An Unusual Farm
I know of a farm where they don’t feed the animals. They even allow predators to roam freely, taking up to one fifth of their stock. And they’re proud of it.
That sounds pretty awful, but it’s not, it’s actually very good news. You can hear all about it in this video of a talk by Dan Barber. Dan is a New York chef who is quite outspoken in his views on the way we produce food today. He’s also a nice guy, which comes across clearly in the video. If you’d rather read a transcript, here it is.
The farm Dan talks about is Veta la Palma. It’s a fish-farm on the Guadalquivir river, in Spain. It produces 1,200 tonnes of sea bass, bream, red mullet and shrimp each year. Miguel Medialdea, the farm’s biologist, explains that they don’t need to feed their fish because of the way the farm is set up.
Miguel himself says that he is not an expert on fish, but he is an expert on relationships. By working with nature to build a sustainable ecosystem, instead of working against it to maximise profit, Veta la Palma produces fish in a way that also benefits the wildlife of the region.
In fact, their farm is one of the most important private estates for bird life in Europe. Before the farm, there were only 50 bird species there, now they count 250 species. This includes flamingos that commute 150 miles daily from their nesting sites to feed there, following the A92 highway.
If that’s not a recommendation for the quality of the fish, I don’t know what is!
(Possibly) related posts:
- HR 669, A Threat to Your Pet
- Celebrating Wildlife
- World Oceans Day, June 8th
- Little feet in the snow
- Bird feeders
Tags: Conservation, Dan Barber, Miguel Medialdea, Veta la Palma, Birds, Environment, Fish-farm, Fish, Flamingo
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:21
It’s terrible to think of, feeding chicken to fish or feeding wild fish to farm-fish. Makes me wonder what they were thinking.
This is a huge problem for those of us that want to do the right thing when we are shopping, things are often not as good as they seem and it’s hard to find out what the difference is and how to make the right choices.
Interesting and informative post Tony! =)
July 23rd, 2010 at 21:29
Hi Sanna,
yes, I was rather shocked when I saw that video myself, calling chicken ’sustainable protein’ because there are ‘too many chickens in the world’. Talk about marketing-spin, these people have no shame!
My grandfather was a fisherman. I often wonder, when I read about the state of the seas today, just what he would think of it all. I think he’d be ashamed of what we’ve done. But hearing about people like Miguel, and Dan too, gives me some encouragement.
July 24th, 2010 at 09:18
… and even worse is that those “too many chickens” are not free range chickens that has had a good life. One industry is supporting the mistreatment of animals in another.
People talk about how over populated this earth is but that’s not the real problem, we are wasting resources not out of need but out of greed. With the knowledge and technology that we have today there would be no problem to feed the world in a sustainable way, but we have to invest money into education and system changes and no one wants to pay. Well, not no one really, people like Miguel and Dan does do it and because of them others will follow.
July 24th, 2010 at 16:49
Sanna, I fully agree. The sooner people realise that ‘more’ doesn’t mean ‘better’, the better off we will all be. Like children, we want to eat the whole cake, as quickly as possible, instead of taking the time to savour what we have, without always asking for more.