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Author Topic: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***  (Read 16334 times)

messyhoose

  • Joined Nov 2017
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #75 on: February 06, 2020, 10:49:51 am »
Steph Hen- i was not direcctly affected til this winter but this island (a haven for migratory birds) is over run with feral cats. The folk who originally brought cats here (prob to keep mice down in house and barn- there are no rats nor foxes here) have basically turned their back on them- the cats reproduce at liberty, and litters of kittens are not tamed so they also remain unsterilised and breed themselves- and so on and so on.
Id had cats sleeping in my barn but this winter discovered a litter (i found a litter 3 years ago but did not encourage the cats so they left once old enough to follow mom). So i decided to go about taming the family in order to in the next few weeks now catch them and get them neutered. They are costing me  fortune in food- already half a dozen adult entire cats have found out about the free food and visit daily too now. I do not want this to become a cat sanctuary and i dont appreciate the number od dead birds mom brings to her kitten on a regular basis. I can not see any other way than to instigate a steriliation programme- of course i could catch them all and put them to a sanctuary and make them someone elses problem, but i feel that is a wrong use of resources . Its a human nature to procreate too- but that hasnt exactly done the world any favours either has it?! (and no i dont have kids)

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #76 on: February 06, 2020, 11:27:59 am »
[member=174828]messyhoose[/member], I want to thank you for engaging in this conversation; I hope it isn't feeling too much like being in the lion's den!  Hopefully we will all improve our understanding as we discuss these issues  :-*

1.  I don't think many of us would argue for farming for pelts.  Those of us on the meat-eating side of the debate probably all feel that skins / pelts etc from animals that were being killed anyway should be used.  What would be the vegan view on using skins and pelts from animals that had lived out their alloted span?

2.  Gosh, we could have a whole topic on just this aspect.  I have mixed feelings about the idea of us all hunting wild animals for our food... unfortunately, plenty of suffering is caused by hunters not getting a clean shot, so I think that if we are to eat meat at all (other than roadkill), then personally I would prefer the animals to be slaughtered humanely by trained operatives with all the appropriate equipment and backup.  And the same applies to being prepared to kill our own meat; I understand completely the rationale behind saying that meat eaters should kill their own meat, but in practise I would again prefer that no animals are killed by anyone who isn't trained to do it, and who doesn't have all the appropriate equipment, and backup present, to ensure that suffering is minimised - especially if something goes wrong. 

3.  In practise, this would not be possible.  There would have to be a phased approach, where the numbers are reduced over a period of years, or there would have to be a mass slaughter.  In either case, there will have to be slaughter of animals over a transition period.  I will explain some of the reasons why.  Just looking at sheep, Googling tells me that there are approx 14.5 million breeding ewes in the UK, and approx 14.5 million lambs / sheep are slaughtered each year.   Introducing a ban on slaughter after lambing would be impractical; many farms (my own included) do not have the facilities to keep all the lambs on over winter, and there simply isn't the ground / shelter / feed in the country to keep all one year's lambs alive for the rest of their natural lives.  So it would cause untold suffering and other animal welfare issues to introduce a ban on slaughter once the season's crop of lambs have been born.  So the first thing would be to ban tupping, so that from that point on, no more lambs are produced.  Now we have the situation where there are 14.5 million ewes, and probably around 300,000-500,000 tups on top of that, who need to eat, have medications, be sheared, be checked every day and so on.  If you ask a farming organisation or you ask a sheep sanctuary, you will get a similar answer - in terms of actual spend, it costs approx £30 per annum per sheep to keep them alive, well and happy.  I make that around £450 million per annum, decreasing over five to eight years, as the sheep die off naturally.  Total cost to feed and treat the national flock until they have died off, approx £2 billion pounds.  Where is that funding coming from?  And on top of that, you have the time of the humans to undertake all that care.  There won't be enough volunteers to shepherd 15 million sheep, so if we said one full-time human could shepherd 2,000 sheep (they will take less looking after if they are not lambing, so this is my best guess), then we also need to find wages for approx 7,500 full-time shepherds.  That's another £120 million per annum, taking the total cost of your plan - for sheep alone - to around £2.5 billion.  (And that is without accounting for the thousands and thousands of jobs lost in the agricultural services sector, which I would agree is something that would just have to be absorbed - but does have to be funded from somewhere.  I have no figure for that, but I can't imagine it being less than another £billion.)

I won't go through the whole rigmarole in detail again for cattle, but Google says we have 10 million breeding cattle, and the last I checked it cost £300 pa per head to keep a cow.  Cows live longer than sheep, and I suspect would need more than one person per 2,000 to care for them.  So at a rough guess, the cost of your plan for cattle would be around £20-£25 billion.  (And the unbred 10 million cows would be coming a-bulling every 21 days for up to ten years, screaming the place down, busting fences, desperate to get laid... )

And none of that contemplates the use of the land for the animals to graze, the buildings and equipment to care for them, etc.  Approx 3 million hectares are used at present.  Stopping breeding would reduce that, but even if the need for grazing land reduced to 1 million hectares, this ground has to be paid for.  Compulsory purchase would cost maybe around £5 billion, then of course there is ongoing maintenance to fund.

Next, pigs.  Approx 400 million breeding sows...  And another issue here, besides the simple cost per head / lifespan costs.  Most of these pigs are housed, and many would not adapt to a life outdoors, even if the land could be found.

