Kudos to New Haven’s Geoff Davis and his timely, well-written, necessary letter to the editor — “Large scale dairy farming inherently Unsustainable” (Sept. 16).  — with many numbers supporting his statements. I would encourage anyone who did not read this to do so.
Farmers will need guidance and money to make the following 90-degree turn that Mr. Davis is suggesting, but it should be started now! AS he states, “the only viable solution to factory farming’s unsustainable system lies in rethinking our personal food choices and literally retooling agriculture from the ground up to meet the new paradigm, one that demands far fewer cows and much less dairy, and many more vegetables, legumes and other arguably healthier and more sustainably produced foods.”
The article clearly points out that the current system of dairy cattle farming produces too much poo, too much phosphorus, too much CO2 and maybe even too many farmers now battling non-Hodgkins lymphoma as the result of using Roundup’s glyphosate.
And last, but definitely not the least important is Davis’s argument to “Consider the animals.” In very strong words he states, “it,” (the killing and eating so many farm animals) “is deeply and disturbingly inhumane and a stain not only on Vermont’s carefully cultivated image of agrarian harmony, but on the very soul of our state itself.”
Maybe all of us Vermonters would benefit from reading or rereading Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” in helping us to think seriously about this change and then doing it. To quote Thoreau, “I have no doubt that is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other.
Pat Davies
Middlebury