My Rural Travelogue (Part XLII): Promoting local food, including wild edibles, in Japan

Ad for ice cream at a Teshikaga (Hokkaido) ramen house
features a photo of the farm family (4 children!) who produce the milk--
and, of course, one of the cows.

During my recent trip to Japan, I noticed a lot of promotion and advertising that played up the origin of food--usually its local origin. In this photo-dense post, I'm going to feature some of what I saw.  (All photos are (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2025) 

I first noticed the attention to local food in Kanazawa, on the west coast of Honshu, where the breakfast place mats at our Hyatt Centric hotel noted local milk products and featured the label, "Kanazawa Local Style" (lower left quadrant).  It mentioned local eggs and some other local produce.  

Breakfast placemat Hyatt Centric Kanazawa

Then, in Osaka, which is known as the food capital of the country, the cafe in a private library touted dairy products from Hokkaido, the northernmost island.  When I asked why an establishment in the southern part of the main island, Honshu, was promoting products from the north, I was told that Hokkaido has more space than Honshu--it's less crowded--and thus most of the nation's milk and dairy products are produced there.  Hokkaido seems to be associated with farm-fresh food, especially dairy.

Live chickens outside a restaurant in Osaka; 
now that's local food

The next week, I visited northern Hokkaido and saw for myself many dairy farms.  Near Kushiro and the surrounding marshlands, which are habitat for the iconic Japanese Cranes as well as dairy cows, the two species often share space.  I also saw in that region greenhouses where strawberries were grown.

To the northwest of the Kushiro area, closer to Shire and en route to Shiretoko National Park, I was driven past fields of yams and sugar beets.  My driver pointed out a sugar beet processing facility.  

Crops near Memanbetsu airport, northeastern Hokkaido. 

Then, between Shiretoko and Memanbetsu, I saw apple and cherry orchards.  A wild fox crossed my taxi's path very near there, just a few miles from the Memanbetsu airport.  This seems noteworthy because I'd not seen a fox in the far more wild and remote Shiretoko National Park. 

Fried sweet potato balls are associated with Bihoro Pass, above Lake Kussharo, and are sold at the roadside station there.  I can attest to their deliciousness, but also their greasiness.  

Raised beds for student gardening at a primary school in Wakato, on the shores of Lake Kussharo.

This woman is preparing bracken, a wild, fern-like plant, outside a restaurant at Lake Akan. I noticed a significant focus on wild edibles, including fiddle-head fern, at restaurants in Japan, especially when outside major cities. I had wild edibles as part of tempura meals in Takayama and on Hokkaido. My Hokkaido guide and drivers also pointed out to me places (some at relatively high elevation) where wild edibles were growing. Collecting these foods seemed almost a hobby, especially among older residents, as my Hokkaido guide and drivers were.

Below is a Japanese Crane across the road from the cattle pictured in the lower photo.  These were taken  near Tsurui village, in northeastern Hokkaido.  I found that the iconic cranes frequently occupied the same habitat as cattle in the region's marshes.  In fact, a barely visible crane is behind the cattle in the lower photo.  The third photo below is of a Sapporo Co-op delivery truck in the small town of Utoro, at the entrance to Shiretoko National Park. Sapporo is the largest city and seat of Hokkaido Prefecture, which is co-terminus with the Island of Hokkaido.  The co-op sells food and daily essentials, e.g., detergent, toiletries.

I enjoyed a lovely lunch at Heart 'n Tree guest house and restaurant in Tsurui Village, Hokkaido, where I was served this varied and colorful appetizer plate (above).  I also had a delicious soup curry with shrimp.  Pizza and a pork stew were among the other entrees on offer.  Among the items you can get for breakfast is "fresh squeezed milk."  

I also took a cheese-making class at Heart 'n Tree, where I made string cheese with the owner, Sachiko.  

Photos above from Heart 'n Tree, Tsurui, Hokkaido, Japan. 

The Heart 'n Tree website says it is "a supporter of dairy farmers" and that its "menu lets you enjoy fully the deliciousness of milk and vegetables."  

Here is a placard promoting local dairy products, with Holstein cow stylized art, at a hotel buffet in Utoro, near entrance to Shiretoko National Park.

These Okhotsk Bean Factory products were for sale in Utoro, near Shiretoko National Park, Hokkaido.  (This area is adjacent to the Sea of Okhotsk). I saw the storage tower for this company near the Memanbetsu Airport when I was leaving the region. 

My prior post about my May 2025 trip to Japan is here.

The cow says moo-ve

I was once walking my dog in San Francisco and noticed something peculiar: a man across the street walking his pet pig. Apparently, having a farm animal as a pet isn’t as uncommon as we might think. For example, Goliath, a baby cow raised in Danville, California went viral in 2015 because thinks he’s a dog. Pretty cute, right? 

As someone who’s favorite animal is a cow, I wish I could adopt one from the SPCA just like I adopted my dog, but I know that it’s impossible unless you have a lot of land. I’ve definitely looked up how to adopt smaller farm animals online, like ducks and chickens, but ultimately decided that it wouldn’t be the best idea while living in an urban area. Although the Internet didn’t have much on where Goliath is today, I would imagine that he eventually outgrew his dog bed and required more space to flourish. 