So, if we were to change to a vegan society, there would seem to me to be two options.  Option 1 is to plan a transition period of 10-20 years, with the production of farmed meat being controlled over that period.  By the end of the period, there would be effectively no sheep, cattle or pigs.   Option 2 is to do the mass slaughter and export all the meat / meat products / byproducts to countries which are not going vegan.  I suspect this would cost considerably less than your plan.  There is probably a composite of Options 1 and 2 which is what would actually happen, with the transition period being speeded up as we export as much meat as possible over the period to reduce numbers as quickly as possible, but with the whole being funded by the sales of meat throughout the period.

4.  I remain interested to hear about the actual crops, the actual diet, that could be produced locally, ethically, etc, to feed the 66+ million people in the UK.  I am sure you do source your own food as ethically as you say.  But I have never yet had an answer from anyone about how this could be scaled up for the whole population.  I say this not to be provocative but because, in the absence of an answer, as a farmer, I genuinely do not understand how it could be done in the UK.  (Much more feasible in the US, where the land mass spans so many different climates, soil types, etc, that pretty much anything can be produced somewhere.)

5.  As someone who cares for the environment and about animal welfare, I would support a law which bans the export and import of live animals except in very tightly controlled circumstances.  And - whether we go vegan or not - another law banning the import of unnecessary foodstuffs.

6.  How things came about isn't particularly relevant any more, in my view.  We are where we are, and we have to get to where we want to be from here.  In my Utopia, where all our meat and plant-based foods are produced ethically and locally, there is a wonderful cycle where we and our animals live synergistically.  We provide grass for our cows and sheep, enabling them to fulfill their life goals of producing and rearing young.  We take the surplus milk and meat from this equation.  Our waste food matter feeds pigs, who similarly live productive, happy lives, and again, surplus comes back to us.  We would eat a lot less meat than we do now, but the livestock with whom we share our ground enable us to keep our land in good heart and the acreage in the UK is able to sustainably produce enough for us all.

7.  I respect you, messyhoose, as I can clearly see that you practise what you preach, and like myself, you engage in conversation not just to educate but also to learn.  Well, I do not do particularly well in practising what I preach when it comes to the plant-based elements of my diet; we produce what we can here, but the ground is exposed, coastal, shallow clay and is really only suited to growing grass!  But we are, here, pretty much self-sufficient in beef, lamb/mutton and pork/ham, in milk / dairy, and will be, when we get the chickens reestablished, in eggs.  The labour costs to achieve this are insane, and yet we do it anyway, because of our passion in caring for the environment, animal welfare, and living as sustainably as we can.

The world will still have wild animals when all the domestic ones die of old age and are not replaced due to continued breeding

I think we can't know that this is true.  The amount of land, and management of that land, needed to grow the plant-based food for the entire world population, may well put just as much if not more pressure on natural habitats and wild creatures. 



Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Steph Hen

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Angus Scotland.
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #77 on: February 06, 2020, 12:56:13 pm »
Steph Hen- i was not direcctly affected til this winter but this island (a haven for migratory birds) is over run with feral cats. The folk who originally brought cats here (prob to keep mice down in house and barn- there are no rats nor foxes here) have basically turned their back on them- the cats reproduce at liberty, and litters of kittens are not tamed so they also remain unsterilised and breed themselves- and so on and so on.
Id had cats sleeping in my barn but this winter discovered a litter (i found a litter 3 years ago but did not encourage the cats so they left once old enough to follow mom). So i decided to go about taming the family in order to in the next few weeks now catch them and get them neutered. They are costing me  fortune in food- already half a dozen adult entire cats have found out about the free food and visit daily too now. I do not want this to become a cat sanctuary and i dont appreciate the number od dead birds mom brings to her kitten on a regular basis. I can not see any other way than to instigate a steriliation programme- of course i could catch them all and put them to a sanctuary and make them someone elses problem, but i feel that is a wrong use of resources . Its a human nature to procreate too- but that hasnt exactly done the world any favours either has it?! (and no i dont have kids)

This is problem caused by other people which has landed on your shoulders. They can't ethically stay and kill the birds and there's nowhere to ethically put them which doesn't make them someone else's problem, and if they do get another home on the island or nearby on a farm or something wanting Ferrel cats, they will likely continue killing birds. The ethical thing to do in my opinion is to tame them enough to trap or get a good shot and shoot them.

