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Comment by zkmon | Hacker News Reader

Really cool. Reminds me of farmers of some third world countries. Completely ignored by government, exploited by commission brokers, farmers now use all sorts of tricks, including coloring and faking their farm produce, without regard for health hazards to consumers. The city dwellers who thought they have gamed the system through high education, jobs and slick-talk, have to consume whatever is served to them by the desperate farmers.

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What you describe sounds more like industrial farming than tricks played by third world farmers (whatever that means).

Industrial ag regularly treats product to modify the texture, color, and shelf life. Its extremely common to expose produce to various gases and chemicals to either delay or hasten ripening, for example. Other tricks are used while the plants are still in the ground or immediately after harvest, for example spraying grains with roundup to dry out more quickly.

The agricultural farmers did it to themselves, many are very wealthy already. Anything corporate America has taken over is because the farmers didn’t want to do the maintenance work. So they sell out to big corporations who will make it easier.

Same as any other consumer using Meta products. You sell out because it’s easier to network that way.

I am the son of a farmer.

Edit: added disclosure at the bottom and clarified as agricultural farming

I'm a farmer myself. I was talking about farmers in some third world countries. They are extremely marginalized and suffered for decades and centuries. They still do.

This is a very biased source discussing a very real prescription issue, and worth a glance for the statistics:

https://www.farmkind.giving/the-small-farm-myth-debunked

Tldr; the concept of farmers as small family farms has not been rooted in truth for a very long time in America

This is for livestock farming, I was specifically discussing agricultural farming.

In general though, the easy rule of living and eating non-mega farmed food and sustainable living is to “eat aware”:

My other advice is a one-size-fits-all food equation, which is, simply, to know where it came from. If you can't place it, trace it, or grow it/raise it/catch it yourself, don't eat it. Eat aware. Know your food. Don't wait on waiters or institutions to come up with ways to publicize it, meet your small fishmonger and chat him or her up at the farmer's market yourself. [0]

[0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-pescatores-dilemma_b_2463...

Are you proposing that eating industrially raised produce or meat is safer and healthier than alternatives?

A whole lot of people don't have that available, but it's a good deal if you can get it.

Again talking about Americans.

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