A few weeks ago, my friend was handed a flier (PDF) at a farmers market in Oakland, California. It's from a local group called Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter that wants the City of Oakland to forbid people to raise livestock on their property. Around here, urban farming is a pretty hot issue; a nonprofit called City Slicker Farms has been promoting DIY food production for several years, and author and farmer (and Mother Jones contributor) Novella Carpenter brought the practice into the limelight with her 2009 book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, about her experiences at her Oakland farm.

Now I'm obviously biased on this issue; I've written on this site about the experience of raising turkeys for meat in my Berkeley backyard. But when I read through the anti-urban farming arguments put forth on the flier, I couldn't resist making a rebuttal. Herewith, some sections of the flier, along with my responses. First up:

I called the Oakland Animal Shelter and asked whether it had seen an uptick in livestock (chickens, rabbits, and goats) since the urban farming trend took off around 2005. While the number of chickens at the shelter has gone up in recent years, from 213 in 2009 to 340 in 2010, shelter director Megan Webb attributes that increase to the city's crackdown on fighting roosters in 2010, when the city confiscated hundreds of roosters. Aside from that, said Webb, "I've asked several of my animal control officers and they don't feel like we have been seeing more livestock-type animals in the field or being impounded in the shelter."

Obviously, this one's a matter of personal parenting choice. But one thing I do know: Kids are very curious about where their food comes from. I witnessed this curiosity firsthand when a bunch of neighborhood rapscallions showed up for the slaughter of one of my turkeys. I'm not sure how they even knew about it. Word must have gotten around. Sure, there were giggles and morbid jokes aplenty. But I'm pretty certain that the kids got something valuable out of the experience, too. I talked to a little girl who had never seen a turkey up close before. A few others wanted to get right up close to the processing to see what it was all about. I'm not the only one who thinks that kids learn from raising and processing animals. The 4-H Club has been doing it for a century. 

I wanted to see whether local real estate agents saw neighbors with livestock as a deterrent for potential home buyers, so I called up Elisa Uribe at Wells & Bennett Realtors, which sells homes in Oakland. "Keeping animals in the yard certainly does seem to be the trend, and I have not heard of it as a deterrent at all," she said. "I actually have a rental property where the neighbors have three or four chickens. We've had a variety of different tenants and they've never complained. I don't think that having neighbors with animals would lower property values at all." 

Now this one just strikes me as silly. I don't know anyone who is raising animals instead of gardening; most urban farmers are doing both. In fact, urban farming groups convinced Oakland to change its rules so that people could sell crops from their garden out of their homes. Pitting animal-raising against vegetable-raising is a strange and nonsensical rhetorical strategy.

And one more from Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter's website:

Introducing animal agriculture into Oakland’s food policy would be an unjust distribution of resources because it would serve the needs of a small group of people interested in creating artisan animal products instead of serving the low-income communities that the city of Oakland mandated the Planning Department to create food policy to serve.

Essentially, NOBS is arguing that allowing people to raise their own meat would be elitist, since everyone who raises animals is a foodie who wants to host heritage omelet brunches. That's blatantly untrue. What about immigrants who come from places where tending animals is a way of life? And why shouldn't people in the "low-income communities" get to produce their own eggs, which would likely be cheaper and healthier than eggs from the supermarket?

Local rules about urban farming vary widely. Oakland is currently in the process of revising its urban agriculture policy. Oakland Food Policy Council coordinator Esperanza Pallana told me that under current rules, residents who obtain a home occupation permit are allowed to sell plant-based crops and raw agricultural products—which includes eggs and honey, but not meat. Urban farming advocates are now in the process of trying to make it easier for urban farmers to raise their own meat. Meanwhile, in the neighboring community of El Cerrito, the city attorney ruled last November in favor of letting people raise and process animals on their property, arguing that forbidding such a practice could be a violation of First Amendment rights (for example, the rights of people who want to slaughter animals according to halal rules).

I could go on. And perhaps in some other post, I will. For now, though, I'll leave it at this: My colleague Tom Philpott writes regularly about the deplorable practices of factory farms and the growing body of evidence that the meat that they produce is not healthy. To my mind, any rule that provides an alternative to mass-produced animal products would be a step in the right direction.