messyhoose

  • Joined Nov 2017
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #78 on: February 06, 2020, 01:22:32 pm »
Thanks Sally in the North. Say hi to Trelay doon there! As i say i know this site is for smallholders- of course you are the ideal template for farming- you have the potential to be self sufficient, dont farm in huge numbers which means animals are more likely to be treated and respected as individuals and sentient beings at that.
But how much food production is there in the UK from smallholding? How much of the UK population do they feed?
Problem has always been with the increasing human population that agriculture responded with intensification- suddenly the meat producing animals are not grazing free but are housed all year and fed maize silage (im generalising for brevity). Who the hell invented battery cages was a sick person, but there was a time when the supposed need made them come about. Society then became more aware of how food was produced and rejected them (i know there are enriched" ones now- shame on the Govmt for allowing that to happen). But how many "spent hens" are culled annually and it will continue as long as people want lots and lots of cheap eggs?
I mentioned fur farming as GBov made a point about the release of mink. Shouldnt have happened, but neither should mink farming.
I think there may be a new sector of vegans who believe in using the worlds resources as frugally and ethically as possible. I never wore leather- but now have a pair of second hand ex army boot (as the non leather work boots dont last long and i didnt want to be sending broken footwear to landfill if i could help it). But i still wouldnt buy a secondhand fur coat (not a "necessity"), even if an animal charity was benefiting from its sale- its minefield of moral dilemmas!! I guess if an animal died of old age the skin is a resource but i doubt any vegan would be happy (and that is a human condition, folk would be just as disgusted at skinning their dead pet dog or cat or rabbit but again these are all usable resources).
Wool is environmentally friendly and time was the fleece was more important than the meat. Agriculture changes- some of it is progress some is not. Just because we can not envisage a vastly different society to the one we have become accustomed to does not mean it is impossible- as i said it could be decades after a ban got brought in- just like the phasing out period for battery cages, and no doubt there will be a phasing out period for farrowing crate, giving the industry time to adjust and adapt. But if 14 mil sheep are in the Uk and 14 mil sheep are eaten annually it seems on paper that only a year will be needed before the sheep "issue" is no longer an issue...??
It seems to be true the UK is more self sufficient in meat than it is vegetables. That is not necessarily because it can not be done- just that meat production and export was more lucrative. There is a body of people who think the UK should put more land to vegetable for humans and less crops for animals (and yes i know smallholders mostly rely on natural grass their animal feed that can not be said for the farms where most of the meat production is coming from (high inputs= high outputs).
It isnt just horticulture it is all agriculture that potentially harms the future of wildlife. Lets face it the UK countryside is nearly all manmade. While pastoral beef farming is lovely and ecologically sound how much beef farming is actually in fact in feedlots and so barren of wildlife? (not to mention the fields of barley to feed the cows sprayed with every pesticide and herbicide going...?)
And all the costs you mention would be short term. Once there were no animal farming there would not be  need for farm animal sanctuaries and charities either, nor all the regulations and inspections. Land would be freed up again. The world would carry on with a new balance.
If animals are currently  living in confinement that is what many campaign against anyway- vegan or not neither pigs nor cows nor chickens should endure lives incarcerated with no opportunity to at least some autonomy. So the land they need should already been taken into account regardless of veganism.
I agree humans have the capacity to kill animals more humanely than nature can. You can not have a gun without training in this country anyway- and (this is another bugbear of mine) a farmer, nor indeed any animal keeper does NOT need to be trained in animal care in the current Laws!!  This is what needs addressing to help prevent the neglect and cruelty cases that come to light every year. And ive already had a go at rogue abbatoir workers.... :(
my statement about "producing your own" was not fired at you smallholders- again BGov said they would respect vegans if they produced all their own food. Lucky you lot to have land but the vast number of meat eating citizens living in cities do not produce their own meat or veg so why have a go at just vegans with a statement like that??
So the diet- i avoid as much as possible processed foods and try to buy local (but as am in orkney no food is local local if you know what i mean).
Sure i still like to eat what i have been used to- we are all creatures of habit. I drink coffee (brazil), alcohol (anywhere), eat shop bread, crisps, biscuits, peanut butter (sustainable palm oil) make my own cakes with shop flour and sugar and vegan spread, eat lentils and beans (israel), herbs and spices (anywhere) - but what meat eaters do not indulge in any of those things too? when i worked on organic smallholdings i ate porridge made from our own milled oats, homemade wine, baked all our own bread and cakes, ate frugally but deliciously- soup and bread lunch and a cooked meal at night (assorted seasonal veg from the farm, peas and beans and nuts for protein (tinned or dried)
There seems to be 2 tangled arguements here- one is anti vegans cos it would change the face of agriculture, change the use of land in the UK and change the way we see the countryside (manmade as it is already) BUT you can not blame vegans for unsustainable diets- i know plenty of omnivores who eat imported meat, exotic fruit and veg or merely out of season fruit and veg without even a glance at the country of origin.
So we are all responsible for making environmentally aware food choices, and if anything cos vegans spend a lot of time researching what they can and can not eat they tend to already ahead of the class in this knowledge.
Veganism wont destroy the planet, Humans will :(


messyhoose

  • Joined Nov 2017
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #79 on: February 06, 2020, 01:24:47 pm »
yeah but Steph Hen i have accepted the problem and found a way to deal so the cats can live out their natural life- after which there will be no more cats. Bird problem for now, but not forever.

GBov

  • Joined Nov 2019
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #80 on: February 06, 2020, 01:32:10 pm »
[member=174828]messyhoose[/member], I want to thank you for engaging in this conversation; I hope it isn't feeling too much like being in the lion's den!  Hopefully we will all improve our understanding as we discuss these issues  :-*

1.  I don't think many of us would argue for farming for pelts.  Those of us on the meat-eating side of the debate probably all feel that skins / pelts etc from animals that were being killed anyway should be used.  What would be the vegan view on using skins and pelts from animals that had lived out their alloted span?

2.  Gosh, we could have a whole topic on just this aspect.  I have mixed feelings about the idea of us all hunting wild animals for our food... unfortunately, plenty of suffering is caused by hunters not getting a clean shot, so I think that if we are to eat meat at all (other than roadkill), then personally I would prefer the animals to be slaughtered humanely by trained operatives with all the appropriate equipment and backup.  And the same applies to being prepared to kill our own meat; I understand completely the rationale behind saying that meat eaters should kill their own meat, but in practise I would again prefer that no animals are killed by anyone who isn't trained to do it, and who doesn't have all the appropriate equipment, and backup present, to ensure that suffering is minimised - especially if something goes wrong. 

