Word: bettering
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Horror stories about the food industry have long been with us - ever since 1906, when Upton Sinclair's landmark novel The Jungle told some ugly truths about how America produces its meat. In the century that followed, things got much better, and in some ways much worse. The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Those hidden prices are the creeping erosion of our fertile farmland, cages for egg-laying chickens so packed that the birds...
...world. But for Niman, there is more at stake than just a good steak. He believes that his way of raising farm animals - in the open air, with no chemicals or drugs and with maximum care - is the only truly sustainable method and could be a model for a better food system. "What we need in this country is a completely different way of raising animals for food," says Hahn Niman, a former attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice. "This needs to be done in the right...
...model for how the new paradigm could work is Niman Ranch, a larger operation that Bill Niman founded in the 1990s, before he left in 2007. (By his own admission, he's a better farmer than he is a businessman.) The company has knitted together hundreds of small-scale farmers into a network that sells all-natural pork, beef and lamb to retailers and restaurants. In doing so, it leverages economies of scale while letting the farmers take proper care of their land and animals. "We like to think of ourselves as a force for a local-farming community...
...Part of the vessel's charm is that it offers an underwater encounter with no need for heavy oxygen cylinders or uncomfortable mouthpieces and masks. Better still, the motor is virtually soundless, leaving sea creatures undisturbed and preserving a sense of the exotic. It won't take you long to get a feel for the acceleration and steering, and you won't need brakes: the coral is low-lying, and there's nothing to bump into apart from other sub-scooters (although there's little chance of that with scuba-diving guides pointing the way). Sure, the sub-scooter...
...hill with a commanding view of the city. "This time there is no one," he says. But he doesn't blame the low turnout on insecurity alone. "Over the past seven years, people have become disappointed with democracy. They don't see that it has made their lives any better." (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...