#agriculture
there is nothing morally wrong with eating dogs
the people farming and eating dogs in Asia are still people, just people raised in a different culture. they aren’t barbaric inhuman monsters to gawk at. they aren’t to be pointed at to be like “hey those terrible Asians eat dogs! Doesn’t that disgust you?”
people get killed for eating beef in India. western ideas of what meat is acceptable are not universal.
I’d also like to point out like the main reason people started eating dogs is because it’s a commonly avalible meat in those regions
This reminds me of these damn things on change.org
They( as in american citizens, not the citizens of china where it takes place)are litterally calling a small meat festival “ barbaric” and “ devilish”. They are calling poor people barbaric.
Keep in mind this is a poverty stricken province where living conditions arent great and their main concern is the dogs and cats involved? Not the people? I love cats as much as the next person but they have to use “ barbaric” tools aka not guns to kill the animals for meat to celebrate the summer solstice. They prepare meat like any other hunter prepares a deer. This is the issue with applying western ideologies to eastern cultures. Over there, dogs and horses are commonly consumed but here they are pets.
We dont starve like they do. We dont live under that government. Stupid ass americans stop calling poor people of color in other countries barbaric for eating the available meat they have cause they arent as privilaged as you and your vegan diet are challenge
would like to point out that a vast majority of “meat dogs” that get imported by rescues to the US (and other western countries) are bullshit, lies, and a marketing scheme, and the US general public falls for it because they believe chinese & korean people are heartless savages who eat every dog they see:
think about it. do we eat every chicken, hog, cow, etc. we have here in the west? no, because some are meat breeds, some are milk/egg breeds, and some are purely ornamental. an ornamental chicken breed is not going to taste good.
dog meat is exactly the same. the nureongi, a medium-size yellow spitz-type dog that’s bred for meat, is the most frequently eaten dog in korea & china. they aren’t eating desirable dogs like purebred beagles, poodles, goldens, and designer mixes. and yet, what are 99% of these alleged “meat dogs” being imported?
you guessed it, desirable dogs. never any nureongi - only purebred & designer mix ”meat dogs” that rescues buy en-masse from chinese & korean puppy mills to sell back in the US. both the rescues & the east asian puppy mills make a huge profit off of the ignorance of US “animal lovers”.
also, hot take: even actual meat dogs don’t need “rescuing”. people have every right to eat whatever animal they please. do you ever see people flying in from india to come “rescue” our cattle? no? so why is this acceptable? after all, we - the west - are the reason these people are so poor that they have to eat carnivores like dogs and cats. and they’ve been that poor for SO LONG that they’ve had the time to develop meat breeds.
rescue has become less about being practical, and more about virtue signaling & saving dogs with the most marketable sob stories rather than the ones that are actually adoptable. unlearn animal rights propaganda and realize that rescues are perfectly capable of lying and being greedy.
I wish there was more unbiased info on the markets. Most of the pictures I can find are, to be honest, horrific. BUT they all come from these groups in the US and Europe trying to get it all shut down so its seriously suspect if the pictures and videos are even real.
IF the conditions are what is in those pictures, the markets should be urged to change how they treat the animals. We have laws that dictate how beef cattle can and can not be treated. If they are abused, the farms and processors can be shut down and their animals taken away because, despite being raised for consumption, its the moral thing to do.
BUT, taking these sites at face value is like taking those PETA-light websites about “cow abuse” at face value.
not to mention banning something is a piss poor way to stop it from happening. if raising dogs for meat becomes illegal chances are those that still want dog meat will go underground. they’ll have to hide their operations and the dogs will likely be kept in worse conditions because of it. if its legal we can push for better inspection/welfare laws.
personally i think its more ethical to raise healthy dogs for meat than breeding pet pugs who have to spend their whole lives struggling to breathe.
“rescue has become less about being practical, and more about virtue signaling & saving dogs with the most marketable sob stories rather than the ones that are actually adoptable.” OOP
brooo I just found the best paper (article?) about CAM plants appropriate for food production in a region the writers term “Aridamerica” (in contrast with mesoamerica) that encompasses northern mexico, the sonoran desert, and part of arizona and nevada….it’s so fuckin good
An Aridamerican model for agriculture in a hotter, water scarce world
The article is the work of some researchers who examined ethnobotanical and historical sources, interviewed native people, and did ecological surveys in “Aridamerica”
Primarily they drew from the current and historical practices of the Comcaac (Seri people), O'odham, and Pima Bajo peoples. Here are a few excerpts from the article I really liked!