3.  In practise, this would not be possible.  There would have to be a phased approach, where the numbers are reduced over a period of years, or there would have to be a mass slaughter.  In either case, there will have to be slaughter of animals over a transition period.  I will explain some of the reasons why.  Just looking at sheep, Googling tells me that there are approx 14.5 million breeding ewes in the UK, and approx 14.5 million lambs / sheep are slaughtered each year.   Introducing a ban on slaughter after lambing would be impractical; many farms (my own included) do not have the facilities to keep all the lambs on over winter, and there simply isn't the ground / shelter / feed in the country to keep all one year's lambs alive for the rest of their natural lives.  So it would cause untold suffering and other animal welfare issues to introduce a ban on slaughter once the season's crop of lambs have been born.  So the first thing would be to ban tupping, so that from that point on, no more lambs are produced.  Now we have the situation where there are 14.5 million ewes, and probably around 300,000-500,000 tups on top of that, who need to eat, have medications, be sheared, be checked every day and so on.  If you ask a farming organisation or you ask a sheep sanctuary, you will get a similar answer - in terms of actual spend, it costs approx £30 per annum per sheep to keep them alive, well and happy.  I make that around £450 million per annum, decreasing over five to eight years, as the sheep die off naturally.  Total cost to feed and treat the national flock until they have died off, approx £2 billion pounds.  Where is that funding coming from?  And on top of that, you have the time of the humans to undertake all that care.  There won't be enough volunteers to shepherd 15 million sheep, so if we said one full-time human could shepherd 2,000 sheep (they will take less looking after if they are not lambing, so this is my best guess), then we also need to find wages for approx 7,500 full-time shepherds.  That's another £120 million per annum, taking the total cost of your plan - for sheep alone - to around £2.5 billion.  (And that is without accounting for the thousands and thousands of jobs lost in the agricultural services sector, which I would agree is something that would just have to be absorbed - but does have to be funded from somewhere.  I have no figure for that, but I can't imagine it being less than another £billion.)

I won't go through the whole rigmarole in detail again for cattle, but Google says we have 10 million breeding cattle, and the last I checked it cost £300 pa per head to keep a cow.  Cows live longer than sheep, and I suspect would need more than one person per 2,000 to care for them.  So at a rough guess, the cost of your plan for cattle would be around £20-£25 billion.  (And the unbred 10 million cows would be coming a-bulling every 21 days for up to ten years, screaming the place down, busting fences, desperate to get laid... )

And none of that contemplates the use of the land for the animals to graze, the buildings and equipment to care for them, etc.  Approx 3 million hectares are used at present.  Stopping breeding would reduce that, but even if the need for grazing land reduced to 1 million hectares, this ground has to be paid for.  Compulsory purchase would cost maybe around £5 billion, then of course there is ongoing maintenance to fund.

Next, pigs.  Approx 400 million breeding sows...  And another issue here, besides the simple cost per head / lifespan costs.  Most of these pigs are housed, and many would not adapt to a life outdoors, even if the land could be found.

So, if we were to change to a vegan society, there would seem to me to be two options.  Option 1 is to plan a transition period of 10-20 years, with the production of farmed meat being controlled over that period.  By the end of the period, there would be effectively no sheep, cattle or pigs.   Option 2 is to do the mass slaughter and export all the meat / meat products / byproducts to countries which are not going vegan.  I suspect this would cost considerably less than your plan.  There is probably a composite of Options 1 and 2 which is what would actually happen, with the transition period being speeded up as we export as much meat as possible over the period to reduce numbers as quickly as possible, but with the whole being funded by the sales of meat throughout the period.

4.  I remain interested to hear about the actual crops, the actual diet, that could be produced locally, ethically, etc, to feed the 66+ million people in the UK.  I am sure you do source your own food as ethically as you say.  But I have never yet had an answer from anyone about how this could be scaled up for the whole population.  I say this not to be provocative but because, in the absence of an answer, as a farmer, I genuinely do not understand how it could be done in the UK.  (Much more feasible in the US, where the land mass spans so many different climates, soil types, etc, that pretty much anything can be produced somewhere.)

5.  As someone who cares for the environment and about animal welfare, I would support a law which bans the export and import of live animals except in very tightly controlled circumstances.  And - whether we go vegan or not - another law banning the import of unnecessary foodstuffs.

6.  How things came about isn't particularly relevant any more, in my view.  We are where we are, and we have to get to where we want to be from here.  In my Utopia, where all our meat and plant-based foods are produced ethically and locally, there is a wonderful cycle where we and our animals live synergistically.  We provide grass for our cows and sheep, enabling them to fulfill their life goals of producing and rearing young.  We take the surplus milk and meat from this equation.  Our waste food matter feeds pigs, who similarly live productive, happy lives, and again, surplus comes back to us.  We would eat a lot less meat than we do now, but the livestock with whom we share our ground enable us to keep our land in good heart and the acreage in the UK is able to sustainably produce enough for us all.

7.  I respect you, messyhoose, as I can clearly see that you practise what you preach, and like myself, you engage in conversation not just to educate but also to learn.  Well, I do not do particularly well in practising what I preach when it comes to the plant-based elements of my diet; we produce what we can here, but the ground is exposed, coastal, shallow clay and is really only suited to growing grass!  But we are, here, pretty much self-sufficient in beef, lamb/mutton and pork/ham, in milk / dairy, and will be, when we get the chickens reestablished, in eggs.  The labour costs to achieve this are insane, and yet we do it anyway, because of our passion in caring for the environment, animal welfare, and living as sustainably as we can.

The world will still have wild animals when all the domestic ones die of old age and are not replaced due to continued breeding

I think we can't know that this is true.  The amount of land, and management of that land, needed to grow the plant-based food for the entire world population, may well put just as much if not more pressure on natural habitats and wild creatures.


 :notworthy:  You covered every point beautifully!

Up until 5 months ago, I fed my family of 4 on what I could produce in a small yard in Florida and while meat was always easy, vegetables and fruit and grains and roots?  OMG they are so not easy to grow and even harder is to grow the poundage needed.  My garden was pure powder sand, imagine how much veg loved growing in pure sand, not!

