Shepherdstown Environmental Group Encourages Organic Farms with Viewing of FRESH

The environmental group Sustainable Shepherdstown held a viewing of the documentary FRESH in the Byrd center Friday evening.

Sustainable Shepherdstown welcomed visitors to the Byrd Center at 5 p.m. with green tea, vegetables, and cookies. A large stack of copies of Robert C. Byrd's book, Losing America, sat near the entrance, free for anyone who was interested. To the left, an array of homegrown fruits and vegetables sat in display on several tables, provided by Shepherdstown resident Shepherd Ogden and Shepherd student Cody Marsh.

The difference between these vegetables and what I've seen in the supermarkets was immediately apparent. For instance, the Flaming Fury peaches (a very odd name for a fruit, especially something as unimposing as a peach) were about the size of grapefruits. Everything looked healthy and fresh.  They also sold peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash. 

After a few technical difficulties, the documentary began. FRESH was essentially a movie made with the agenda of returning America to small, locally operated farms for both livestock and crops. Sustainable Shepherdstown vocally supports this goal, as well as the transition from oil to more eco-friendly and renewable power sources.

The documentary started with a look at American reliance on convenience food. This is especially apparent to college students. Who has time to prepare healthy, well-balanced meals when you have a night class, two reading assignments for tomorrow, and a paper due Thursday? Heat up the cheap, reliable ramen and grab some chips.

All of this premade or quick-prep food requires a vast amount of quickly supplied farm goods: meat and grain, specifically. The film moved on to the raising of livestock in factory farms, cuing a scene of workers dumping large containers of tiny yellow chicks unceremoniously onto the ground, much to the consternation of the hapless birds.

One couple interviewed mentioned that, back in the days of small farms, chickens didn't grow nearly as fast. The meat industry is a big business, and they've found that the fastest way to raise livestock, and to earn a profit, is to pack them into small areas and nourish them on grain based feed. This method creates several problems.

The most obvious is that by cramming a large amount of the same species into a small area, disease runs rampant and parasites flock to the food supply. This is a simple fact of nature, and is how H1N1 and other problematic diseases got a foothold. To counter these problems, the companies liberally use pesticides and antibiotics, but this has a further drawback. First, whatever food is produced, plant or animal, is either has pesticides on it or is pumped full of chemicals. While this practice is not lethal for humans, it probably isn't very healthy either.

Furthermore, it used to be a simple matter for farmers to fertilize their crops with the waste products of their livestock. However, the antibiotics and various other chemicals injected into the factory farm animals makes their waste unusable. The other consequence is that farmers are forced to use synthetic fertilizers that pollute rivers.

The most problematic consequence of the mass use of antibiotics is that, like with people who take medicine whenever they feel a little ill, antibiotic-resistant strains start emerging.

The documentary went on to show examples of small organic farms, how they work, and the many benefits they provide. One of the messages conveyed was that industrial farms are not only unhealthy and unsafe, but they are also unsustainable because they are inefficient. Massive tracts of farmland or used to produce low grade grains to feed to the livestock, the livestock wastes are unfit for fertilizer, and the livestock meat is tainted by chemicals.

These small farms are much more self-sufficient: the cattle graze on the grass of their pastures and provide fertilizer for the crops. One of the experts said that it has been statistically proven that small farms are better at producing food in the long run, and are definitely more efficient with what they have (and healthier, to boot). One of the farmers interviewed, Joel Salatin, stated that "Part of our responsibility as stewards of the Earth is to respect the design of nature."