A couple of observations on the article “From Gourmet Pork to Subsistence Farming.” First, raising pigs may be more time consuming than dry farming beans and Mr. Steele is getting along in years. But I am glad he is still at it.
Slaughterhouses, an industrial industry, being few and far between may be like pot farming. No one wants one upwind and even though 99 percent of the animal is used, that one percent generates a lot of waste. Do we need them, yes but in a carefully thought-out area and carefully regulated. Fear of pigs and veggies on the same farm can be blamed more on large corporate farming’s sloppy management than state regulation.
Mr. Steele’s comments on Prop 12 (cruelty to animals) are right on. What Prop 12 has done is restrict animal farming to California-grown only. We now can’t import milk from out of state due to regulation, and that may now be a force driving egg prices to $8-plus per dozen and creating a new lobby (like the milk lobby). We will suffer at the grocery store.
Propositions are not the way to govern. They are inflexible like a wall. We pay our legislators, and they should be the ones to decide how we are governed and be able to change laws as circumstances change.