I know first hand that vegan food doesn't grow everywhere and not only does it not, it CAN'T grow everywhere.  And without manure to fertilize with then chemical fertilizers have to be used and they kill the microbiome that the plants need to become high-quality food instead of empty bulk.

Hunting, fishing, trapping, growing, raising, harvesting, finding roadkill, butchering, processing, storing for later was a full-time job just to keep four people fed, not counting what I did to keep a bit of money coming in.

There is not enough time or space or wildlife or fish or roadkill in the world for every person to do what we did, there just isn't. 





About the cat problem, yes it is a problem caused by people but it is a people solvable problem as well.
 Trapping cats is not hard - use a larger cage trap than recommended - and a .22 will sort it from there.

Having grown up on an island we had 17 cats once from people abandoning them.  The starving kittens we dragged home, my poor mum could hardly afford to feed us, never mind the endless strays.

It sounds harsh to say shoot them but I have also worked with feral cats and they so seldom turn into good companions that it is, to me at least, better to humanely kill the ones that have no chance of a better life as a pet/working animal and focus on the ones that can.

All of life is a balancing act between what we would love to happen and what we can actually get done and not going mental and getting lost somewhere in the middle is, to me, a big win in the long run.

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things that I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference."




GBov

  • Joined Nov 2019
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #81 on: February 06, 2020, 01:51:19 pm »
The program The Wartime Farm covered many of your points Messyhoose and is well worth a watch.

Taking animals off the land works short term but not long term.  Soil fertility drops off fast without organic matter going back in and manure is a huge part of keeping soil healthy.

Personally, I LOVE the idea of a total ban on imports that can be produced in the UK by local farmers. 

Interestingly enough, it was Kentucky Fried Chicken that started the entire mass production of poultry thing off, the demand was so high that the founder sent out word that whoever could produce a faster/bigger/cheaper chicken was going to get his business and the race was on.

Fast food burgers were the starting point for feedlot beef because it takes fat to stick mince together into a burger patty and grazing cattle dont get fat enough fast enough.  Keep them still and feed them huge amounts of unsuitable food and they get fat fast, just like people do.

I look at my kids and the world around us and think, yeh, we will be lucky to survive this perfect s**t storm that humans have created.  On my good days, I think we have a chance - after all, some fantastic people are working really hard at it - and on my bad days, I think we are all just doomed so why bother trying?

So far, good days outnumber the bad so we keep plugging on, doing the best we can.  All we can do, really.





SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #82 on: February 06, 2020, 03:56:57 pm »

But if 14 mil sheep are in the Uk and 14 mil sheep are eaten annually it seems on paper that only a year will be needed before the sheep "issue" is no longer an issue...??


I was responding to your statement

3) i have already explained how a vegan society would come about- animals would NOT be killed off in a a bloody wave- animals currently alive would be sheltered and NO MORE BREEDING would then bring about the end of livestock farming over a fairly long period of time, possibly decades. I really hate repeating myself.

which, to me implied that the 15 million breeding sheep would be living out their natural lives, that there would not be a mass slaughter.

If we did go the "eat this one last batch" route, it would take more than a year unless we export some of the meat. Of the 14 million eaten each year at the moment, the majority are that year's lambs.  If we stop producing more lambs we will have nearly 15 million ewes and tups to eat.  I doubt the UK would eat that much mutton in a year - lots of people wouldn't eat mutton in place of lamb - so it would take time.

It seems to be true the UK is more self sufficient in meat than it is vegetables. That is not necessarily because it can not be done- just that meat production and export was more lucrative.


I don't think this is the case at all.  In general, if land is suitable for arable then it is put to arable.  The 30% of the farmed land in the UK which is used for livestock is for the most part unsuitable for crop production. 

Interestingly, environmental schemes in the last two - three decades have aimed to prevent grassland being ploughed and turned over to arable, because farming livestock in an environmentally-sensitive way is far better for the planet than growing crops on ground which is better suited to growing grass.

Anther facet that I have pondered about is how arable actually works without a livestock sector.  The loss of natural fertiliser has been mentioned, but the way a lot of arable production in this country works is that the crop is aimed at the best market - bread flour, for instance - but often, the climatic conditions prevent the crop achieving this quality.  So in the next best years it would go for brewing, perhaps, and in the rest to animal feedstuffs.  If the backstop market disappears, then in many years there will be no outlet for the crop at all. 

There is a body of people who think the UK should put more land to vegetable for humans and less crops for animals (and yes i know smallholders mostly rely on natural grass their animal feed that can not be said for the farms where most of the meat production is coming from (high inputs= high outputs).

Again, in general, livestock are only grazing arable land as part of a rotation, putting heart back into the soil.  The majority of lambs in the UK are produced on marginal lands which are not suited for any kind of arable, or by a hybrid of the two - for instance, ewes on marginal land over winter, then the lambs finished on lowland grass as part of a rotation.

There is a lot of information which smells to me as though it originates in the States, where feed can be readily grown and the feedlot model works.  In the UK, that model would be insane.  We have so much ground suited only to stock farming, and produce such excellent livestock on it.  The northern cattle marts process thousands of yearling stirks each year, produced and reared extensively.  Lowland farms will buy those yearlings and take them to the next stage on their leys as part of their rotation, and then yes, for the last 4-6 weeks, some of those animals may be "finished" with barley, some of that indoors (but in general, mostly only indoors once the weather turns and the animals are too heavy for the wet ground.)  In good years, the crops hit top quality and most don't go for animal feeds, but the grass grew well enough the animals finish on grass.  In poor years, there's less grass but the crops weren't good enough for human consumption, so go to animal feed and make up for the poorer grass.




