow let alone encourage their dogs to pull down any animals.
Mind you for all I know this might be some new sport exclusive to live animal exporters.:)

I have knocked around with Bushy and Aboriginals and Ringers but nobody allowed their dogs to do that.
It just says something about the man himself.
No it’s not a real Bushmen’s way. My Dad would never have let his dogs tear a rabbit apart. Most farmers wouldn’t either. Once started they can move onto larger animals like Calves lambs and neighbors stock or even their pets.
You will be pleased to know however I do agree with you about something
Genes:)

1,055,000 Cattle, 3,000,000 sheep, 85,000 goats, 862,000 pigs.
They are the slaughter figures just for NSW this year. It is going to take a hell of a lot of fanaticism to stop that.

Nicky, I agree that we should consume a lot less meat, not because I believe the world should be vegetarian though. Factory farming has created such an imbalance and the cost to the environment and human health is immense.

How much should we eat? If we were forced to go back to basics and hunt our food as nature intended us to, how often would that be? One meal a day instead of the 3 many comsume now? A couple of times a week maybe?

Man has become so lazy and completely out of touch with how his food is produced resulting in a lack of respect or appreciation of the food on his table. He is also blind to the risks that 'produced' food could present to him.

Vegetarianism is not the answer, the end of intensive farming is.

"Whenever we try to rearrange natural systems along the lines of a machine or a factory, whether by raising too many pigs in one place or too many almond trees, whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency, we sacrifice in biological resilience." Michael Pollan.

PF, you are so right. Yabby - some soils are too de-graded for cropping (or words to that effect - that would be partly as a result of grazing "exotic" hooved animals (sheep and cattle). Feedlots are a total abomination not much better than intensive pigand chicken farming. The ones I have seen had a sea of sick looking cattle who literally could not move. I don't even want to think about the effluent run-off.

PALE - as I understand it, Queensland is the only state where the DPI assumes control of the "welfare" of farm animals, which means of course that nothing would be done.

The six general inspectors appointed in WA were hand-picked, I'm told - at least one is a former RSPCA inspector who despaired of the RSPCA.

I hear that Bernie Murphy, the President of RSPCA NSW has resigned citing ill-health. In SA, the President is a vivisectionist who experiments on animals for APL and chicken farming operations.

In Tasmania, the RSPCA has become so corrupt that the President quit over the less than honest actions of the CEO, along with two very long-standing board members. I understand that it received a huge donation, which was withdrawn after some flexibility with the truth on the part of the CEO, and the money was given to another group down there.

Victoria? Well, Wirthless is the president, so enough said.

There is a website called RSPCA Watchdog (or something similar).

PF - if your project is the labelling issue, I hope it has gone brilliantly for you (I couldn't find anythinf in the online version of The Land).

Yabby, I wouldn't a) let my dogs ever go that hungry and b) let them even get close to another animal they could kill. Neither should you, if that's what happens. Do you enjoy watching it? I agree with PALE on this one. Only a live exporter would think that that's fun.

Cheers
Nicky

Gawd, we have a bunch of old grandmas on this thread :)

Now let me see, rabbits are around the place, even around the
sheds etc. Eagles fly overhead and divebomb em, sink their
claws in and I guess hack em to death with their beaks, although
not around the house etc. Foxes wander around and as long as
they can outrun the rabbits, or suprise them near any warrens,
they will scrunch them to death. If these same rabbits come around
the house and sheds, well of course the dogs will chase them
and do exactly what foxes do! Except the dogs usually don't eat them,
just bring them on the verandah and leave them there for all to
see.

Has it never occurred to you girls that eagles, foxes and dogs
are all part of nature? Ok Gertrude, I shall instruct the dogs
to use a stun gun from now on :)

As to soils Nicky, we have arid areas and very clapped out old
soils, some of earths oldest soils in WA. Dust etc is more a
question of stocking rate. If people don't overstock, then its
not a problem.