About 75% to 80% of grass-fed beef sold in the U.S. is grown abroad, from Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America, according to a 2017 report from the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Those countries have the advantage of "vast expanses of grassland, low-input beef that is not finished to a high level, and is very inexpensive," says Rowntree — even with the cost of shipping it halfway around the world. Most of what comes from Australia is ground beef, not steaks, because the end result of their finishing process tends to be tough.
Many U.S. customers who want to support local food are likely unaware of the foreign origin of most grass-fed beef. By law, if meat is "processed," or passes through a USDA-inspected plant (a requirement for all imported beef), it can be labeled as a product of the U.S.
In Pennsylvania, state law allows rural households to burn “domestic refuse” unless prohibited by the local townships. 🔥Many small towns look the other way, and plenty of small farms and homesteads burn their trash – everything they throw away – except maybe food waste that they compost and metals and glass which they either take to the landfill or the transfer station for in some cases for recycling once a year or so.🚮
It actually works pretty good and saves the rural homesteads money while keeping garbage out of the landfill.🏡 I’ve burned garbage over the years, composting, and saving recycling metals and glass aren’t rocket science. Burn barrels, while smelly and somewhat toxic, have proven a solid way of rural households to dispose of most of their ordinary household trash. Trash disposal in country isn’t a big deal if you have land, and can burn most of it.🔥 Many if not most homesteaders and farmers in states that allow open burning do so, despite the smell and the sometimes noxious compounds released.
And it can and does smell bad, especially when people burn it in barrels without additional fuel. I had actually forgotten how pungent it can be driving through small town Pennsylvania on a warm summer night with smoldering trash barrel out back. The smell of polystyrene breaking down in a smoldering fire is particularly pungent. ☁Makes me think when I own my off-grid home I’ll probably want to have garbage cans, save the garbage then build a hot fire and burn what I can without as many noxious fumes.
I do like fire and I do like the idea of living without expensive trash pick up,💸 limiting my landfill disposal to a small bag every year, 🚮burning and comparing the bulk of it. Maybe even getting money rather than paying money 💵 for my aluminum cans and tin cans at a scrap yard. ♻ I’m not that worried about pollution in the kind of rural area that I eventually want to live in. More power to the Pennsylvania redneck that burns! 💪🔥
Smokey Bear, the U.S. Forest Service's symbol of fire prevention, turns 75 on Friday. Smokey is the longest-running public service ad campaign, first appearing on a poster on Aug. 9, 1944. While his look has changed quite a bit, his message has shifted only slightly.
They have a lot of Smokey Bear stuff at the Pennsylvania State Forests. But then again, in Pennsylvania people are always burning stuff, because fire is just a way of life, whether on the farm or at the rural homestead.
According to a recent poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Bogema is one of about 2.5 million rural residents (about 7% of the total rural population) who say they have no friends or family nearby to rely on. An additional 14 million (about 39%) say they only have a few people. Like Bogema, many feel isolated.
McGregor, Minn., is one of 18 communities in north-eastern part of the state that is participating in a program that addresses loneliness and social isolation by connecting the young with the old.
People in rural areas report "feeling lonely or left out," says Carrie Henning-Smith, the deputy director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center and one of the authors of a recent study on rural isolation, despite the fact that rural communities often have stronger social networks than urban ones. She notes that many communities have become more socially isolated in recent years as rural economies have declined and young people moved away.
For me, I doubt living in a small town would be socially isolating -- I think there are a lot of interesting folk who live in small towns -- but it's just finding work that pays decently, lets me live the live-style I desire. While I don't need a lot of fancy toys, a lot of things that you need for a good rural life are pretty expensive.
SENECA FALLS — Anyone who has ever picked up large rocks by hand knows how menial — and physically demanding — that task can be, especially on a hot and muggy day like Tuesday.
People who want to make that job easier, or eliminate it completely, got a look at the machinery that makes it possible at Empire Farm Days.
Stone-crushing demonstrations by Bugnot, a French company, drew dozens of people who saw rocks the size of flat footballs reduced to stones that would easily fit in the palm of your hand. Smaller stones were pulverized, turned to powder that went into the churned-up soil.
Notable: I was looking at the latest Siena Poll and the Farm Workers Bill of Rights polls quite well in Upstate, 71-21 percent approve and even Republicans support it 54-32 percent. I am sure some in agriculture community feel differently, but it shows how popular a policy can be non-related parties.