While pastoral beef farming is lovely and ecologically sound how much beef farming is actually in fact in feedlots and so barren of wildlife?

See above - the answer is "not a lot, generally.  Not in the UK".

a farmer, nor indeed any animal keeper does NOT need to be trained in animal care in the current Laws!! 

Not true.  There are Codes of Welfare for each species, and all state that handlers must be suitably trained. 

I know a lot of people think that the Red Tractor scheme adds little value, but what it does do is add inspection and enforcement to the legislation, including this bit.  I have been inspected - for ten years - under the Red Tractor scheme and they do check out new key workers coming onto the farm, and check that the farmer and key workers are getting ongoing training.

We might both argue that, if meat is to remain a part of the UK diet, then we should increase the policing and enforcement of the Welfare Codes, including into farms and smallholdings which are not routinely inspected through their participation in any scheme (organic, Red Tractor, or whatever.)


my statement about "producing your own" was not fired at you smallholders- again BGov said they would respect vegans if they produced all their own food. Lucky you lot to have land but the vast number of meat eating citizens living in cities do not produce their own meat or veg so why have a go at just vegans with a statement like that??

Fair point! 

On the topic of all meat-eaters to grow their own meat, I feel much the same about this as I do on the "killing your own meat" one.  I understand where you are coming from, but I would sooner all livestock are looked after by people who are trained to do so, and can afford the equipment, medications, expert help, etc, that is needed.  If we went back to backyard pigs and hens, if every street had a few goats or a dairy cow, there would be a lot of animals not properly looked after.

Farmed is not synonymous with poor welfare, and reared on a smallholding is not synonymous good welfare.  Often, in my view, it can be the other way around.  Many smallholders may have their hearts in the right place, and many of them - lots of those on this forum, of course! :D - do an excellent job, but I'm afraid that many small keepers don't have the skills, experience, training or funds to meet the physiological needs of their livestock as well as a proper farm can and does.  There are exceptions at both ends of the spectrum, of course.

I'm fond of saying that a sheep doesn't care much if it has a name and is loved if it's uncomfortable or sickly - but of course, being well-cared for and treated as an individual is the best of both worlds ;).

So the diet- i avoid as much as possible processed foods and try to buy local (but as am in orkney no food is local local if you know what i mean).

Actually, Orkney is a place which exemplifies much of what I have been saying.  What it has a lot of is grassland, and what it can - and does - produce really well, with little input, is livestock.  I would argue that to eat sustainably in Orkney, meat should be a significant part of the diet, because that is what the locale can most readily produce.  Including the (in)famous seaweed-eating North Ronaldsay sheep!

when i worked on organic smallholdings i ate porridge made from our own milled oats, homemade wine, baked all our own bread and cakes, ate frugally but deliciously- soup and bread lunch and a cooked meal at night (assorted seasonal veg from the farm, peas and beans and nuts for protein (tinned or dried)

Heaven! But of course, for me, any imported nuts would be replaced by home-produced meat or dairy ;)

There seems to be 2 tangled arguements here- one is anti vegans cos it would change the face of agriculture, change the use of land in the UK and change the way we see the countryside (manmade as it is already) BUT you can not blame vegans for unsustainable diets- i know plenty of omnivores who eat imported meat, exotic fruit and veg or merely out of season fruit and veg without even a glance at the country of origin.
So we are all responsible for making environmentally aware food choices, and if anything cos vegans spend a lot of time researching what they can and can not eat they tend to already ahead of the class in this knowledge.
Veganism wont destroy the planet, Humans will :(

I hope, through conversations such as this one, we can all find our way through the tangled arguments to a better understanding, and all make better - more sustainable, more environmentally-sensitive - choices as a result.
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

harmony

  • Joined Feb 2012
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #83 on: February 06, 2020, 05:59:25 pm »

my statement about "producing your own" was not fired at you smallholders- again BGov said they would respect vegans if they produced all their own food. Lucky you lot to have land but the vast number of meat eating citizens living in cities do not produce their own meat or veg so why have a go at just vegans with a statement like that??
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Is BGov's comment any different to saying someone will respect meat eaters if they kill their own meat?








GBov

  • Joined Nov 2019
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #84 on: February 06, 2020, 06:55:20 pm »
When I say I will respect the Vegan choice if even one can prove they are producing their entire diet, on their own is one I will stand by.

Not one that I have spoken too has been able to say this while I personally know, and have spoken to many, omnivores that can say they produce everything they eat. 

And while I did not produce 100% of our year-round food, depending upon the time of year I produced between 20-90% of veg and 100% of our meat myself.

Without meat we would have starved to death.

There may be places in the world that can produce a totally veg diet in a healthy sustainable way but so far, I haven't seen it.

Sorry, yes, my feedlot info is US-based, not UK.  Grass in the UK is so good it blows my mind, cattle on Florida grass look like skin and bones compared to UK cattle. 

messyhoose

  • Joined Nov 2017
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #85 on: February 06, 2020, 08:21:24 pm »
indeed sally informative conversation over sensationalisation any day!

i can not comment on the local farming scene or i will probably be lynched and im not ready to go down yet.... :/

i do need to point out i am right though- the Codes of Practice ( yes i have them all) are not Law- they are merely advisory, but may be used in a prosecution as evidence of a violation of the animal welfare act (which is a Law but does not state unequivocally that people working with animals must be trained to a level of competency ( i did my nptc safe use of vet meds as i thought that might eventually become a legal requirement- but no its still just a "best practice recommendation". I know there are plenty of training centres available- my point is anyone can buy and keep most types of animal (not dangerous exotic ones sure) without any kind of evidence they know what they are doing. This train of thought came about after the killing your own food vs "trained farmer" comment, ie farmers arent nec any more informed, but as i said i think should be.