In San Francisco, you can technically have a cow as a pet as long as you comply with housing and stable laws. However, having farm animals as pets can be challenging if you do not have the knowledge, experience, and land necessary to care for them properly. If you live in a city, this article says that it might be easier to have smaller farm animals as pets like chickens, ducks, pygmy goats, and Dexter cattle.

Social media has seemingly glorified having farm animals as pets. For example, this article highlights many non-traditional house pets, like pigs and cows, that people treat just like dogs and cats. Recently, on a bovine note, highland cows have plagued my feed on TikTok. A 2024 Newsweek article titled “Miniature Cows, Goats, and Donkeys Surge in Popularity” highlighted the increasing popularity of mini goats as pets, stating: 

Mini goats are one of the most popular entry-level mini animals…In the past year, animal breeders have registered roughly 8,330 mini goats with the Miniature Dairy Goat Association, a 73% jump from the 12 months before July 2021, said Angelia Alden, a business operations manager for the North Carolina-based organization. 

However, the article continues by saying how “[m]ini goats are sold after just a few years because it can be challenging and expensive to take care of them.” Additionally, owners struggle with the veterinary and feeding costs that come with owning less traditional animals. 

The increase in mini farm animals is also correlated with the rise in hobby farms, a growing trend where people will purchase a one-acre plot and “keep a miniature cow or a few miniature goats.” This article highlights TikTok creator, Allie Sine’s, experience showcasing her mini cows: 

Sine, 28, launched her own business breeding and selling mini cows in 2020 after reselling a sick mini cow that cost $350 for $5,000. Last year, she sold about 190 calves through her Missouri-based business, Mini Moos LLC. The calves were roughly split between mini and micromini cows that can cost from $2,000 to $30,000.

Based on the increased popularity of mini farm animals, it’s not surprising that prices for miniature animals have increased. However, I can’t help but think about how this must affect the lives of people who rely on farm animals as their source of income. On the one hand, this might be a good way to increase revenue for farms who sell their animals to mini farm animal enthusiasts. On the other hand, the growing demand and interest in hobby farms might increase the costs of farm supplies and veterinary care. We have already seen this with the increasing popularity of the Carhartt brand driving up clothing prices for working class folks. 

Hopefully, hobby farms and city people raising farm animals won't drive up the costs for real farm owners, but the jury's still out. I know one thing for sure: I sadly won’t be adopting a cow anytime soon, as long as I’m living in a big city. 

Wolves in Colorado

In the 1940s the Grey Wolf was hunted to local extinction in Colorado by locals who were fearful of the dangers wolves poised to livestock, and for the overhunting of Elk populations by the wolves. 

80 years later, in 2020, Colorado voters in a close election voted to reintroduce wolves. Proposition 114, which aimed to reintroduce wolves was passed by a split of 50.91/49.09. It was not the first attempt to reintroduce the apex predator to the centennial state. Previous measures to bring wolves back to Colorado had failed in the years prior, crucially in 2016 when the Colorado Parks and Wildlife commission had voted against reintroducing wolves (citing the impact it might have on big game hunting and ranching in the state). The election was crucial and historical- it was the first time a state, not the federal government, had taken steps to reintroduce wolves into their natural habitat. 

Wolves had already been in Colorado when Proposition 114 was passed. In 2021, a few months after the measure, but well before the first reintroduction took place, Colorado reported that the first grey wolf pups were born in the state since the 1940s (the pack had migrated from Wyoming). In the winter of 2020/2021, the state also had its first confirmed killing of a livestock by a wolf since the 1940s, due to the pack that migrated from Wyoming.

The 2020 vote on reintroducing the wolves, in a presidential election year, was the closest statewide vote of the night. Other results from the night showed big partisan swings that made it clear Colorado was now a strong blue state-the presidential election went 55.40/41.90% in favor of President Biden and the senate race went 53.5/44.2 in favor of Democrat John Hickenlooper. 

But the wolf measure did not follow the general trends of partisanship. Instead, it followed geography. On the mostly rural Western Slope (population around 590,000), the only counties that had a majority of votes in favor of the wolves reintroduction were Pitkin, Summit, San Miguel, San Juan, and La Plata. This is in stark contrast to the presidential race where 15 counties went for Biden.  Further, across the 5 counties that voted for Biden and the wolves on the Western Slope, the wolves measure on average lost around 10 points of support compared to the President. There were no counties on the rural Eastern Plains (population around 160,000) that voted in favor of the wolves.

This degree of separation between urban and rural carried clear implications in this vote. The rural areas are where the wolves will be reintroduced. 

Colorado immediately set to work on how to devise a plan to reintroduce the wolves. It involved the recommendations of two groups-a stakeholder group (comprised of ranchers, outfitters, and others speaking for communities in Colorado affected) and a technical working group (composed of wildlife experts and professionals). Colorado state officials took rural concerns seriously when it came to reintroducing the wolves, not just relying on experts but also those in communities affected. Adam Gall, a member of the stakeholder group, gave high praise to Colorado’s work, saying that Colorado Parks and Wildlife had done their due diligence in gathering diverse opinions for the stakeholder group and was respectful when it came to hearing how the stakeholders wanted reintroduction to take place. 

