It sounds like you are suggesting non-animal agriculture kills or displaces more animals than animal agriculture.
What do you think the animals humans like to eat, eat? A heck of a lot of grain and other plants. "Animal agriculture" includes the fluffy animals (with whom we may empathize - they ain't robots) and the massive farms that grow their feed.
Animal agriculture incidentally kills and displaces far more other creatures than non-animal agriculture simply due to the additional land requirements. It is far easier to accept the less harmful industry.
I don't think they were suggesting that. More something along the lines of "you're likely to be killing animals either way, so just accept that nature is cruel and don't feel guilty about it".
There's a wide spectrum of how much you're willing to do to avoid causing suffering:
- Nothing, eat meat from the worst factory farms without second thought
- Only eat meat from local, ethical, sustainable, etc farmers.
- Only eat meat you have personally killed in the most humane way possible
It's kind of bad either way tbh. Imagine going to the funeral for someone else's mother and saying something to the tune of "The old hag was going to die anyway, so don't be sad".
Telling people that their principles or feelings are wrong is rarely a great way to convince people, it just makes you look obnoxious in debates.
On the second point, I agree, if in person I wouldn't make such a statement in that way because reactions are immediate and you're within immediate awkwardness. But on the internet, you read a statement and then you will emotionally react, but can then go research more, ponder, deliberate and choose whether you respond emotionally, matter-of-factly, not at all, etc. I think that's great and in a sense encourages some more provocative honesty that we dance around in the flesh.
Most humans can live deeply fulfilling and joyful lives without causing as much suffering as they do now. They don't need to feel guilty about what they are doing now so much as strive to cause less suffering.
Maybe you must eat factory farmed meat, fine, it's not for me to say. But that's not most people. Most people can do with reducing their meat intake, and it isn't hard. It's not like you are in the wilderness hunting or anything. You just go to the grocery store and buy veggies and beans and stuff.
Furthermore, for some people, eating meat from a factory farm is orders of magnitude more difficult than eating a strict plant based diet. Maybe that's easy for you - not for me.
Finally, while nature may indeed be cruel, we do not need to be.
Curious about deer: if deer aren’t hunted, they overpopulate and starve. It would be cruel not to hunt them. Wild pigs are another significant environmental nuisance. They reproduce rapidly and cause massive destruction wherever they go. Seems like managing those populations without eating the meet is worse ethically.
The idea that killing animals is more cruel than not is to ignore ecology.
Factory farms and industrial meat is certainly another story. But I wanted to point out that cruelty is not so black and white. It’s similar to the cat people that feed strays — makes them feel good, but it makes the problem worse which is more cruel than simply not feeding the strays.
> Curious about deer: if deer aren’t hunted, they overpopulate and starve. It would be cruel not to hunt them.
I strongly disagree with this. If there were no humans participating, and deer ended up overpopulated, and then starved, would there be any issue? Of course not, this is just how nature balances itself.
That "killing an animal directly via hunting" is more cruel than "letting the populate self-correct via natural processes" is not a matter of common sense - it's not something we all agree on. There is an implication that we know better than the universe and I'm not convinced that is the case.
> Wild pigs are another significant environmental nuisance. They reproduce rapidly and cause massive destruction wherever they go. Seems like managing those populations without eating the meet is worse ethically.
I assume you are referring to feral pigs, which are not wild in the sense that a native creature is. They are domesticated pigs which have ended up in foreign environments. Whether hunting them is appropriate or not, I'm not sure.
Nowadays, though, we have gotten ourselves in a pickle, by eliminating the natural predators in many environments in which deer thrive naturally, or have adapted to. Via our own lack of foresight, consideration for the planet as a whole, or even some degree of self-serving malice, we have created a really tricky problem.
I do agree we ought to work on this issue. Hunting is probably the best, most practical solution we have, but only because I believe we should try to fix what we have broken, not because it is somehow less cruel. A less practical but far less cruel solution may be a sterilization program for the invasive populations.
Two factors: 1) Humanely raised 2) Efficiently killed (done quickly with limited/no pain).
One can argue the cruelty of eating animals regardless - but there very much is a difference between tightly caged factory farming, pumping animals with medicine constantly because the conditions keep them sick all the time, and raising animals in a healthy environment.
> Is the humane way to kill an animal the same way one would humanely kill a toddler without consent of the parents or child?
Interesting wording.
> If not why not, when we consider animal have at least the intelligence, will to live, social connections and capacity for suffering as children?
When we will be able to ask for that kind of a contest?
PS. I know, animals has some signs of intelligence. But for me this measure of intelligence is not enough for not willing to eat it. And referring to parent poster, I really think there is some ethics in eating only those meat which has been killed by me, but I only have a chicken farm when I want to eat not only chicken.
Halal slaughter is certainly not the most humane way to kill animals; it optimizes for religious taboos on consumption of blood more so than lack of suffering. For the latter, you really want to target the brain directly if at all possible.
