Summary Of Eric Schlosser's On The Range

when held back from a perceived right, in this case the American dream of owning your own farm. Hanks decline in the first moral debate with Jacob and Lou over the

American agriculture can produce more food on less land and at cheaper cost than any other nation. Did anyone ever wonder why or how? The documentary Food Inc., produced by Robert Kenner, is designed to put the spotlight on the unsafe preparation of food products, the inhuman treatment of animals being used, and the unethical treatment of workers in corporate farming. Robert Kenner uses multiple rhetorical analysis to get his aspect across to his viewers. Throughout the movie, there are several claims to appeal of ethos, pathos, and logos in order to uncover the true secrets of the American food during its journey to the table.

Farmers had been hit a lot harder than most in the 20's and past the

Industrialization has revolutionized America’s economy. Mass production allows products in demand to be easily available for purchase. But at what point does this system cross the line? It is one thing to mass produce electronics and clothing, for example, but applying mass production to the meat industry is entirely different. In order to generate the most profit, livestock are killed systematically at a massive scale on an assembly line. These animals are treated as nothing more than objects that can be processed, packaged, and sold to a consumer. For this business to take place with both time and cost efficiency, the welfare of the livestock is placed as one of the last priorities. Factory farming has gotten out of hand, and America is

One of the basic arguments for the restoration of bison back onto the prairies involves the economic benefits. Five of the nations ten poorest counties are located on Indian reservations (Manning, WWW). With decreasing beef prices and increasing land values, the margin of profit continues to narrow. A majority of the cattle industry that once was present in the midwest have sought greener pastures east in states such as Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky (Popper, D). Another possible opponent, the Forest Service also no longer seems to focus on maximizing their timber yields in the midwest, but rather in northern California, Oregon, and Washington (Popper, D). Bison offer a plausible solution due to their low cost (about half as much as cattle). Bison are also better adapted to the environment and produce the same amount of meat which is higher in protein, lower in cholesterol and fat, compared to cattle. In terms of land usage, bison graze and then move while cattle remain where they are thus damaging the soil. Bison also eat a greater variety of grasses, something which lacks with cattle. A proposal made by conservationists suggest that, "Ranchers can easily switch to buffalo and sell hunting rights, meats, hides, horns, and skulls at healthy prices (Popper DE, 1994)." Care of bison is also simple because unlike cattle, bison can withstand plains' winters. Land value also increases when it offers game

The Pitchfork Ranch is one of the most historic ranches in west Texas. The Pitchfork Ranch has been owned by the same family for more than a century. On December 13, 1883 the Pitchfork Ranch was bought with 52,500 acres of land in west Texas. It was started with 9,750 head of cattle. It’s the only ranch in west Texas that didn’t have to downsize during the Great Depression. Today the Pitchfork Ranch is spread over 162,000 acres in west Texas. It spreads over Dickens and King Counties (Nordyke). This paper will discuss various topics about the Pitchfork Ranch, from the history of it to how they work their horses, cattle, and everyday maintaining the ranch. The Pitchfork Ranch has many different kinds of income. Its main income comes from cattle, but they also have mineral rights to the land and they just recently started drilling oil. They also have 500 acres of farmland which they sale some of the crops but they mainly use it to feed the cattle crop every year. They also have a feedlot at the ranch headquarters. The feedlot is a necessity because they have over 5,000 head of calves every year, and it’s a lot more economical to feed them out on the ranch, instead of selling them for a lower price whenever they’re younger (Ranch). The Pitchfork has been in operation over one hundred years, and it has only been through seven ranch managers. The current ranch manager is Bob Moorehouse, he has been the manager since 1987. “I love this way of life, there is

Describe the origins, purposes, and practices of the "long drive" and the "open range" cattle industry. What ended this brief but colorful boom? What was the long-run nature of the cattle business?

Nowadays more and more people are unaware of where their food comes from. Mankind now lives in an age where technology is the main focus and the rural way of life is becoming a thing of the past. The ability to produce food is so efficient and effective that some people do not even realize how their food gets to their plate. But that was not the case in the 19th century. In 1837, a man named John Deere changed farming forever.

Not only does the land suffer from a break in the sacred connection between farmer and crops, the men lose a part of their humanity to the machine. Those "men" who run the tractors are described in the novel as being "part of the monster (Steinbeck, 48)." They have given their humanity to the company in return for money to buy food that was produced by machines, not by men. Chapter eleven describes the slow degrading of the spirits of the tractor men and the migrants who no longer know the land. The slow deterioration of the houses, with no people to care for and be sheltered by them, is symbolic of the death of the land and the people when they are not connected. (Steinbeck 158-159)

This information illustrates the status quo of Wyoming’s agriculture. “Historically, agriculture has been important to Wyoming’s cultural identity and the quality of life of its citizens… There currently 9,200 agricultural producers operating in Wyoming. Overall Wyoming agricultural production in 2001 amounted to $1.057 billion and of that sum; gross value added to the economy was $471.2 million.”(Bittner, 2) “Agriculture contributes $800 million annually to Wyoming’s economy, approximately 80% of which is cattle production.” (www.ourchildrenstrust.org/page/323/Wyoming-economy) From the previous figures, we can see that agriculture occupies an important position in Wyoming’s economy. It increases economic growth and gross domestic product.

In the U.S., the concept of factory farms primarily involving animals such as pigs, cattle and chicken began in the 1920’s as a way to increase efficiencies by capturing

Hank Morgan wakes up thirteen centuries later. He then lived the rest of his life in the nineteenth century. Near the end of his time he met Mark Twain. At this point Mark Twain has just finished reading Hank’s manuscript. Twain went to find Hank muttering about Sandy is some kind of delirium. He asks to see his daughter and he believes that he was still in the sixth century and had just been sick for a long time. He then dies in mid sentence; ordering “The drawbridge there! Man the battlements!--turn out the--”

When we mention about farm, most of us have this image of a vast green pasture where farmers spend most of their time herding livestock but that idyllic picture is just a thing from the past. Since the 1930s in America, small farms started to wither away, made way to bigger and highly mechanized factory farms. It all traced back to McDonalds and the booming of fast food restaurants (Food, Inc 2008). Fast food restaurants had become successful because they could produce tasty food with cheaper cost. Their franchises eventually made them a multi-million-dollars industry. Big business required big suppliers. Small rural farms cannot meet the demand for supply and they quickly fade away. Farmers were being replaced by corporations in

As the twentieth century approached, America was experiencing a time of considerable expansion. All eyes were looking for ways to make the United States a larger, more powerful, and more efficient country. Because of this wave in American society, there was no movement given more devotion than the settling of the West. The range-cattle industry in its various aspects, and in its importance to the United States and particularly to the Great Plains, has been a subject of focus to Americans since its origin in the mid 1800's. This industry was rendered possible by such factors as vast sections of fertile land, the rise of heavy industry involving the great demand for beef, and

Most people who settled the Great Plains were ranchers. The western frontier was an idea place for grazing huge herds of cattle. Cowboys tended herds of cattle, branded them, and managed long cattle drives across the open prairies. In 1869 the building of the transcontinental railroad made it possible to ship the cattle market in large and profitable numbers (JRank Articles 2011). The experience of the