On Dec. 18th, 2023, three years after voting for the measure, Colorado Parks and Wildlife released the first five wolves into Colorado on the Western Slope. Colorado then released five more wolves four days later, again on the Western Slope. The state plans to release ten to fifteen wolves each year for the next three to five years, having just released the second set in January 2025.

The wolves in Colorado raise major questions about the role of rural areas, and the burdens placed on them. As one rancher put it, “Colorado livestock producers are now carrying the burden for America’s interest in wolves.” Wolves however provide many benefits to ecosystems in rural areas. Reintroducing wolves, as an apex predator, means that local prey populations are likely to not reach overcapacity, allowing fauna to flourish, and will allow other species to return to areas. 

As we go into this new era of climate change, destruction from wildfires, efforts to conserve nature, and declining wildlife populations-it seems more and more likely that conservation efforts will involve urban areas voting to pass measures that will need to be enforced in rural ones. It seems crucial to follow in Colorado’s footsteps here. State’s must make sure that rural communities' voices are heard, since they are unlikely to hold as much sway at the ballot box; yet are likely to hold up the hard end of the bargain, such as living with wolves at the doorstep. 

Law that would ban some large farms in Sonoma County, California elicits strong opposition

"Noooooooo on J" sign on Bodega Avenue,
a few miles west of Petaluma

Signs opposing Proposition J are all over Sonoma County, in California's north Bay.  (All photos are (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024).  I first noticed them about a month ago in the western part of the county, which is home to many dairy and poultry farms.  Curious, I went to the "No on J" website, which asserts:   

Sonoma County Family Farmers are under attack. Measure J, proposed by an animal extremist group from Berkeley, aims to eliminate Sonoma County’s diverse animal agriculture production. If passed, Measure J would put multi-generational farming families out of business and as a result, the cost of dairy products, eggs, and poultry will increase significantly. Furthermore, Measure J will increase our greenhouse gas emissions since these products will have to be imported from other parts of our state, country or even other countries. Measure J will cost taxpayers millions, and have a half-billion cumulative impact to the Sonoma County economy.

The Organic Valley brand
is commonly seen in 
Sonoma County

"No on J" has a very professional website, with a video showing several generations of farmers from the same family.  

That website sent me, in turn, to this April 2024 story by Susanne Rust in the Los Angeles Times.  An excerpt from it provides additional background: 

[A]nimal rights activists say all is not right in this region known for its wine and farm-to-fork sensibilities. They say there are two dozen large, concentrated animal farming operations — which collectively house almost 3 million animals — befouling watersheds and torturing livestock and poultry in confined lots and cages.

And in an effort to stop it, they’ve collected more than 37,000 signatures from Sonoma County residents to put an end to it.

Coleman Valley Road,
between Bodega Bay 
and Occidental

The LA Times story includes these quotes from key pro-ag stakeholders, who essentially argue that the measure represents a slippery slope that will ultimately shutter many more farms, including those not currently falling within its mandate:

Sponsors of the ordinance aim “to get rid of animal agriculture all together, everywhere,” insisted Dayna Ghirardelli, the president of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau. She said the organizers of the petition are animal “extremists” and are using this legislation as a means to start the process of wiping out farms. “This is just the beginning.”

Then there's this from the president of the California Poultry Federation: 

This ballot initiative would eliminate family livestock farming that is so important in Sonoma County. There will be no eggs, chicken, dairy, cheese, lamb and other livestock from Sonoma County in your supermarkets if this initiative passes.

One of the standard "No on J" signs
seen around Sonoma County

The Press-Democrat, the local Sonoma County newspaper, has covered the matter quite thoroughly with several key stories.  This one from Sept. 19 features a helpful summary: 

Measure J would be the first county ordinance of its kind in the United States if passed in November. Both sides in the initiative see it as a steppingstone for future legislative efforts. (Berkeley, which has no large animal farms, is voting on a similar ban in November that would be largely symbolic.)

For farming representatives looking into the future, Measure J is an alarming political test — in a left-leaning county with a significant farm economy. Other areas with even larger farm sectors could be next, they say.

Standard "No on J" sign in Valley Ford, of the sort common in western Sonoma County

* * * 

Measure J would phase out larger farming operations known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, over three years, while requiring the county to provide a four-year retraining and employment assistance program for their workers.

Opponents say Measure J would ultimately kill off local dairy and poultry farms and create a wide ripple effect that would harm the economy, eliminate at the very least hundreds of jobs, and push up local food prices. They say the measure misrepresents how local dairy and poultry farmers go about their business and their impact on their animals and the environment.

* * * 

As outlined in the ballot measure, an “animal feeding operation,” or AFO, is a plot of land where animals are “stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period, and crops, vegetation, forage growth or post-harvest residues are not sustained in the normal growing season over any portion” of the property.

Between Dillon Beach and Valley Ford, Sept. 2024

An AFO becomes a CAFO when it exceeds a certain size, depending on the type of animal — farms with more than 700 dairy cows, or 85,000 egg laying hens, or 125,000 chickens raised for meat. The Yes on Measure J campaign says there are 21 farms in Sonoma County that fit that definition.