    

In his State of the Union address on January 24, President Obama largely avoided the topic of climate change. He talked about it once, in passing, as a topic on which "the differences in this chamber may be too deep" to enact new legislation. Its less-controversial cousin, "energy," on the other hand, got a whopping 23 mentions as an area where Republicans and Democrats should be able to find agreement.

It became clear well before that address that the president and his administration don't think that climate change is an issue that will carry them to a second term. In his public events following the speech, he's also focused on clean energy while avoiding the other "c" word.

But there are several reasons that Obama won't be able to avoid talking about climate change for too long—and well he shouldn't. The first is the ongoing battle over the Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed 1,661-mile pipeline from Canada to Texas probably would have been approved to little fanfare if environmental groups hadn't waged a lengthy campaign asking the White House to reject it. Similar pipelines hadn't faced much backlash, but this one drew ire from climate-change activists who called attention to the increased emissions stemming from oil from Canada's tar sands, and from local residents in the pipeline's proposed pathway. During two weeks of sit-ins in late August, more than 1,200 people were arrested outside the White House protesting the pipeline. Activists also held a massive rally on November 6 that ended with thousands encircling the White House.

Continue Reading »

    

Almost everyone I know owns something made by Apple, and while most of us spend a fair bit of time obsessing about our gadgets—which apps are worth paying for? Is Siri useful or annoying?—rarely do we talk about where they came from. In part, that's because Apple wants it that way: The company is famously tight-lipped about its manufacturing process, and few outsiders have ever made it into their factories.

But now, Apple's tough facade has finally begun to crack: Recent coverage (more on this below) has provided a glimpse into Apple's vast supply chain and the massive profits it produces—more than $400,000 for every employee, according to a New York Times investigation. Here at Mother Jones, we've got a somewhat related investigation in the pipeline—come back in a few weeks for the details. Meanwhile, my colleague Dave Gilson made this handy tool.

We've loaded this iPhone up with 10 apps you won't find on a real smart phone. Click on an app to learn where your phone's electronic components really came from.

Supply Side

Apple spends an estimated $100 on the iPhone's 1,000-plus parts. It keeps a tight lid on where in the world they come from. If you deconstruct the gadget, you'll find fewer than 130 parts with a brand name or "made in" label on them.

Bad Apples

iPhones are made in Shenzhen, China, by the Taiwanese company Foxconn, which has been criticized for its working conditions, including long hours, harsh discipline, and a rash of worker suicides. Apple's own reviews found that more than half its audited manufacturers did not meet its labor standards for things such as child labor.

Miner Threat

A 16GB iPhone 3GS contains 12 gold-plated parts. Producing 1 ounce of gold creates 80 tons of waste. Layers of middlemen make it difficult to trace the source of the gold (or any other metal) in an iPhone, making it easy for minerals from conflict zones to slip into the supply chain.

Tantalized

The iPhone includes a tantalum capacitor. After a United Nations report linked its manufacturer, Kemet, to the illegal mineral trade in eastern Congo, the company vaguely announced it "supports avoiding" tantalum from the region.

Negative Charge

Rechargeable batteries have energized demand for lithium. Getting more will mean digging up 3,000 square miles of pristine Bolivian salt flats, home to one-half of the world's lithium reserves.

Tin Soldiers

Tin is used to solder circuit boards. Some 27,000 tons are extracted from Congo annually, earning armed groups an estimated $93 million or more.

Screen Slaver

The 3.5-inch LCD screen is reportedly made in Taiwan and China by Wintek, which has faced allegations of low wages, forced overtime, and ripping off migrant workers.

BadVibes

High-density tungsten is used to make cell phones vibrate. Three-quarters of the world's supply comes from China—not known for its mining safety record—and 1,400 tons are dug up annually in Congo.

MicroPolluter

Making a 0.07-ounce microchip uses 66 pounds of materials, including water and toxic chemicals such as flame retardants and chlorinated solvents. Greenpeace gives Apple a 4.6 out of 10 for its efforts to eliminate hazardous chemicals and minimize e-waste.

