Midweek Linkage

Everybody (who counts) seems thrilled about Obama's nomination of Kathleen Merrigan for Deputy Agriculture Secretary. It looks as if the President is maintaining his trend of counterpoise, with Merrigan the yin to Tom Vilsack's yang.

This is a nice older article from the St. Pete Times about a northern Florida version of libertarian uber-farmer Joel Salatin. "Screw the conventional, big agricultural model, and screw the U.S.D.A. for prostitution to industrial interests and monolithic heavy-handedness":

After the state Department of Agriculture shut [Stoltzfoos] down for five months in 2005, he received a license to market his eggs, poultry and dairy products as pet food.

Selling raw milk for humans is illegal in Florida, and, according to many food scientists, dangerous and foolish. The fat-soluble vitamins in milk, A and D, stand up well to the heat of pasteurization and even ultra-pasteurization, when milk is heated briefly above the boiling point. Raw milk drinkers risk E. coli outbreaks, such as the one that swept through a natural foods co-op in Washington state in 2005.

Other scientists say there is no doubt milk from grass-fed cows is higher in vitamins and essential fatty acids and that pasteurization destroys some nutrients, including beneficial bacteria. Also, they say, raw milk from small farms is safer than milk from the filthy, urban dairies that created an outcry for pasteurization in the early 20th century.

New Yorkers are trying their hands (and turning their noses up) at vermiculture. I think city-dwellers need firsthand contact with organic processes--a world with more stink and less geometry. Whether in food or tennis shoes, we've all got to overcome the meretriciousness and obscurity of the market.

Got some time and a yen for edification? Read "Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America" from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. The PDF is available at Pew Charitable Trusts' Save Antibiotics site--well worth exploring.

Got more time and a modicum of curiosity? Then find out where your fresh fruits and vegetables come from with this calculator from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Newsflash, Georgia: You may be the domestic leader in greens, but the Peach State trails California, New Jersey, Washington, and South Carolina in producing its namesake crop.

Yes, New Jersey.