A “medium-scale” farm also could fit the definition if it discharges manure directly into surface water, a practice not permitted in Sonoma County. ... [S]ince no medium-sized farms in the county have been documented discharging into surface water, Measure J would affect only the 21 largest dairies and poultry farms.

The county’s Economic Development Board, meanwhile, in an analysis for the Board of Supervisors, identified 11 facilities that exceed the large-scale CAFO threshold, and also included 49 medium-scale operations that could be affected. 

A homemade sign, just over
Sonoma County line, 
in Marin County, Hwy 1

Another Press-Democrat story from August 25 focuses on the those who got Proposition J on the ballot--purportedly Berkeley liberals.  Here's a quote from that story, which featured a Yes on J March in Petaluma, one of the cities in the southern part of the county, near the Marin County line.  Petaluma is associated with the poultry industry:  

Just over 100 people were gathered Saturday in Petaluma’s Penry Park, preparing to march 2.5 miles across the city in support of an upcoming November ballot measure that would ban certain large animal farming operations in Sonoma County.

There were signs that said “Honk if you love animals” and “protect our environment.” On a path was scrawled in chalk: “No más granjas industriales,” meaning “No more industrial farms.”

Before they got started, an organizer gave instructions that suggested how emotionally charged the battle over Measure J is becoming.

Valley Ford, along Hwy 1

The story quotes Paul Darwin Picklesimer of the Coalition to End Factory Farming, which sponsored the ballot measure.  

It's really important anytime anybody gives us hell today, they call us whatever names, homophobic slurs, all the kinds of things we've been hearing, just ignore them.... We're just here to deliver our positive message and do so nonviolently.  

Another story focuses on Sonoma County restaurateurs opposing Proposition J. An excerpt follows:  

Samantha Ramey is on a first-name basis with the nearby farmers who provide dairy, meat and vegetables to the three Sonoma County restaurants she owns and operates with her chef husband, Ryan. But like many other farm-to-table restaurateurs in the county, she worries that a ballot initiative aimed at curtailing large local livestock and poultry producers could devastate her businesses.

* * * 

Though Ramey works primarily with small farms and ranches, she said that closing 20 or more local dairies and poultry farms would only increase already skyrocketing prices for eggs, milk and meat that have forced restaurants to raise prices and turned away customers from dining out.

Ramey adds:  

It will have an economic ripple effect in Sonoma County because we all depend on each other. Local feed stores, farm-to-table restaurants, wineries, backyard and hobby farms will all be negatively affected.  

Along Hwy 1, near Valley Ford

Here's a story from CBS News out of San Francisco, on Sept. 18, 

Valley Ford:  The inflatable Halloween-style animals--
one a cow--had collapsed by the time I took this photo

You can read more of the Press-Democrat's excellent reporting on farming in Sonoma County here, in a story about how state environmental regulation forced closure of a large dairy that had been in business more than a century.  Here's a story on who is funding each side of the measure.  

And here's a recent New York Times feature on The Hidden Environmental Costs of Food.

Unleashing the river: The Klamath dam removal project

The Klamath River, flowing through California and Oregon, is not just a waterway but a lifeline for people and wildlife. For decades, the river has faced numerous challenges, including water diversions, pollution, and four hydroelectric dams that have significantly altered its natural flow. Now, however, a remarkable endeavor is underway to restore the Klamath River to its former glory: The Klamath dam removal project is the largest dam removal in the world. You can read prior posts about the Klamath dams here and here.  

The Klamath River holds deep cultural significance for indigenous tribes, particularly the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Valley tribes. These tribes have relied on the Klamath for thousands of years to provide salmon, steelhead, and suckers. However, the river’s ecosystem began to deteriorate in the 20th century with the construction of four hydroelectric dams: Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2, and J.C. Boyle. The four dams were built for power generation and disrupted fish migration, sediment transport, and nutrient cycling. Annelia Hillman, a traditional food coordinator for the Yurok tribe, commented,

This river is our lifeline. It’s the foundation to our people, for our culture.

In 2001, two cases brought national attention to issues between farmers who relied on the dam’s water for irrigation and the Coho salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act: Kandra v. United States and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. In these cases, locals and agencies fought over who deserved water during a historically dry year. The Bush administration ultimately sided with the irrigators, diverting water to farmers during the drought year. These water diversions drained critical river habitats, culminating in salmon populations plummeting during the 2002 Fish Kill. Outrage over the 34,000 dead salmon supercharged the campaign to remove the dams (See also Yurok Tribe v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Baley v. United States).  

Iron Gate Dam (Photo: Katie Eng, September 29, 2023)

Last month, I had the privilege of hearing from the CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Mark Bransom. Bransom spoke about FERC’s decision to decommission and acknowledge the social and cultural impacts of the dams  for the first time. FERC also banned the Klamath’s hydroelectric license. For more about FERC’s approval of the four dams, see this blog post. 

Today, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation is working to blast holes through the base of the dams, dredging out the accumulated sediment and flushing the sediment and accumulated algae (muck) into the ocean. When I visited the dam last month, Bransom commented, 

The river needs to go through a little more pain before it heals again.

Meanwhile, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation is working closely with indigenous tribes to cultivate seeds from over 90 species of native vegetation. They hope to plant over 19 billion seeds over 8,000 acres. With such aggressive efforts, the Renewal Corporation anticipates a 24-month timeline for the project to be complete, with returning adult salmon inhabiting the river by next October. 