Locked In

The list price for a 16GB iPhone 4S is $649. It's yours for less than $200, if you don't mind being locked into a two-year contract with AT&T or Verizon.

This week, the New York Times has launched a series called "The iEconomy," and the first piece in the series focused on Apple's massive outsourcing of jobs to China. No task is too big, no deadline too tight:

One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone's screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

Another article focused on the "harsh conditions" at the Chinese factories where Apple gadgets are made.

A few weeks back, there was an incredible episode of This American Life, wherein Mike Daisey, a monologist and "self-described worshipper in the cult of Mac" visits the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where iPads are made. What he finds there is mind-boggling. First, the sheer size of the place: 34,000 workers. The cafeterias seat thousands, and the dormitories are so crowded the beds remind Daisey of coffins.

Daisey meets a young woman who cleans iPad screens and discovers that she is just 13. While he is there, a worker dies after a 34-hour shift. But the most chilling part was Daisey's description of the factories as virtually silent. There's no thrum of machinery, he realizes, because there are hardly any machines. What we miss when we wax nostalgic about a time when things were made by hand, he says, is that "There are more handmade things now than there have ever been."

More bad news: Back in August, the Chinese NGO Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs released a report (PDF) on the pollution created by Apple's sprawling supply chain. Among its findings was that Apple doesn't even seem to be looking for environmental problems during its factory audits:

…the coalition has discovered more than 27 suspected suppliers to Apple that have had environmental problems. However, in the '2011 Supplier Responsibility Report' published by Apple Inc., where core violations were discovered from the 36 audits, not a single violation was based on environmental pollution…Therefore, despite Apple’s seemingly rigorous audits, pollution is still expanding and spreading along with the supply chain.

Of course, none of this is good news for gadget hounds. But is it bad enough to make people swear off iPads? Or at least to pressure Apple to change its ways? 

    

At Maverick Farms, we keep a flock of chickens for eggs. It seems axiomatic to me that the happier and healthier the birds are, the better the eggs will be. So if a salesperson showed up pitching a product that would, say, boost egg production by 5 percent, while making our birds sick, but just healthy enough to keep laying, I'd send him packing. Who wants to eat eggs from a sick chicken? And why would I intentionally harm the animals who provide my eggs?

The US meat industry has different ideas. Its main goals are to maximize production while minimizing costs. Animal health matters only to the extent that the animals need to be well enough to scuttle down the slaughter line (or produce eggs, in the case of hens). Thus the industry routinely feeds livestock stuff that makes them sick.

Reporting for the newly hatched Food and Environment Reporting Network, the excellent food-safety reporter Helena Bottemiller exposes one major example: the widespread use on factory-scale hog farms of ractopamine, a drug that boosts meat production but makes hogs miserable. The drug—fed to 60 to 80 percent of pigs, Bottemiller reports—"mimics stress hormones, making the heart beat faster and relaxing blood vessels." Its effects are pretty dire:

Since it was introduced [13 years ago], ractopamine had sickened or killed more than 218,000 pigs as of March 2011, more than any other animal drug on the market, a review of FDA veterinary records shows. Pigs suffered from hyperactivity, trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk and death, according to FDA reports released under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Now, 218,000 pigs over 13 years is a rounding error for the pork industry, which slaughters upwards of 110 million hogs every year. The industry has clearly calculated that torturing pigs with pharmaceuticals is worth a few losses, so long as overall meat production gets a boost.

Continue Reading »

    

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Look back on 2011 and you'll notice a destructive trail of extreme weather slashing through the year. In Texas, it was the driest year ever recorded. An epic drought there killed half a billion trees, touched off wildfires that burned four million acres, and destroyed or damaged thousands of homes and buildings. The costs to agriculture, particularly the cotton and cattle businesses, are estimated at $5.2 billion—and keep in mind that, in a winter breaking all sorts of records for warmth, the Texas drought is not yet over.

In August, the East Coast had a close brush with calamity in the form of Hurricane Irene. Luckily, that storm had spent most of its energy by the time it hit land near New York City. Nonetheless, its rains did at least $7 billion worth of damage, putting it just below the $7.2 billion worth of chaos caused by Katrina back in 2005.

Continue Reading »