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This goes against so many basic principles of human dietary needs and sustainable agricultural practices. The problems that frequently lead to the argument for
by flagrant_taco 3y ago
This goes against so many basic principles of human dietary needs and sustainable agricultural practices.
The problems that frequently lead to the argument for cutting meat consumption for ecological reasons are all actually concerns with industrialized meat production practices, not with meat production itself. We don't need to cut meat production, we need to change how we raise, process, and distribute the meat. Raise thousands of cows in concrete pens in a remote area will always require too many inputs and produce too many unwanted outputs because it's not part of a larger ecosystem.
Ruminants like cows and sheep play a vital role in managing pasture and creating fertilizer. Chickens play a vital role in pest management and creating compost. Chickens and hogs both play a role in making productive use of waste products, eating food scraps and garden waste that would otherwise be lost.
Heck, we couldn't even have egg and milk production at all without producing meat or culling animals along the way. Only 50% of eggs hatched are female, we have to do something with the males. And dairy cows will only produce milk for 6-12 months after giving birth, meaning there are calves that need to play a part in the system as well.
That doesn't even get to the challenges of trying to raise crops without animal byproducts. Where does all the fertilizer come from?
- kiliantics 3y agoAll those animals need to eat. Most crop farming is done to feed livestock rather than humans. That's a lot of wasted land use which could be habitat for wild ecosystems if we just cut down our meat consumption.
- flagrant_taco 3y agoIs love to see us move to a different style of meat production, but very much too the same goals you mention. The entire model of industrial meat production is unsustainable by design. Animals can be raised as part of a larger system that includes growing most, if not all, if the animals' food on site. Having to plant massive fields of feed crops so they can be trucked across the country to industrial meat farms raising animals in crowded lots and concrete boxes is an insane approach.
- 2000UltraDeluxe 3y agoYes, animal husbandry is an integrated part of food production, but there is merit to the suggestion of _reducing_ meat consumption; most of the world has increased meat consumption per capita quite a lot the last 20 years and going back to 2000 levels might not be a bad idea in the case of a lot of richer countries.