It would be surprising, of course, if a project of this size had zero opposition. In fact, Bransom says the Renewal Corporation has struggled with balancing the interests of environmentalists and local property owners —he calls them the “way of life” people versus the “quality of life” people. 

Driving along the roads of rural Hornbrook, California, where Iron Gate Dam lives, it is typical to see signs protesting the dam’s removal. Bransom says locals are worried about the noise, the future lack of a lake for recreational activities, and the impacts on property values. He spoke about the difficulties in telling senior locals, whose retirement money is wrapped up in their waterfront property, that the removal will affect their estates for the next decade. Bransom believes that ten to fifteen years from now, the Klamath River’s restored wildlife and salmon populations will positively impact property values and the lives of those that’s live beside it.

J.C. Boyle Dam (Photo: Katie Eng, September 30, 2023)

The possibility of salmon returning to the Upper Klamath raises questions about whether the dam removal project could inspire other changes in Oregon and California. One such place a dam removal project may be warranted is the Snake River, where tribes and farmers suffer from water shortages and related environmental issues. Under the direction of his legal team, Bransom was unable to comment on whether he thinks similar efforts would be successful in California. However, Bransom has hope that the lessons learned from the Klamath dam removal project will be used for years and decades to come—including in other locales facing similar quandaries.

Is this the end of an era? Live sheep exports expected to conclude in Australia (Part 2)

Picture this: You live in rolling paddocks of greenery with room to graze and freely roam. You live in family groups and have easy access to food, water and fresh air. You are looked after. There comes a day where, without warning, this is all taken away. You and your family are herded into a truck and are transported away from the last glimpse of comfort and freedom you'll ever have. 

More than a week later, you and your family are separated while being packed into a ship with thousands of others who are also riddled with stress from separation. There is no sunlight, no room to move and you are living on top of your own waste. One slip or injury could prevent you from reaching food and water, or risk you being unintentionally crushed to death by those around you. 

You exist in a permanent state of anxiety and terror. You have no idea what will happen next. 

You arrive on dry land, relieved to take in fresh air once again. The freedom is short lived before your legs are tied together and you're dragged along on your back before being thrown into the boot of a car. It's dark. The air is thin. You can barely move. You're being sent to a death that is slow, filled with pain and completely undignified. 

***

Now picture this: you live in remote Western Australia and you own thousands of sheep that have no worth. They need to be watered, fed, shorn and have their health tended to. You have shearers begging you for work that you can't afford to give them. They have families they need to provide for. You also have a family that needs to be fed, children that need an education and bills that need to be paid. You are living below the poverty line in the middle of desolate country. With nothing else near by to supplement your income, you now face the reality of having to pack your life up into boxes and move away from everything you know. You need to find work so you can look after your family and afford the bare minimum, but all you've ever known is being a sheep farmer. So, now what?

***

I can't argue that both sides of the coin in this circumstance don't have extremely justified reasons for protection. The welfare of animals should never be discredited and devalued simply because they aren't human. However, what I can argue, is there are people trying to make legislative decisions on an agricultural industry that they have little-to-no knowledge about. These decisions are being made in a politically motivated fashion, and the fallout for the rural population and local economy is going to be extremely harmful. 

In an article by the Australian Financial Review, it is believed that the value of Western Australian sheep is already beginning to decline, with an estimated loss of $21 million from 300,000 sheep to the Wagin economy alone. This loss also has an impact on the Australian government, which misses out on $5 million in tax revenue. 

Phillip Bright, a farmer and the Wagin Shire president, has also made the estimate that across the 15 million sheep across the entirety of Western Australian will come in at a $900 million loss. To put this into perspective, that value is almost the same as the GDP of Vanuatu. 

Western Australian rural families, small town communities and shearers need the live sheep export industry. This is their lifeline. This is their livelihood. It's what they live for. As Sarah Smarsh eloquently portrayed in her essay on 'What Growing Up on a Farm Taught Me About Humility', farming families are commonly perceived as being at the bottom of the food chain - despite the fact they significantly contribute to local economies, they receive little to no consideration when decisions that will directly impact them arise. You can read an exert of Sarah's essay on a previous blog post here.

What came as a surprise to me (as a result of my own unreasonable and naive assumption), is that in no way shape or form are sheep farmers endorsing the treatment that has been broadcast across the nation. There is no denial on their behalf that the attitude towards animal welfare has been completely neglected and that there are practical ways this can be addressed. 

These farmers weren't aware of the conditions their livestock were facing once they had left the safety of their stations. A fourth-generation farmer, Emily Stretch, was also shocked when seeing the undercover footage:

It horrified every single farmer I know, including myself. I can feel myself tearing up thinking about it ... I would never send my sheep to go on a ship overseas if I believed it was still happening. 

The reality is, you can introduce, implement and reform laws that have the intention and practicality of protecting livestock. But, there is no possible legislative avenue that will ensure the financial stability and wellbeing of the rural individuals and families that make up Western Australia's live sheep export industry. 

Regardless of any framework the Australian government can put in place to phase out the live sheep export industry, there is no possibility of a successful transition. 