I think they are simply pointing out that you must kill other animals in order to live. There's no way around it.
If your interested in killing the least amount of animals, why not go hunting and fishing, that almost assuredly kills fewer than industrialized agriculture. I've replaced almoat all beef all year round in our family with deer venison kept year round in a chest freezer.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think that veganism or vegetarianism for most people is very emotional action. Most of the pop media around it focuses on the cuteness of the animal not on the total number of animals killed. and it's ignoring that like in hunting or ethical farming, the animals have a very full happy life.
As a hunter it's interesting seeing this article on HN and seeing no mention of hunting. Also not a bad thing, it's not part of the culture here, but it's interesting to see that bias in the HN culture.
> It sounds like you are suggesting non-animal agriculture kills or displaces more animals than animal agriculture.
Is exactly what happens. Without cattle there is not the need of meadows anymore. Not wildflowers, butterflies, hedgehogs, molluscs or birds. Soy fields have a biodiversity composed of: Soy. Period.
> Without cattle there is not the need of meadows anymore.
This is just silly. I can't imagine an internally consistent worldview that would assert something like this. Of course natural biomes are valuable regardless of the presence of cattle. Besides, modern cattle are domesticated creatures and don't even really have a native (i.e. not man-made or facilitated) environment.
The assertion regarding soy fields is at best a misunderstanding of the actual data regarding land use, or at worse, a meaningless tautology.
For those who don't have time to click and read the link in the other reply by user vnorilo, I'll just quote the relevant paragraph:
> More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh. The idea that foods often promoted as substitutes for meat and dairy – such as tofu and soy milk – are driving deforestation is a common misconception.
This is quite a red herring. The bulk of soy production is waste, that we have managed to use for cattle feed, because they can upcycle it into consumable nutrients.
If we got rid of all cattle, we would not reduce the amount of soybeans grown by 77%, just our utilization of what is grown.
77% of soy beans are used as feed in animal fattening. The basic biology and ecology of trying to push calories through a lossy (25x!) step in the food cycle doesn't work out.
Yes but before feeding the cow the bean we press it for soybean oil, which now accounts for a significant portion of calories consumed globally (somewhere around 10%, a quick search did not yield the study and I can't recall it exactly).
What do you imagine we would do with the soy pucks that are produced after extruding the oil?
Also, ruminants need non starchy, fibrous plant materials. I can't speak toward chicken and pork but I don't advocate people eat those.
It doesn't reflect well on your argument that your quote doesn't appear in the source.
"Results estimate that livestock consume 6 billion tonnes of feed (dry matter) annually – including one third of global cereal production – of which 86% is made of materials that are currently not eaten by humans. In addition, soybean cakes, which production can be considered as main driver or land-use, represent 4% of the global livestock feed intake. Producing 1 kg of boneless meat requires an average of 2.8 kg human-edible feed in ruminant systems and 3.2 kg in monogastric systems. While livestock is estimated to use 2.5 billion ha of land, modest improvements in feed use efficiency can reduce further expansion."
Even the source you are citing agrees that after massaging the numbers as much as possible it's still 3x less efficient to produce calories for human consumption by feeling animals.
I was quoting Diana Rogers, who provided a source for her statements, so I thought I would include it.
I cannot access the full article, but from the abstract that seems to not be congruent with what the study is suggest. Perhaps you are confusing kg for kcal? It could indeed be the fact that it is 3x less efficient by weight.
Given that the article is pointing out that 86% of the feed for animals is not edible by humans, claiming that meat is 3x less efficient calorie wise with these numbers is also making the claim that we are growing plants 2x more calorically dense by meat than weight.
30-70% of their food - depending on the region and local industry - is distillers grains [1]. That’s the waste from ethanol production, including biofuels and alcohol.
Of that last 14% of human edible food, the vast majority is used at the end to fatten up the animals for slaughter.
Is easy to understand even without bibliography. Soy is an annual herb. It grows all the summer, invest everything on producing fruits in fall and then die in winter.
Beans are the crop. Everything else must wait until they are ready, and by then it will be basically dry matter. Therefore all except the beans is a residual.
Can still be recycled into more human food by herbivores, but we couldn't do it directly. We can't feed on dry stems, withered flowers or brown leaves.
I would highly recommend the book Sacred Cow. It has links to hundreds of studies within for further research. The authors, Diana rogers and Robb Wolf have been on many podcasts since it's release to discuss the topic.
If you want specific studies I can go look up in the book but it sounds like your asking for further reading, not cited sources.
How much of the meat we consume do you really think are grazing in meadows? Even most the grass feed cows are raised in fields that used to be rain forests in Brazil. However you turn it, it’s impossible to claim that cattle raising is a net gain for biodiversity.
You are moving the goalposts. The parent post was comparing non-animal agriculture with animal agriculture in terms of biodiversity. I'll copy it here for you.
