The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan [214]
Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991).
Kneen, Brewster. Invisible Giant: Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies (London: Pluto Press, 2002).
Manning, Richard. Against the Grain (New York: North Point Press, 2004). Manning uses the metaphor of biomass to describe the surplus of commodity grain on page 137.
Sahagún, B. de (Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana, 1558–69) Florentine Codex: A General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Trans. A. J. O. Anderson and C. E. Dibble (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research and University of Utah, 1950–69).
Michael Duffy and George Naylor helped me to sort out exactly what a farmer receives for a bushel of corn from the market and the government. That said, the various formulae and contingencies involved, not to mention the nomenclature, are dauntingly complex, and neither Naylor nor Duffy bears responsibility for any oversimplifications or errors in my computations. What I call the county “target price” is technically a “marketing loan rate,” but since the program is structured in such a way as to make taking out loans unattractive (unlike the old nonrecourse loan program), the wording is confusing. However, it’s important to understand that this price level is not a target price in the sense that it once was, when the USDA set a floor for commodity prices that it then supported by offering farmers nonrecourse loans.
CHAPTER 4: THE FEEDLOT: MAKING MEAT
This chapter had its origins in a piece I wrote for the New York Times called “Power Steer” (March 31, 2002). In researching cattle and the U.S. cattle industry, I learned a great deal from Bill Niman of Niman Ranch in Oakland; Kansas feedlot operator Mike Callicrate; Colorado rancher Dale Lassiter; animal-handling expert Temple Grandin (www.grandin.com); South Dakota bison rancher and writer Dan O’Brien; Cornell microbiologist James Russell; and Rich and Ed Blair, the South Dakota ranchers profiled in this chapter. Valuable published sources include:
Carlson, Laurie Winn. Cattle: An Informal Social History (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001).
Durning, Alan B., and Holly B. Brough. Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment (Washington, D.C.: World Watch Institute, 1991).
Engel, Cindy. Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn from Them (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).
Frazier, Ian. Great Plains (New York: Picador, 1989).
Grandin, Temple. Animal Handling in Meat Plants (video: Grandin Livestock Handling System, www.grandin.com, undated).
Johnson, James R., and Gary E. Larson. Grassland Plants of South Dakota and the Northern Great Plains (Brookings, SD: South Dakota State University, 1999).
Hamilton, Doug. Modern Meat (a documentary for Frontline; aired on PBS, April 18, 2002).
Lappé, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet (New York: Ballantine Books, 1991). Still the strongest case against eating beef, though in making it Lappé assumes a production system based on grain.
Luttwak, Edward. “Sane Cows, or BSE Isn’t the Worst of It,” London Review of Books 23, no. 3 (February 8, 2001).
Manning, Richard. Grassland: The History, Biology, and Promise of the American Prairie (New York: Penguin, 1997).
Nierenberg, Danielle. Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry (Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute, 2005).
O’Brien, Dan. Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch (New York: Random House, 2001). This is a rancher’s account of the cattle business and a promising alternative to it. O’Brien’s ranch happens to share a fence with the Blairs’.
Ozeki, Ruth L. My Year of Meats (New York: Penguin, 1999). Very funny, well-researched novel about the U.S. meat industry.
Rampton, Sheldon, and John Stauber. Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here? (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1997).
Rifkin, Jeremy. Beyond Beef (New York: Plume, 1993).
Russell, James B. Rumen Microbiology and Its Role in Ruminant