The Australian government needs to know that their actions are going to have devastating consequences. They are making a conscious decision to disrupt and destroy the lives of rural communities that already exist as a low priority. A conscious decision to remove hundreds of millions of dollars from an already struggling economy. A conscious decision to prioritise politics over the people - and this is where the true suffering will occur. 

This post is the second part to a two-part series. You can access part one here. 

Is this the end of an era? Sheep exports expected to conclude in Australia (Part 1)

At its peak in 2017-2018, the Australian live sheep export industry was worth over $160 million USD, exporting a total of 2 million sheep. Following this record-breaking year, journalists found through footage released to Animals Australia by a whistle-blower that over 2,400 sheep died aboard a vessel owned by Emmanuel Exports. The cause of the deaths was overwhelming heat stress. 

Since this catastrophic event, the Australian media, animal welfare organisations and the general public have subjects the live sheep export industry to scrutiny. In an attempt to address the growing concerns, the Australian Liberal government introduced restrictions that reduced export ships capacity for livestock by 28%. Further to this, far greater penalties for those who 'seek profit from breaking export rules around stocking densities and poor animal welfare practices' were also introduced. The penalties, which are still in place, consist of a maximum of $4.2 million for companies and a maximum of $2.1 million for directors. 

Fast forward to 2022: The good intentions of the Liberal government have been completely forgotten. Undercover footage taken in overseas markets exposed the inhumane treatment of Australian livestock once they reached international shores. What was once an issue within Australian control has been transformed into an animal welfare concern that seemingly has one solution: ending live sheep exports out of Australia. 

Shatha Hamade, a solicitor for Animals Australia, released footage to the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 7:30 Report. She captured it by posing as a buyer within Middle Eastern meat markets and livestock yards. The footage displayed highly distressing and shocking content of sheep being mistreated and sold illegally in Oman. 

A question that bounces around a lot is why don't we just introduce legislation to protect the treatment of sheep for live exports? Well, there's already regulations in place - the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System ('ECAS'). The problem is that it doesn't appear to be working. With the absence of appropriate civil penalties, corporations have significant leeway to not satisfy the regulations. This idea will be explored through part 2 of this blog series. 

Australia is the only country out of 100 livestock exporting nations that has a regulatory framework in place for the protection of their animals' welfare once they have arrived in the importing country. This, however, begs the question: do the ESCAS regulations even have any effect in international territory? As Hamade eloquently stated;

[E]ffective regulatory framework is only as good as it is policed and enforced, and ESCAS is not policed by the Australian government. 

The intention of the 7:30 Report exposé was to evoke an emotional response from the general public (similar to a discussion on another one of our blog posts which can be found here), who in turn, would place pressure upon the government for legislative reform. 

A petition with more than 43,000 signatures in support of a legislative end date to live sheep export was put before the Labour government on 31 August 2023. This petition has been one of the largest in the last year, and it is ranked within the top 45 most signed petitions in Australian history. The Labour government yet to release their public repsonse to the petition, but it is anticipated this will occur soon. 

Prior to watching the 7:30 Report piece, I had a complete and utter moral aversion to the Labour government's electoral promise to end live sheep exports. From my family's involvement within Australia's rural and agricultural media industry, I have developed an immense appreciation for Australian farmers and livestock. The thought of ending a multimillion-dollar industry that plays such an important role for Australian agriculture seems completely ludicrous. 

The very concept means thousands of Australians would be stranded with a specific skill set and nowhere to go. That doesn't even take into account the local economies that would take an absolute battering. With 97% of all sheep exports departing out of Western Australian ports, it's highly likely that smaller Western Australian towns would become destitute. 

The harsh reality I have come to terms with is that the footage shown on the 7:30 report is not a once-off act. Nor is it something that has arisen in the last 5-10 years. The mistreatment of exported sheep has been an ongoing catastrophe that has been completely swept under the rug for decades, because the only parties who previously knew about it are the ones who are making the profits. 

There comes a time sooner or later where you have to ask yourself, when is enough, enough? How much longer are we going to tolerate the mistreatment of livestock? It their torturous suffering really a good trade-off for our profit?

It appears that all conceivable efforts to find a balance between being able to assure adequate livestock elfare and continuing to practice live exports, has potentially been exhausted. Further amendments could take the form of increased civil penalties for non-compliance - however, this avenue wouldn't necessarily have the desired effect. 

Much like Australian penalties for non-compliance within mining practices, million-dollar penalties for large corporations merely acts as a deterrence for non-compliance, as the potential financial penalty is an insignificant amount in comparison to the revenue they generate. There are many circumstances where it is more beneficial for corporations to breach legislation regulations and pay a penalty than not to commit the breach at all (such as the Rio Tinto destruction of a 46,000 year old Indigenous Australian site). I fear that the penalties introduced in 2018 dud exactly that, and any further increase would have very little impact. 

At the end of the day, the real decision to make is one of a moral dilemma: do we place a higher value on the livelihood of animals or people? This idea will be explored through the second part of this blog series. 

If you wish to gain further insight on Australia's live sheep export industry, you can biew stories from the Australian Broadcasting Commission here, here and here. 