People often use our own arguement against us- "if you stop killing animals to eat then what will happen to them- they will all be killed" is a nonsensical arguement constantly thrown up to make the possible seem impossible .
I could argue against all the points but we would be here til judgement day, and the internet is there for a reason- the arguement for and against everything we have all raised have been said a billion times in far better ways than i can on a web forum screen! :D

It is apparent here folk are talking about their extensive ruminant production. The reports all say with increasing human population intensification of these systems is the only way to meet demand- so how do you address that? Id rather not eat meat is how i do.
But apparently chickens and pigs are (in the UK anyway) consumed more than ruminants- and these species can not live off grass that we cant uiltise in our diet- so what is the arguement for the continuation of farming species that are in competition with our food- and additionally are subject to far more intensification than the ruminants in general (with applications for mega farms of pigs or poultry being applied for more and more over the last decade)-often in veg growing counties!!

So Sally- back to your original ask- all those weeks ago.  Maybe vegans like me became so in the 60s, 70s (when compassion in world farming was started by a UK dairy farmer!) and 80s because we could not condone the increasing intensification of animal farming that had occurred post war. I mean my first reason to give up was, for sure, i couldnt equate the different ways humans see different animals- dogs and cats given our homes, sheep and cows sent away to be steaks and joints. Behaviourally they can all suffer equally. It was this epiphany that stopped me eating meat. I then went to work on organic animal farms as i love being around animals, and they were exemplary places- animals given space to live a life worth living- before they went to be food. But i have also witnessed the bad side of animal agriculture- the calves in veal crates, the chickens in cages, screaming pigs in barren concrete yards, sick and injured animals left untreated, the brutality of some farmers to animals. Some of these things have been banned or at least "improved" (big quotation marks). But there is still so much that is wrong with animal agriculture.
So maybe the way to turn the tide of the feared increasing veganism is for all you food producers to join the campaign to bring an end to factory style farming- to end the cage age, to end live exports for slaughter, to make abbatoirs behaviour to the animals so totally accountable that even a child could watch the process and not be scarred for life after. Hiding systems behind closed doors only leads to questions and possible misinterpretation- openness in food production will help that.
Maybe, just maybe if all the horrors that are rife in animal agriculture were made obsolete then people like me might not have given up on the industry entirely. True- there will always be animal rights vegans- where no animal should be exploited (i dont believe in animals rights- to me there are no right -they are a human construct to let us get on in the world more harmoniously than we might otherwise).
Many vegans like me are animal lovers- and could not contemplate a world without interaction with animals. That is our dilemma A lion will always be a carnivore, food webs occur and we are part of it (except of course we protect ourself to the hilt from being someone else dinner).Animals will be eaten but ......"EXPLOITATION"? ....no- I think above all else that might be the keyword for vegans and the key to making meat eating acceptable in the future, if that is your goal.
 A lion does not exploit the impala, but the kill is potentially much slower and more painful than a human can make it given all the equipment we have available to us, (dont forget the lion will only get a meal 50% of the time she goes out hunting )... but have humans made food production and availability so far removed from these natural processes that the dividing line between vegans and meat eaters is too wide now? I think some vegans might struggle to answer why it is ok for a lion to suffocate a deer to death but a shot to the head of a farmed deer is more diasgreeble.... see im vegan and i dont nec agree with all they say on my side either
And the environmental issues? that was an added bonus to the cause years ago to help engage more people who might not have considered animals and their capacity to suffer.
It was always an issue for many (and has anyone else met a fruitarian- i have and only they can make vegans feel guilty!! But their philosophy - if not entirely achieveable- is total endorsable, do not kill anything, if you eat plant matter killing the plant destroys your food supply, so only take fruits and nuts, so the parent plant survives.
Food production is a world issue, what happens on our doorstep is as important as whats happening elsewhere, but the seemingly relentless daily exposes of another farm / abbatoir doing bad stuff and the seemingly acceptable way animals are increasingly intensively farmed will continue to fuel the next generations desire to try to right the wrongs of the past, and boycotting stuff is often the easiest and quickest way to show ones disapproval of something. And not many of us could cope with an environmental sound but very restrictive fruitarian diet (and no- they dont all believe carrots scream when you pull them out the ground- philosophy over prejudice please)
Goodness that was me not trying to write too much it really is an issue that can not easily be debated in this way. Thanks all for their cool approach here- ive seen very aggressive debates on facebook about the v same issues!!

