This month, let me ask you a question: Are you, as a cattle breeder, pleasing to God?

It’s a question I ask myself everyday but, if you’d rather keep God out of it, perhaps you can deal better with the Second Commandment….the one about loving your neighbor. Do your practices, as a cattle breeder, demonstrate a love for your fellow man?

How does the food we produce and consume today line up with either standard, whether you view the Bible as inspired or simply age-old wisdom?

In Genesis (1; 29) God said “See I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to every thing that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so.”

I find it hard to believe then that the food we produce with its many genetic alterations is pleasing to God. The evidence is overwhelming. Just look at the health of the people of America and the world: over-weight, under-nourished, spending the greatest part of our treasure on disease. Even in starving Africa, obesity is a serious problem.

If I understand the scriptures correctly, everything we need for food was perfectly created and in its own natural state. Altering that food through genetics or management practices does, at the very least, risk our well-being as we consume those foods. I am forced to disagree with that old advertising slogan: Nature is, in fact, always right!

Also to every beast God gave every green herb for food. Yet we now eat beef and drink milk from many species of animals that are in full confinement barns and feedlots and subsist mostly on a diet of grain. I see that as a direct disobedience from the green herb diet the Creator intended animals to consume.

Scientists today are in full accord with the Bible on this at least: animals eating grain eventually alter their genetic makeup. And the meat and milk take on a different composition and quality not intended in nature!

Why did He mention herbs and the beasts of the fields? Because animals are a vital part of our food chain. When we alter the diet of our animals away from herbs (grass) we alter the life of the animal and, indirectly (or should I say, directly), alter the life of the consumers of that product.

The feeding of supplements to our animals is a form of disobedience to God and there is ample evidence we are paying for that with our health. This world was created perfectly with provisions for each species and with each species depending on the other for existence. Notice the wild animals never change in form and their diet always has been herbage. Yet the livestock breeds are in their fourth conformation change just in my lifetime and not one of the changes has ever been genetically stable.

Back to the Bible. Leviticus (19; 19): “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your fields with mixed seed.”

In the late 1940s we learned we could crossbreed and outcross our livestock and produce more pounds of milk and beef per cow unit. The Scriptures warned against crossing our animals. Today we know that cross-breeding results in a complete loss of control of genetic characteristics. Breeding like to like is the only way to be consistent in the re-creation of the next generation.

And one final Biblical injunction: Deuteronomy (7; 12-14): Moses warned the people to be obedient in all respects of life and receive the promised blessings. “There shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock.” Cross-breeding our animals and not feeding the herbage that was created for them sets the stage for uncontrollable livestock genetics that are not beneficial for human consumption.

Man’s greed for pounds, tons and bushels has completely changed the food-producing community for one reason alone: the almighty dollar. The beef and milk you find in supermarkets today is very little better than the genetically-modified foods in the produce section and in boxes on the shelves. (I can’t help but smile as I picture God reading the list of ingredients on those boxes.)

We cannot say that this is a demonstration of man loving his neighbor as himself. I refuse to eat a cow with cancer of the eye, however I take her to the sale barn and hope for payment as salvage and in a few days she is on your dinner table. Is this the act of a loving neighbor?

When we change the pattern from the original creation we have changed the product and its original quality for its intended purposes. Money should not be the driving force in agriculture. Our goal must be the quality of what we produce. Changing God’s creation has changed what He knew was best for us.

Are your agriculture practices pleasing to God?

If not now, I pray they will be in the not-too-distant future. And meanwhile I wish you and your family the blessings of this Holy Season.

If you’d like to Ask Gearld a question, just email him at contact@northamericandevon.com