More Elon Musk havoc in rural (well, exurban) Texas

I earlier blogged about the disruption caused by Elon Musk's SpaceX activities in Boca Chica, Texas, on the coast.  Now, the Washington Post is reporting on how residents of exurban Austin--Bastrop County, population 97,216 (so barely nonmetro)--are tiring of the consequences of Musk's undertakings there.  Jeanne Whalen writes under the headline, "Texas welcomed Elon Musk. Now his rural neighbors aren’t so sure":  

Chap Ambrose has always been a fan of Elon Musk. He spent $100 to join the waiting list for Tesla’s first pickup in 2019 and bought internet service from Musk’s satellite provider.

But then the billionaire’s companies moved in next door to the computer programmer, who works from his rural, hilltop home.

Two years later, massive construction sites and large white warehouses have taken over the green pastures where cattle used to graze. Semis barrel up and down the narrow country roads. And the companies — rocket manufacturer SpaceX and tunneling company Boring — are seeking state permission to dump treated wastewater into the nearby Colorado River.

“I just have no faith that the leadership there values the environment and these shared resources,” said Ambrose, who leads a group of local residents pushing Musk’s companies to slow down and address concerns about the environmental risks of the development. “I would say, I’m still a fan [of Elon], but I want him to do better here and be a good neighbor.”

The backlash in Bastrop, a largely rural county 30 minutes east of Austin, shows the dust Musk is kicking up as he builds a new empire in Texas. His companies are spending billions of dollars on campuses across the state, from SpaceX’s rocket launchpad on the Gulf of Mexico to a giant Tesla factory in Austin producing 5,000 Model Ys a week.

* * *

Signs of Musk’s move-fast ethos have mounted in Bastrop County. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has hit the Musk building sites with several violations over poor erosion controls and other matters. Texas’s transportation department reprimanded Boring for building an unpermitted driveway that it said posed traffic-safety concerns, and Bastrop County issued a violation over unauthorized wastewater holding tanks.

Rural unrest strikes The Netherlands

Ben Coates, a columnist for Algemeen Dagblad, wrote for the New York Times yesterday of recent protests by Dutch farmers, largely represented by the Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB): 

For months, farmers flew the Dutch tricolor upside down to protest government plans to cut nitrogen emissions in half by 2030 by reducing the number of livestock in the country by a third. The government warned that there could be compulsory buyouts; the farmers lit bales of hay on fire, blocked roads with manure and blockaded government buildings in The Hague with tractors.

The public was irritated by some of the protesters’ tactics, but the movement itself generated widespread support. Enough that a couple of weeks ago, the Farmer Citizen Movement, known by its Dutch acronym BBB, unexpectedly triumphed in provincial elections here, sweeping aside established parties to become the largest party in the Senate. The future of the government’s plan is suddenly uncertain.

* * *

Farming occupies a particularly important place in the Dutch psyche. Toward the end of World War II the Dutch suffered through the “Hongerwinter” (Hunger Winter), a famine that killed thousands of people and left many more scrabbling to survive. A national postwar effort to build up the agricultural sector was wildly successful: Despite the country’s being about the size of Maryland, the value of its agricultural exports is second only to the United States.

In a country with more than 100 million cows, pigs and chickens — and around 17 million people — nobody lives more than a short train ride from farmland.

* * *

For many Dutch farmers, the fight is not ideological, and the BBB cast itself as the voice of rural interests against an urban elite that can’t tell a Hereford from a Holstein.

Don't miss the rest of the essay, with its references to similar unrest in other European nations.

On the future of vertical farms: Conflicting trends from China and the United States

I first took notice of so-called vertical farms about the time I started this blog some decade and a half ago when I saw this story in the New York Times depicting plants growing up the sides of a skyscraper.  Bina Vinkataraman wrote there of an idea that had "captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years."  The story's lede follows: 

What if “eating local” in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier’s pet project is the “vertical farm,” a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

The story included this reality check on the economics of these enterprises: 

Armando Carbonell, chairman of the department of planning and urban form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass., called the idea “very provocative.” But it requires a rigorous economic analysis, he added. “Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more.”

Scientific American ran a story in 2009 that also featured Despommier's vision and noted what would be saved in money and carbon in not having to transport food to city consumers:

[A] 30-story building built on one city block and engineered to maximize year-round agricultural yield—thanks largely to artificial lighting and advanced hydroponic and aeroponic growing techniques—could feed tens of thousands of people. Ideally the recipients of the bounty would live in the surrounding area, so as to avoid the transport costs and carbon emissions associated with moving food hundreds if not thousands of miles to consumers.

I was intrigued when I learned about these developments (which was about the time I started this blog), but to be honest, I was also a tiny bit disappointed because vertical farms risked making rural places obsolete.  I was starting to see that one of the things rural places provided to urban places--one of the ways rural places were seen as adding value--was food.  If, somehow, urban places came to be able to supply their own food needs, it would become one more reason for metro folks not to care about rural folks and their livelihoods. 

Thus, for the past 15 years, I've tried to track what's going on with vertical farms.  Are they still a sort of "pie in the sky" aspiration?  or are they becoming a real thing?  

