Investment in food production - co-operative???
- Thread starter Michal
- Start date
Thanks.
I had my first meeting with two farmers on last Saturday :).
I do not know what will come out of it but small step is done.
My friend's recommended farmer made really good impression on me. I wish I could do something with him. He is unfortunately for the time being involved in cattle and it would be too much for him to adjust facilities now to raise pigs. Anyway he introduced me to his colleague who had possibilities of feeding pigs the most clean way: eliminating soy completely which is most probably GMO and is not using antibiotics.
I have learned some very interesting things from them:
1. Almost every farmer today in their area is feeding pigs with soy. The reason is that is very cheap and is good supplement of proteins.
2. Use of chemicals is so wide spread nowadays that they say it would require good preparation to come back to 70's they say to the ways their parents were cultivating soil.
3. They like my idea of organizing consumers as they admit that awareness in people buying food is so low that there is no visible demand from the market as they see it to eat clean food.
They guy is keeping 30 - 40 pigs already. He is supplying proteins to his pigs by lupine which is now abandoned by a lot of pig farmers. Lupine has very high protein content similar to soy just few percent lower.
I got one more contact to the lecturer form agricultural school who is providing courses for farmers raising pigs which I am happy to contact him this week. Maybe I will also attend his course as it became now my hobby. I am interested in knowledge about diet composition and other important issues which I am not aware now.
I have left my farmer with outline of my idea and with offer to think about.
I told him that I want to make experiment and try if it works with few pigs. He looked a bit skeptic but the longer we talked he was more willing to talk about what he thinks about current situation so there is a hope.
If he agrees then I will start to create the website. Purpose of the website I thought should be to increase knowledge about meat among consumers, how it is raised. To let people know that meat from big farms is not equal to meat from small organic farms. Also to reveal some information well known to farmers but not known to consumers in towns like me, about what pigs are currently fed, how much chemicals are being used, how much antibiotics are used etc.
It is in a fact not only about pigs.
While we talked we came back to the point few times that for good farmers it would be beneficial to have more contact with consumers and vice versa. If people are not interested how their food was made the situation will be rather worse. But if people are more aware about what is required to get good meat and how it is related to the price this may have some good influence.
I have few ideas about what shall be in the page:
1. How meat is produced - what are the stages, what is the diet, how it is composed - may be showing even daily menu, may compare menus from different breedings. I would like that meat offered by this site would have transparent menu that people will know what pigs were eating.
2. How the price is being "shaped" - who are the players on the market, who is earning what and why consumers are paying price in shop that much and from farmer that much.
3. I would like to also introduce farmers to consumers. Idea is that I would like to know from whom I am buying my meat. I would like people to know where it exactly comes from. That if they wish they may visit and see themselves how it looks like.
I now wish that consumers and farmers are not anonymous to each other. They who produce and they who eat it should know each other.
I will think about it a bit more.
When I met my colleague few weeks ago he asked me: do You like Your job? And what do You think is about farmers?
So we are basically on the same side. We want to have good life and not necessarily are fascinated by what we do. Most of farmers in Poland are farmers because their parents were farmers, they inherited the land, they were familiarized with their job from early childhood so they know it by heart. They made their school by doing, by helping their parents. Some of course have higher education. They know their job well but have also their complains. Money is very important so if there is possibility that they may earn more and work less it is like everyone - we start to think and maybe even like the new idea. And I think there is a possibility that they may earn more and consumers may pay not much more for much higher quality food then offered by factory farming eventhough it is so "efficient". People just do not know how much they pay for products being cheap.
Another interesting thing. During our last visit to Poland we bought quite a lot of sausages and bacon from farmers. They have a lot of local clients because people are fed up with meats in shops and want to eat from trusted source where sausage is composed of meat and fat alone without additives and fillers. So there is market. Underground :).
I do not know what will come out of it but small step is done.
My friend's recommended farmer made really good impression on me. I wish I could do something with him. He is unfortunately for the time being involved in cattle and it would be too much for him to adjust facilities now to raise pigs. Anyway he introduced me to his colleague who had possibilities of feeding pigs the most clean way: eliminating soy completely which is most probably GMO and is not using antibiotics.
I have learned some very interesting things from them:
1. Almost every farmer today in their area is feeding pigs with soy. The reason is that is very cheap and is good supplement of proteins.
2. Use of chemicals is so wide spread nowadays that they say it would require good preparation to come back to 70's they say to the ways their parents were cultivating soil.
3. They like my idea of organizing consumers as they admit that awareness in people buying food is so low that there is no visible demand from the market as they see it to eat clean food.
They guy is keeping 30 - 40 pigs already. He is supplying proteins to his pigs by lupine which is now abandoned by a lot of pig farmers. Lupine has very high protein content similar to soy just few percent lower.
I got one more contact to the lecturer form agricultural school who is providing courses for farmers raising pigs which I am happy to contact him this week. Maybe I will also attend his course as it became now my hobby. I am interested in knowledge about diet composition and other important issues which I am not aware now.
I have left my farmer with outline of my idea and with offer to think about.
I told him that I want to make experiment and try if it works with few pigs. He looked a bit skeptic but the longer we talked he was more willing to talk about what he thinks about current situation so there is a hope.
If he agrees then I will start to create the website. Purpose of the website I thought should be to increase knowledge about meat among consumers, how it is raised. To let people know that meat from big farms is not equal to meat from small organic farms. Also to reveal some information well known to farmers but not known to consumers in towns like me, about what pigs are currently fed, how much chemicals are being used, how much antibiotics are used etc.
It is in a fact not only about pigs.
While we talked we came back to the point few times that for good farmers it would be beneficial to have more contact with consumers and vice versa. If people are not interested how their food was made the situation will be rather worse. But if people are more aware about what is required to get good meat and how it is related to the price this may have some good influence.
I have few ideas about what shall be in the page:
1. How meat is produced - what are the stages, what is the diet, how it is composed - may be showing even daily menu, may compare menus from different breedings. I would like that meat offered by this site would have transparent menu that people will know what pigs were eating.
2. How the price is being "shaped" - who are the players on the market, who is earning what and why consumers are paying price in shop that much and from farmer that much.
3. I would like to also introduce farmers to consumers. Idea is that I would like to know from whom I am buying my meat. I would like people to know where it exactly comes from. That if they wish they may visit and see themselves how it looks like.
I now wish that consumers and farmers are not anonymous to each other. They who produce and they who eat it should know each other.
I will think about it a bit more.
When I met my colleague few weeks ago he asked me: do You like Your job? And what do You think is about farmers?
So we are basically on the same side. We want to have good life and not necessarily are fascinated by what we do. Most of farmers in Poland are farmers because their parents were farmers, they inherited the land, they were familiarized with their job from early childhood so they know it by heart. They made their school by doing, by helping their parents. Some of course have higher education. They know their job well but have also their complains. Money is very important so if there is possibility that they may earn more and work less it is like everyone - we start to think and maybe even like the new idea. And I think there is a possibility that they may earn more and consumers may pay not much more for much higher quality food then offered by factory farming eventhough it is so "efficient". People just do not know how much they pay for products being cheap.
Another interesting thing. During our last visit to Poland we bought quite a lot of sausages and bacon from farmers. They have a lot of local clients because people are fed up with meats in shops and want to eat from trusted source where sausage is composed of meat and fat alone without additives and fillers. So there is market. Underground :).
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