Raising Livestock

The solution to the problems created by factory farms is the reestablishment of a socially responsible system of agriculture run by independent family farmers who respect and nurture the land, environment, community and animals.

This page contains information for independent producers who want to shift towards socially responsible livestock production. Visit the subpages below for information about specific types of livestock.

Raising Livestock

Dairy Cows

Hogs

Poultry

Beef Cattle

Featured

The Amazing Benefits of Grass-Fed Meat

Want a rib eye steak without all of the environmental, animal handling, carbon footprint, pesticide and hormone issues? Mother Earth News looks to grass-finished beef as a scalable solution to all of these problems.

General Resources

Alternative Farming: An Annotated Database

Information for farmers, consumers, students, and educators who are concerned about factory farming and seek humane alternatives.

Alternative Farming Systems Information Center

An online information center created by the National Agricultural Library. Includes information about organic farming, CSAs and sustainable agriculture.

Alternatives to Intensive Confinement Systems for Farm Animals

A bibliography of published information about factory farming and sustainable alternatives. (Animal Welfare Institute.)

American Wind Energy Association

Capturing the energy of wind is emerging as a new economic enterprise, and is often more profitable than growing crops on the land. Many farmers in rural communities are finding that wind turbines can supplement farm income.

Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

CIAS brings together farmers, researchers, policymakers, and others to study farming practices, farm profitability, the environment, and rural vitality. (University of Wisconsin-Madison’s sustainable agriculture research center.)

Collaborate Marketing – A Resource Guide for Farmers

For many farmers, cooperation and collective action in marketing can be keys to survival and success in our rapidly changing food system. This publication is a resource guide for establishing a collaborative marketing group, essentially a cooperative. (University of Minnesota Extension Service.)

Community Supported Agriculture

This CSA information resource is a cooperative effort between the Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service (CSREES) and the National Agricultural Library (NAL) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). CSA is an alternative to factory farming.

Community Supported Agriculture

Information on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) – an alternative model for small-scale agricultural production that emphasizes consumer participation. (University of Massachusetts Extension.)

FarmingSolutions.org

Online service that shows how food security and sustainable livelihoods can be achieved worldwide through innovative, environmentally responsible agriculture systems without threatening biodiversity, eroding the soil base, polluting water or endangering human health. (Greenpeace, Oxfam and ILEIA.)

grassfarmer.com

Information about grass-based farming systems. (American Farmland Trust.)

HORIZON Solutions Site

The site provides readily accessible peer-reviewed answers to problems in the environment, health, population, and development.

Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture

This nonprofit educational foundation produces excellent studies and reports that highlight pertinent issues of industrial versus sustainable agriculture.

Land Stewardship Project Publications

Offers many publications, including:

An Agriculture That Makes Sense: Profitability of Four Sustainable Farms in Minnesota. A case study that determined that four farms using sustainable practices were three times as profitable on a per-acre basis as their conventional neighbors. (43 pages, $7)
Holistic Resource Management. An innovative decision-making process that has revitalized farms across the country. (563 pages, $27.50)
Killing Competition With Captive Supplies: A special report on how meat packers are forcing independent family hog farmers out of the market through exclusive contracts. (47 pages, $6)
Land Stewardship Congregational Tool Kit. Contains videos, resource materials and activities for small and large group gatherings with a focus on building healthy communities by linking people with their food, the land and each other. ($10 for six-week rental; $125 to purchase.)
Marketing Sustainably Produced Foods: International Examples and Lessons for the United States. A review of ecological and sustainable marketing programs in Europe and the US. (55 pages, $22)
Monitoring Sustainable Agriculture with Conventional Financial Data. Presents four financial indicators to evaluate the sustainability of farming operations; reliance on government programs; use of equipment, chemicals, and non-renewable energy; creation of jobs; and balance between feed use and feed production. (30 pages, $7)
The Monitoring Tool Box. Guide for farmers to learn techniques for monitoring the impact of management decisions on their land, finances and family. Also includes one-year subscription to “Close to the Ground.” (115 pages, $35 plus $7 shipping)

Local Harvest

An online database featuring farmers markets, CSAs, co-ops, farm stands, and pick-your-own produce. Producers can get listed for free.

National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service

A good site to use as a starting point. Many links in a variety of categories related to sustainable agriculture.

Renewing the Countryside

Showcases examples of people working to enhance their rural communities and regions. Many people are adopting new ways of living, managing their land, and doing business that improves their communities, the environment and their lives, through such activities as sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and arts and culture.

The Sustainable Agriculture Directory of Expertise

Locate experts who can answer questions about sustainable agriculture. Search both by area of expertise and geographic region. (Sustainable Agriculture Network.)

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program

A USDA program that supports sustainable agriculture research and professional development. Approximately 18% of projects involve animal production.

Sustainable Farming Connection

An online resource for farmers to meet and discuss the issues and challenges of sustainable farming.

Organizations

Canadian Organic Growers

Farmers’, gardeners’ and consumers’ group that puts out a newsletter and lends organic texts by mail.

Center for Rural Affairs

Committed to building communities that stand for social justice, economic opportunity, and environmental stewardship. Description of programs, and links to news and publications on sustainable agriculture.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Works to create environmentally and economically sustainable communities and regions through sound agriculture and trade policy.

The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Offers progressive leadership and educational programs to those interested in making farming and ranching environmentally friendly, socially equitable, and economically viable over the long term.

