Ecology and Farming

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Of course, this new way of farming will likely require a new way of being in the world. Humans can no longer regard themselves as somehow separate from the ecosphere of which they are an integral part, and so the way we see animals and plants will likely change as well. Perhaps the Canadian ecologist Stan Rowe best articulated what is missing in our current perception and attitude, a perception and attitudinal shift that also may change the way we view animals in Organic Agriculture. “The missing concept is the ecological one of landscapes-as- ecosystems, literally “home systems,” . . . We have been taught that we are separate living things, but not so . . . The health of each and all is our health”. “The missing attitude is sympathy with and care for the land and water ecosystems that support life. It will come when we make the concept of a planetary home part of our daily thought, part of our hearts and imaginations . . . Human beings, incorrigibly species-minded, have difficulty conceiving that things other than themselves (with the exception of some look-alike animals) merit compassionate attention”. In this new world, it will be more difficult to draw lines between “sentient” and “non-sentient” organisms. Everything in nature is part of the same food chain, and so it is hard to make ethical distinctions between the life of a pig and the life of an asparagus plant or the life of an earthworm. It is all part of the ecosphere and the cycle of life, death, eating, offal, decay, and new life goes on - and we humans are simply part of the drama. The Native American tribes who offered prayers of apology every time they harvested a plant or root or animal to feed themselves probably had it right. We all kill living things to eat, and in turn we offer our bodies to decay and become food for other living things. The ecology of life goes on - animals are an integral part of that food chain and so are we. References 1. Rudolf Steiner, 1993. English edition, Agriculture. Kimberton, PA: Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association, Inc. 27. 2. Herman E. Daly, 1999. Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Press. Daly argues that all of our industrial economies must face the fact that these two resources, vital to the success of all industrial economies, now are in a state of depletion and we therefore must shift to a new economy that is based on recycling and self-renewal. 3. Sir Albert Howard, 1943. An Agricultural Testament, New York: Oxford University Press. 1. 4. Brian Halweil, 2006. “Can Organic Farming Feed us All? World-Watch. May/June. 20. 5. Masae Shiyomi and Hiroshi Koizumi, 2001. Structure and Function in Agroecosystem Design and Management. New York: CRC Press. 6. 6. Takao Furuno, 2001. The Power of Duck. Sisters Creek, Tasmania, Australia: Tagari Publications. 73. 7. Aldo Leopold, 1945. “The Outlook for Farm Wildlife,” in J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle (eds), 1999. For the Health of the Land. Washington, DC: Island Press. 218. 8. Stan Rowe, 2002. Home Place: Essays on Ecology. Edmonton, Alberta: NeWest Press. 23-24. dr. Fred KirSchenmann iOwa State univerSity DiStinguiShED FEllow For thE lEopolD cEntEr For SuStainablE agriculturE email: leopold1@iastate.edu Under the Patronage of DISCOVER International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements Thousands of Certified Organic Products Baltimore Convention Center Baltimore, MD USA EDUCAtion AnD EvEntS: Wed-Sat, September 26-29, 2007 trADE ShoW: thurs-Sat, September 27-29, 2007 Co-located with In Partnership with Register Today! Registration is FREE for qualified retail buyers, brokers and distributors until August 24, 2007. Go back to the Table of Contents > expoeast.com/opeba 1.866.458.4935 1.303.390.1776 tradeshows@newhope.com EE07031 Produced by New Hope Natural Media, a division of Penton Media, Inc. AT EcoFarm_qrt vert_bw.indd 1 1/16/07 11:29:11 AM 32 Special Feature: Animals in Organic Production Ecology & Farming | SEptEmbEr - DEcEmbEr 2006
Animals in Translation by Dr. Temple Grandin To understand how an animal perceives the world you have to get away from language. That is easy for me to do because I think in pictures and language narrates the picture I see in my mind. It is like having Google for images inside my head. Animal thinking is sensory based, it can be visual, auditory, smell, touch, or taste. To form a simple concept, pictures or other sensory data is placed into categories. Neuroscience research is now showing that the brain creates “file folders” to categorize information. A common unfortunate categorization that many dogs make is ladies are nice and men are mean. For cattle, a man on foot and a man on horseback are categorized as different things. Since the memories are stored as pictures it makes sense that a man on foot and a man on a horse are two different pictures. It is important for cattle to experience both visions so they do not panic when they are moved to a new place. Animals often associate a certain place with bad experiences. For this reason it is very important that your animal’s first experience in a new corral or barn is good. Animals should be walked quietly in the new corral and fed. Walking them through the chutes and feeding them when they exit is recommended. When you may have to do something painful in the future, the animal will associate it with something else such as extra people instead of associating it with the corrals. It had previously learned that the corral was safe. The corrals are now in a “safe” file folder and the extra people in the corral is in an “unsafe” or “bad” file. Avoid Fear Memories Research by a scientist named Joseph LeDoux has shown that severe fear memories can never be erased. The brain can suppress the fear memory but it is still in the animal’s brain. To use computer terminology the file can be closed by learning but it can never be deleted. Teaching an animal with high strung nervous genetics to get over its fear can be difficult. Reducing fear will improve the productivity of farm animals. Australian researcher Paul Hamsworth found that sows that back away and were afraid of people had 6% fewer piglets than sows that were not afraid of people. Further research by Dr. Hamsworth indicated that dairy cattle that had been treated roughly gave less milk. Good stockmanship pays and it improves animal welfare. New experiences are both scary and attractive to animals. New things are attractive when an animal can voluntarily approach them, but scary when they are suddenly shoved in an animal’s face. The best way to introduce a new piece of equipment such as a tractor is to let animals approach it and feed them near it. If it was used to chase animals the first time they saw it, it may be difficult to get them to stop fearing it. Special Feature: Animals in Organic Production 33
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