Among the vertical gardens stories since that 2008 report is this 2013 NY Times piece out of Singapore.  It is focused on the island nation's Kranji neighborhood, "home to a farm resort and ever-evolving agritourism circuit where locavore thinking has taken hold," thus reclaiming some of Singapore's early kampong (farm village) spirit.  Here's an excerpt focused on green skyscrapers as tourist attractions 

The most recent [vertical gardens] addition is Sky Greens, a collection of 120 30-foot towers that opened in late 2012 using a method called “A-Go-Gro Vertical Farming,” which resembles a sort of vegetable-stuffed Ferris wheel, and is designed for leafy greens like spinach and bok choy. Sky Greens is Singapore’s first vertical farm, located in Kranji, 14 miles from Singapore’s central business district, with bus service available every 75 minutes.

The Kranji Heritage Trail, instituted in 2011, includes 34 independent farms and agriculture-related businesses. Seventeen of the trail stops are open to the public, including a poultry farm, a goat farm, frog-breeding aquaculture, a community vegetable garden, a cooking school, and the no-frills D’Kranji Farm Resort, with 19 eco-friendly villas and a spa. A day spent exploring Kranji’s farms is a great antidote to Singapore’s crush of street-food hawkers and urban attractions.

A few more recent stories suggest conflicting answers to the question whether these farms can go beyond serving as tourist attractions and make significant dents in the world's food needs--or even a city's food needs.  

First, this February New York Times report by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Claire Fu caught my eye.  It's about a multi-story hog factory in Ezhou, China, on the south bank of the Yangtze River, which will produce 1.2 million pigs a year once its sister facility is completed and at full capacity later in 2023:  

The first sows arrived in late September at the hulking, 26-story high-rise towering above a rural village in central China. The female pigs were whisked away dozens at a time in industrial elevators to the higher floors where the hogs would reside from insemination to maturity.

This is pig farming in China, where agricultural land is scarce, food production is lagging and pork supply is a strategic imperative.

Inside the edifice, which resembles the monolithic housing blocks seen across China and stands as tall as the London tower that houses Big Ben, the pigs are monitored on high-definition cameras by uniformed technicians in a NASA-like command center. Each floor operates like a self-contained farm for the different stages of a young pig’s life: an area for pregnant pigs, a room for farrowing piglets, spots for nursing and space for fattening the hogs.

Feed is carried on a conveyor belt to the top floor, where it’s collected in giant tanks that deliver more than one million pounds of food a day to the floors below through high-tech feeding troughs that automatically dispense the meal to the hogs based on their stage of life, weight, and health. 

* * *  

China has had a long love affair with pigs. For decades, many rural Chinese households raised backyard pigs, considered valuable livestock as a source of not only meat but also manure. Pigs also hold cultural significance as a symbol of prosperity because, historically, pork was served only on special occasions.

And here are some more interesting tidbits about the factory, which was built by a cement manufacturer just diversifying into the hog breeding business:  

The farm is next to the company’s cement factory, in a region known as the “Land of Fish and Rice” for its importance to Chinese cuisine with its fertile farmlands and surrounding bodies of water.

While the journalists refer to the location of the hog factory as a "rural village," Ezhou is a city of more than a million.  Here's more on the factory itself: 

A pig farm in name, the operation is more like a Foxconn factory for pigs with the precision required of an iPhone production line. Even pig feces are measured, collected and repurposed. Roughly one-quarter of the feed will come out as dry excrement that can be repurposed as methane to generate electricity.

A Chinese executive who designs hog farms is quoted as suggesting that "multistory farms will have an impact on the world."  Meanwhile, the U.S. perspective is more skeptical, largely because of concerns about the inability to control contamination in these facilities: 

U.S. hog farmers look at the pictures of those farms in China, and they just scratch their heads and say, ‘We would never dare do that.’ ... It’s just too risky.

Contrast what's happening in China with this recent story out of western Pennsylvania, where a multi-story facility producing lettuces recently shut down.  Adele Peters reports for Fast Company under the headline, "The Vertical Farming Bubble is Finally Popping."  

When workers arrived at Fifth Season, an indoor farm in the former steel town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, on a cloudy Friday morning last October, they expected it would be a normal day.

The farm, which had opened two years earlier, seemed to be running smoothly, growing tens of thousands of pounds of lettuce per year inside a robot-filled 60,000-square-foot warehouse. The brand was selling salad kits—like a taco-themed version with the company’s baby romaine, plus guacamole, tortilla strips, and cheese—in more than 1,200 stores, including Whole Foods and Kroger. Earlier in the year, the company had said that it projected a 600% growth in sales in 2022. The branding was updated in October, and new packages were rolling out in stores. Solar panels and a new microgrid had recently been installed at the building. A larger farm was being planned for Columbus, Ohio.

But the workday never started. ... The managers announced that the company was closing immediately. After shutting down the electrical equipment and draining water lines, the plants were left to die. ... Dozens ... were left scrambling to find new jobs.

Fifth Season’s failure is only the most dramatic signal of a reckoning taking place in what’s known as the vertical farming sector. 

The story goes on to provide other examples of this trend of vertical farm failures in the United States and in Europe.  

So, is the salient distinction between what's happening in China and what's happening in the United States that the former involves meat and the latter involves fruit and veg?  That farmers--really agribusiness--in assess risk differently?  Or are there other reasons for the differing trajectories?