> It sounds like you are suggesting non-animal agriculture kills or displaces more animals than animal agriculture.
Animal agriculture is better for biodiversity than crop monocultures. I understand that the truth can be shocking for some people, but there are dozens of ecological studies pointing to the environmental value of pastures and meadows, specially as ecotones.
As the initial plan to demonize cattle failed, now you are silently replacing "non-animal agriculture" by "rainforests" as a straw man to attack the original claim. Sorry, but this was not the point that we were discussing.
"Non-animal agriculture", also known as "Agriculture", has replaced happily as many rainforest hectares as cattle, if not more. Take a look to the fate of Indonesian rainforests
No, no goalposts have been moved. It is worse for the environment, in all aspects, including biodiversity, to raise animals to eat than to eat the crops directly.
The reason is simple: to produce the same amount of energy (and protein) with livestock as you would with crops, you have to use orders of magnitude more resources and you affect the environment orders of magnitude more: you use more fuel, release more greenhouse gases, use more water, use more land area, destroy more soil, et.c.
And while it might be true that one hectare used for grazing might be more biodiverse than one hectare used for, your example, soybeans. But 85 percent of the world's soybean crop is processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all of that meal is used in animal feed.
I think you need to look up the meaning of the expression "straw man". And about the rainforests: Tropical rainforests are the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems in the world, and right now, huge areas of that rainforests are destroyed for the land to be used to raise cattle.
>> most the grass feed cows are raised in fields that used to be rain forests in Brazil
> Evidence for that rather large claim?
While most cows in Brazil are grass-fed, about half are raised on former rainforest:
"Nearly 50% of Brazilian livestock are raised in fields that used to be rainforest."[0,1]
"Most cows in Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter, are grass-fed."[2]
See also:
How beef demand is accelerating the Amazon’s deforestation and climate peril[3]:
> Cattle ranchers in the Brazilian Amazon — the storied rainforest that produces oxygen for the world and modulates climate — are aggressively expanding their herds and willing to clear-cut the forest and burn what’s left to make way for pastures. As a result, they’ve become the single biggest driver of the Amazon’s deforestation, causing about 80 percent of it, according to the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
Cattle Ranching in the Amazon Region[4]:
> Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80% of current deforestation rates. Amazon Brazil is home to approximately 200 million head of cattle, and is the largest exporter in the world, supplying about one quarter of the global market. Low input cost and easy transportation in rural areas make ranching an attractive economic activity in the forest frontier; low yields and cheap land encourage expansion and deforestation. Approximately 450,000 square kilometers of deforested Amazon in Brazil are now in cattle pasture. Cattle ranching and soy cultivation are often linked as soy replaces cattle pasture, pushing farmers farther into the Amazon.
Cattle do not eat solely from a meadow. Even if cows are free range, that's generally only a spring to fall state, in the winter they are eating farmed foods (usually hay).
For factory farmed cattle (which is the most common) the situation is far worse.
An individual cow needs 24lbs of food per day. How much soy does one person consume in a day?
> in the winter they are eating farmed foods (usually hay).
To have hay in winter you still need a meadow of high grass that will burst with life in spring, and cattle is excluded from this areas. Hay don't require pesticides or weedkillers. Traditional farming areas double its purpose as small natural reserves, even in winter. (Not all is nice, we could have a forest there instead, but is still better than modern agriculture for a mile).
> An individual cow needs 24lbs of food per day. How much soy does one person consume in a day?
This is a false equivalence.
The correct question would be: "how much soy consume the number of people that could be feed with this cow".
The error is understandable because many of this movements are focused in the individual, and equality among individuals. This is just one way to study ecology, but not the more interesting or rewarding one, and sometimes leads to plain wrong conclusions.
A cow can produce until 88lbs of milk a day. Having 12000 L of milk by cow in a lactating season is not uncommon, and some can reach 20000 L of milk. And this without talking about the meat and the leather.
No, it's not a good point. Cows are rarely grown in "meadows". Free-range beef is a minority, and most cow feed comes from monoculture fields. And it takes more monoculture grain to grow a pound of beef versus a pound of vegetables, and it's not even close.
No, I'm suggesting it is not a good/bad dichotomy and people should make sure large decisions are not made on what they think are simple moral choices.
I mean if you determine that animals dying for your diet is no good, then make sure you consider the people that might be dying to bring you the goods you haven't checked the source of, or for the stadium you enjoy watching events at, etc.
Quit meat if you feel you need to, but don't pretend it makes you a morally better person because 'animal murder,' it's not that simple.
What do you think the animals humans like to eat, eat? A heck of a lot of grain and other plants. "Animal agriculture" includes the fluffy animals (with whom we may empathize - they ain't robots) and the massive farms that grow their feed.
Animal agriculture incidentally kills and displaces far more other creatures than non-animal agriculture simply due to the additional land requirements. It is far easier to accept the less harmful industry.