Land Stewardship Project

Works for environmental and social justice in rural America by educating rural and urban people about the ethics of farmland stewardship through cultural programs and by creating a farmer-to-farmer network to help farmers adopt more sustainable farming methods. The organization is located in Minnesota and concentrates on the Upper Midwest region, but has information relevant to all areas of the country.

Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Offers a grant program for research and demonstration, hosts educational events about sustainable agriculture, and releases publications about the topic. (Iowa State University.)

Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture

A unique partnership between the College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota and the Sustainers’ Coalition, a group of individuals and nonprofit organizations.

National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

A network of diverse groups whose mission is to shape national public policies to foster a sustainable food and agricultural system.

National Catholic Rural Life Conference

Working for family farms, a healthy environment and good rural communities since 1923. One of the oldest faith-based organizations of its type, it continues to oppose the industrialization of agriculture and factory farms while promoting sustainable agriculture.

New England Livestock Alliance (NELA)

Dedicated to revitalizing farming in the Northeast, the organization works with farmers to preserve the rural landscape of the region, to fight the pressures of land development, and to produce healthy livestock through humane management techniques and grass farming.

Organic Consumers Association

Works to make organic agriculture the dominant form of production. The OCA educates and unites organic consumers to protect the integrity of the organic label, promote sustainable and organic agriculture, oppose hazardous practices of industrialized farming and genetic engineering, and protect citizens’ right to know how their food is produced and processed.

Organic-Research.com

Organic-research.com is an online community for organic farming and food, developed by CABI Publishing. Organic-research.com will be of particular interest to those actively involved in organic farming research and development. But anyone interested in organic food and its production will find this site useful. CABI Publishing aims to provide impartial information of high quality, recognizing worldwide interest in organic farming and related sustainability issues.

Organic Trade Association

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is a membership-based business association representing the organic industry in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Members include growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmer associations, brokers, manufacturers, consultants, distributors and retailers. Established in 1985 as the Organic Foods Production Association of North America, the Organic Trade Association works to promote organic products in the marketplace and to protect the integrity of organic standards.

Soil and Water Conservation Society

Sustainable agriculture is central to the mission of the Society and its members relative to education, research, and policy activities.

Soil Association

UK organic certification and advocacy group with information and advice about eating and living organic in the UK.

Reports

A Blessing of the Past Century – But Major Challenge for the Next Millennium

Growing enough food to feed the world’s increasing human population was a major concern in the early part of the 20th century, until a scientist discovered that nitrogen gas could be converted into ammonia, a form of ‘reactive’ nitrogen. This led to the production of fertilizers, which helped feed the world’s population but had an unforeseen effect on the environment. (Peter Maier, Ph.D., PE, and Kay Henry, M.A., for Intermountain Water Alliance, December 1999.)

Consumer Preferences, Premiums, and the Market for Natural and Organic Pork: Locating a Niche for Small-scale Producers

A report on the viability of sustaining small-scale organic pork production with background information about consumer concerns over environmental factors. (W. Parker Wheatley, University of Minnesota Alternative Swine Production Systems Program, February 2001.)

The Economics of Grass Based Dairying

This guide looks at the positive economic and environmental impacts of establishing a grass-based dairy and helps farmers evaluate all aspects of a move from conventional to grass-based dairying. (ATTRA – National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, March 2002.)

Food from Our Changing World

US residents trust American small-farm owners, don’t favor corporate, non-family farms or trust genetically modified or foreign-grown food. These are a few of the preliminary results of a survey of public attitudes about globalization and our food’s sources, production, and safety conducted by Ronald Wimberley, a sociologist from North Carolina State University. (2003.)

Greener Pastures: How grass-fed beef and milk contribute to healthy eating

This is the first report to synthesize the findings of virtually every English-language study (25 were chosen for analysis) comparing the amounts of total fats, saturated fats, omega-3 fatty acids, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in both pasture-raised and conventionally raised beef and dairy cattle. The report also includes analyses of the nutritional, environmental, and public health benefits of grass-based farming techniques. (Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2006.)

How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture

This white paper from Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future outlines the environmental and human health problems associated with current food production practices, and discusses how these systems could be made more sustainable. (Leo Horrigan, MHS; Robert S. Lawrence, MD; Polly Walker, MD, Environmental Health Perspectives, May 2002.)

The Multiple Functions and Benefits of Small Farm Agriculture

This policy brief challenges the conventional wisdom that small farms are backward and unproductive. Evidence from Southern and Northern countries demonstrates that small farms are “multi-functional” – more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to economic development than large farms.

Pesticide Exposure of Urban and Suburban Preschool Children with Organic and Conventional Diets

This study assessed organophosphorus (OP) pesticide exposure from diet of preschool children. The results suggest that consumption of organic produce appears to be a relatively simple way for parents to reduce their children’s exposure to OP pesticides and can reduce children’s exposure levels from above to below the US Environmental Protection Agency’s current guidelines. (Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington. March 2003.)

Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (PAGE): Agroecosystems

World food production is threatened by farming methods that have degraded soils, parched aquifers, polluted waters, and caused the loss of animal and plant species. (International Food Policy Research Institute and the World Resources Institute, February 14, 2001.)

SAFE-World Research Project

The Potential for Sustainable Agriculture to Feed the World (SAFE-World) project began in December 1998. The aim was to audit recent worldwide progress towards sustainable agriculture and to assess the extent to which such projects/initiatives, if spread on a much larger scale, could feed a growing world population that is already substantially food insecure. See the final report, Reducing Food Poverty with Sustainable Agriculture: A Summary of New Evidence. See also: 47 Portraits of Sustainable Agriculture Projects and Initiatives.