Page 64 - Fall2013

All Thumbs Book Reviews

either. They are doing the same kind of thing in in undocumented immigrant workers who won’t complain about conditions
the sea with fish. On land and sea the toxicity of because they fear getting in trouble or being shipped back to their home
these operations threatens not only themselves country where things may be even worse. The work is painful, backbreak-
but the wildlife around them. ing and mind-numbing. Turnover is high because no one can take it for
All this is not bad enough, so they pile ge- very long. While we sanctimoniously look down our noses at sweat shops
netic modification on top of all that. And cloning. and slave labor in Asia or elsewhere, we ignore the very same squalor in
The strange thing about genetic engineering our own backyard.
and cloning is that they don’t work. Genetically This book is seriously depressing. You can tell what you are in for just
engineered crops are not more robust or more by looking at the cover photo of the dim interior of a hog concentration
productive than their conventional counterparts. camp. Given the subject matter this is hardly surprising but the gloom
They are certainly more expensive. Over ninety and doom is relieved somewhat by solutions offered in the last several
percent of cloning attempts fail completely and chapters. There are some good suggestions, but I see the letters FDA or
less than one percent produces anything close to USDA a number of times with little explanation as to how these industry-
a healthy adult. The only reason factory farms controlled parts of the problem are to be magically converted into part of
can begin to compete with small farms, besides the solution.
the support of government subsidies, is the fact Almost at the very end of the book, however, we get a philosophical
that they can legally get away with destroying breath of fresh air from Joel Salatin. His solution does not depend on the
their environment. Small farms can’t. beneficence of the FDA or USDA or their industrial puppet masters. In fact,
Biodiversity is in rapid decline. Factories are he points out that the right answers will not come from pinstripe suits. He
not interested in diversity. They want consistent paints a hilarious picture of big dairy’s ultimate dream of a single giant
results that come as efficiently as possible. They cow connected by pipelines to the whole country. We need to go back to
look for one optimum breed and ignore all the many small farms and more locally sourced food. He illustrates how this
others. In the dairy industry, the Holstein is can be done with an interesting observation about Havana, Cuba, a city
over-bred while other breeds disappear. In the of over two million people. When Cuba’s cheap energy from the Soviet
chicken industry, White Leghorns and White Union ended, things had to change in a big way. Around three-quarters
Cornish Cross boilers rule. Not only do we lose of the food consumed in Havana is now produced on scores of small lots
variety but the situation is dangerous because right within the city limits.
pandemic disease is a much greater threat within Mr. Salatin has his own unique way of articulating his agreement
a monoculture. If a disease comes along that with other authors on the problem with modern science. He points out
wipes out all Holsteins it would be nice to have that “Greco-Roman Western reductionist linear systematized fragmented
other breeds to fall back on that are immune. It disconnected compartmentalized thinking” is not working. As I have said
was this emphasis on a single species of potato elsewhere, and I know Joel Salatin would agree, I’m not against science or
that led to the crop disaster that produced the technology per se, just this modern caricature of science. Science minus
Irish potato famine. morality equals GMO, CAFO, etc. I prefer science with a set of morals and
Joel Salatin has said elsewhere that a culture a heart, science that understands that there is a more important question
that abuses its animals will abuse its people. We than, “Can we do it?” More importantly, "Should we do it?" I prefer sci-
are there. Steve Striffler goes into some detail ence and technology that thinks deeper than dollars and works with nature
about conditions on a butchering line. At times instead of trying to destroy or enslave it. It is impossible to completely
and in many places there are no bathroom breaks. agree with every detail that the many authors of this book bring up but the
If you need to go, you go right there on the line. overall work is very thorough and well done. My natural thumb is UP.
If you get hurt, you just keep working. If you Review by Tim Boyd
can’t, you are out of a job. If there is a nurse in
the plant, she gives you an aspirin and sends you
back to work. Large operations knowingly truck
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