Agricultural visionaries from Argentina, Australia, North America, and elsewhere have been calling for “new roots for agriculture” for more than 40 years (Felger, 1975; Jackson, 1980). Their visions favor high biodiversity-low input agroecosystems, with greater emphasis on perennial polycultures. To quote pioneering desert botanist Richard Felger, to whom this article is dedicated, we must “fit the crops to the environment rather than remaking the environment to fit the crops.” Yet, to date few agronomists have given sufficient attention to effective means to reduce heat or moisture stress in crops and livestock, or in the humans who struggle to manage them (Nabhan, 2013).
The majority of widespread crops (e.g., rice, wheat, soybean) are C3 plants with low water-use efficiency and reduced photosynthetic efficiency under high temperatures. C4 crops (e.g., corn, sorghum, sugarcane) have higher heat tolerance but usually require reliable irrigation in arid and semi-arid land settings. As temperatures increase, so do evapotranspiration and water input required to maintain crop yields. Thus, even drought- and heat-tolerant varieties of conventional C3 and C4 crops may be unable to weather—let alone mitigate—the stressful agronomic conditions predicted for arid zones over the coming century. In contrast, wild desert plants have evolved multiple strategies to cope with heat and drought (Gibson, 1996). Desert plants with the crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) pathway uptake CO2 nocturnally when temperatures are cooler, thereby optimizing water-use efficiency (Nobel, 2010).
I really like the points they make here about C4 plants! Corn and sorghum are often listed as being more suitable for arid climates because of their improved temperature tolerance and water use efficiency compared to (for example) wheat or soybean. That said…both were originally tropical plants iirc, and while there are certainly drought-tolerant cultivars of both, they still use a *lot* of water in very hot and dry regions, and those well adapted cultivars aren’t the most commonly grown.
After gathering a list of plants commonly used as crops by the native people of these areas “For each species, we determined the photosynthetic pathway (C3, C4, CAM) and categorized water-acquisition strategy as extensive exploiter (e.g., Prosopis/mesquite), intensive exploiter (e.g., Salvia columbariae/chia, Phaseolus acutifolius/wild tepary bean), or water storer (e.g., Agave/agave, Opuntia/prickly pear)”
It’s really interesting to think abt those different drought strategies! For reference, extensive exploiters tend to have very wide+deep root systems that collect water from an extensivearea. Intensive exploiters tend to be found near temporary water courses that only hold water temporarily/for part of the year. This could mean washes/dry streambeds that flood in a storm, or rivers that dry up outside of the monsoon season. I know tepary beans typically grow quickly (often quoted as taking only 60 days from growth to seed set!) when water is available, then die and weather the hottest and driest season as dormant seeds. Water storer is pretty self-explanatory–agave and prickly pear are succulents that can store a tremendous amount of water in their tissues, saving it to tide them over until the next precipitation event.
Ultimately, the article graded a variety of plant genera on their agroecological suitability (how well they grow in an arid environment), any potential medicinal uses, their community/social value (cultural importance, providing shade in communal areas, etc.), and their agronomical suitability (can it be grown at scale, is there a market for it, etc.) I won’t bother to list them here–you can go see the whole chart in the linked article–but it’s a very interesting list!
More of my sunflowers at sunset shots from 9/13/21.
I tried using the lens flare from last nights setting sun to create a leading line. I would say mission accomplished. Taken 9/13/21. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunset-sunflower-henry-wagner.html
Sunset on the family farm. Taken 8/12/21. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunset-on-the-farm-henry-wagner.html
Pierre Rabhi et Thomas Sankara…
have just learned that federally, agriculture workers are exempt from overtime pay
Like. People can really ask someone to go out and work a field 70 hours a week, and not even pay them overtime. You’d get 70 hours of minimum wage.
I’ve been in agriculture my whole life and while I am salaried now, every job where I was an hourly, I got paid overtime after 40 hours. AND YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT WASN’T LEGALLY REQUIRED AND I’VE JUST LUCKED OUT ON THE COMPANIES I’VE WORKED FOR THIS WHOLE TIME?
And only like five states have decided “hey that’s bullshit so we’re gonna actually pay overtime” but they are “PHASING IT IN” which means this year they pay overtime after 55 hours?? And then 2023 they’ll pay overtime after 48??? Bro????