or maybe not-
GBov- hardly any meat eaters i the UK are producing ANY part of their diet so why you having a go at vegans and not the majority of society? Someone on here called it "vegan food"- hahaha- what do they mean?= the fruit and nuts and veg etc that anyone can eat- it is not vegan specific. Your better off calling the rest "Non-Vegan Food" as it can not be eaten by everyone.  A vegan friend once said- there should be more fresh vegan options in the supermarket- i replied-  so the fruit and veg section at the front of store is not diverse enough or what?
 Harmony, and GBov together- yes there is a huge difference in our respective points-growing you own food is a matter of logistics-  most meat eaters dont grow their own veg either so why only have a go at vegans who likewise do not grow their own veg??? Meanwhile someone who is happy for an animal to be reared and killed and dressed for them to eat but refuses to contemplate getting involved in any part of the act themselves is a hypocrit. If i had time and space i would gladly grow all my ow veg etc, but ask a meat eater if they are prepared to not only grow their veg but their meat too and many (ive asked a lot in london) would be revolted by the idea of sending an animal to slaughter (let alone kill one themselves.) I dont encourage meat eaters to kill their own dinner but as a zoologist and vegan it is only natural for a meat eater to hunt and kill their prey. I couldnt do it and so shun meat (but i can pull and boil a carrot no probs)- i feel anyone who is not prepared to do what nature intended (ie hunt and kill your prey) should not eat meat, if they do it is hypocracy personified. Its the demonstrating the willingness to accept the processes , not the physical act that tells me all too reliably that most meat eaters do  NOT want anything to do with the death of another animal. Ignorant society i say. Smallholders have a different link to their food, i totally get that, i was a smallholder worker for many folk- but sorry what % of UK society is raised on a smallholding? Sadly not many, and it wont be getting any bigger... :(

harmony

  • Joined Feb 2012
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #86 on: February 06, 2020, 10:05:31 pm »

I still don't get the hypocrisy allegation at all. Meat eaters don't "hunt" their meals.


Nor do I get that Britain should stop farming because America farms in a different way to us.


Is veganism feared? I don't think so.  I think the comment about informative conversation over sensationalism is really pertinent because so much of the vegan argument seems based on sensationalism and generalisation.


Is it possible to convince a whole nation, a continent or the world to stop eating meat? I don't think so because most people doing their weekly shop like having choice and those who eat meat enjoy it.




messyhoose

  • Joined Nov 2017
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #87 on: February 06, 2020, 11:02:26 pm »
good grief harmony. really?  do you choose to not understand stuff deliberately? i will not engage with someone deliberately demonstrating intolerance and ignorance. not here- life is too short and quite frankly the debate here is not having any effect on the real issues in the real world. I will continue to spend my valuable time in meaningful debates. Am very sad to repeatedly see this childish level of ignorance or is is arrogance? I have not played devils advocate on here (which pointedly farmers who post on animal welfare forums like to do). Seems farmers like to wind up people who choose not to eat meat for entirely understandable ethical reasons. why is that? TBH i dont care, your questions have recycled despite being given answers (more consise answers available online, dont take a genius to search). ive got the measure of some on here now.

cambee

  • Joined Feb 2017
  • High Peak
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #88 on: February 07, 2020, 07:00:38 am »
good grief harmony. really?  do you choose to not understand stuff deliberately? i will not engage with someone deliberately demonstrating intolerance and ignorance. not here- life is too short and quite frankly the debate here is not having any effect on the real issues in the real world. I will continue to spend my valuable time in meaningful debates. Am very sad to repeatedly see this childish level of ignorance or is is arrogance? I have not played devils advocate on here (which pointedly farmers who post on animal welfare forums like to do). Seems farmers like to wind up people who choose not to eat meat for entirely understandable ethical reasons. why is that? TBH i dont care, your questions have recycled despite being given answers (more consise answers available online, dont take a genius to search). ive got the measure of some on here now.

Unfortunately messyhoose however you package it veganism is an extreme and for the most part British people really don’t like extreme views. I like many others don’t care if someone chooses to be vegan. It’s their choice and it doesn’t affect or offend me. I choose to have a mixed diet. Because I’m financially able to, I have land and I raise my own pork and lamb, give it a lovely life and eat it. I buy my beef direct from a farmer half a mile down the road. The beef is expensive but worth it to me because he’s a good farmer and the cows are born on his land and like my animals never travel further than 25 mins in their life to the slaughterhouse. I wish everyone could only eat meat like we do but for the bulk of the population it’s impossible. You can’t raise your own lamb if you live in a council flat! I do agree though that we should only eat UK raised, non factory farmed meat and if that makes it more expensive, eat less of it. I don’t want to do the ‘I was raised in a shoebox’ line, but I was brought up working class, short of money. My mum was amazing at producing cheap meals- butter pie, corn beef hash, tomato gravy. We always had meat on a Sunday and if it was lamb we got one lamb cutlet each! It wasn’t until I was about 16 that I realised most people would have 3 or 4 cutlets on a plate. I suppose my point is, in those days everyone did eat less meat because it was so expensive whereas now, everyday is Christmas because of all the cheap, often imported, factory farmed stuff. So let’s ban that rather than the good UK reared stuff. And my final point. We have 18 acres of steep exposed rocky fields. You can’t get a tractor up and down it. Good luck turning that into arable I think

harmony

  • Joined Feb 2012
Re: Is veganism a threat to the planet? *** contentious ***
« Reply #89 on: February 07, 2020, 09:14:36 am »
good grief harmony. really?  do you choose to not understand stuff deliberately? i will not engage with someone deliberately demonstrating intolerance and ignorance. not here- life is too short and quite frankly the debate here is not having any effect on the real issues in the real world. I will continue to spend my valuable time in meaningful debates. Am very sad to repeatedly see this childish level of ignorance or is is arrogance? I have not played devils advocate on here (which pointedly farmers who post on animal welfare forums like to do). Seems farmers like to wind up people who choose not to eat meat for entirely understandable ethical reasons. why is that? TBH i dont care, your questions have recycled despite being given answers (more consise answers available online, dont take a genius to search). ive got the measure of some on here now.



I have already said on this thread that I respect your right not to eat meat. Because my view is different to yours does not make me ignorant or intolerant.


Being rude to me isn't going to change my mind on eating meat. Nor have any of your arguments in support of a ban on meat and keeping animals for meat. Has it made me see vegans differently? No, because I already accept they are entitled to a choice even if that is not my choice.












 

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