My Page: PeterHolter
Holistic Management International COO Peter Holter Reacts to Recent News Reports about Rising PricesEthanol - now the major player in alternative fuels - is consuming corn that might otherwise be fed to cattle, dairy cows, swine, sheep and fowl. The result is that the prices being paid for corn are rising rapidly. These increases in turn are driving up the prices of both the foods that we humans consume, and of the livestock feeds that contain corn.
Unfortunately, the news stories did not discuss why livestock are consuming corn-based feed in the first place. The answer is that our industrial livestock industry confines the animals to pens and barns; therefore, they have to consume manufactured food.
Would it be possible to return to a more “natural” way of raising livestock? Over 23 years, Holistic Management International has accumulated considerable evidence that this is possible.
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Unfiltered Guest Column
Are Cows Really the Villains?Peter Holter, COO of Holistic Management International, discusses the recent UN report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," which suggests that the world’s cattle herds actually emit more carbon and dioxide and greenhouse gases than cars do.
The recent UN report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,”, suggested that the world’s cattle herds actually emit more carbon and dioxide and greenhouse gases than cars do.
The issue is not really the cows, but how they have been managed in an industrialized food chain.
As best we can tell, the UN study is primarily based on animals that have been raised in an industrialized manner, confined to pens and barns where they are fed a steady slaughterhouse/feedlot diet of synthetic minerals, grains, fodder, and antibiotics. These would make anyone belch and produce unpleasant gas!
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