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There are a few comments here related to how unethical the chicken industry is. Other animal production is just as bad, cows are treated terribly whether they'r

There are a few comments here related to how unethical the chicken industry is. Other animal production is just as bad, cows are treated terribly whether they're being raised for meat is dairy. If you are one who believes plants may have feelings or that the fungal network is actually used as communication between plants, the concerns would spread to them as industrial farming treats plants just as badly. I wish more people would go out of their way to buy from local farmers, and that the government would get out of the way with regulations so that it could be a more viable business. Its nearly impossible to start and run a profitable small farm today, and when production goes to an industrial scale all concern for the animals' (and plants') well being is lost. Everything is boiled down to numbers in a spreadsheet and producers rarely even interact with the animals at all, of course they won't care for an individual animal's well being.

BenFranklin100 3y ago
Small farms aren’t great for the environment per kg food, and suffer the last mile delivery problem where the lion’s share of of the delivery pollution occurs just as badly if not worse than large overseas farms. You’re romanticizing a past that is long gone.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  I'm not sure where you got this data from, but small farms don't all operate the same way and can't be generalized to a simple metric of "environmental impact per kg of food". Massive farms get away with externalizing a large portion of their environmental impact. Does your data account for the impact of everything from fertilizer production and transportation to chemical use and ecological damage of pesticides and fertilizers? How is the environmental damage for the massive amount of soil loss with industrial farming even accounted for? > You’re romanticizing a past that is long gone. I'm not romanticizing anything and to assume that belittles the point. I agree that we don't have many small farms today and I was raising that as a problem, not a bygone era that we're better off without. Your assumption that I'm romanticizing it because we disagree in the feasibility or benefits is like me claiming that emissions controls will reverse climate change is a romanticized view, and implying that its a waste of time. I don't agree with anyone that thinks emissions controls will save the planet, but I wouldn't disrespect their ideas for a different future either.
  - BenFranklin100 3y ago
    Large farms enjoy economies of scale that small farms can’t meet. Additionally, container shipping has to be one of the greatest innovations of the last century and is extraordinarily efficient at transporting goods. That overseas carrot could well has a lower environmental impact than the carrot grown on a farm tens of miles away. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23132579/eat-local-csa-farmers-markets-locavore-slow-food https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23132579/eat-local-csa-fa... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8147589/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8147589/
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      I don't have time to dig deeply into both links at the moment but I can reply to the Vox article and research it links to. That article actually makes my point. The consideration for comparison is exclusively the potential for reducing transportation a related emissions. No consideration is given to any externalized costs. The research assumes that local farms will have effectively the same farming practices and that emissions on the farm will remain unchanged. They assume that feed consumption will be the same, even though local farms more often graze their animals as much as possible and will use much less feed than feed lot operations. They even ignore the infrastructure required to make transportation work. They assume that the containers, trucks, freezer warehouses, grocery stores, etc. already exist that and that the emissions caused by creating and maintaining all that infrastructure can go ignored.
Recursing 3y ago
> cows are treated terribly whether they're being raised for meat is dairy Cows are treated much better than chickens, and plausibly have net-positive lives. (But of course, there is a lot of room for improvement and many cases of plain torture) See 2.2.3 here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-net-harm/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-n... As an almost-vegan, I think it's very important to highlight the huge difference between different kinds of factory farming, and eating cows might not be that bad. See e.g. https://faunalytics.org/animal-product-impact-scales/ https://faunalytics.org/animal-product-impact-scales/
- _heimdall 3y ago
  I'm honestly not sure how I would end up trying to really weigh the comparison "better" when it comes to cows and chickens. I've experienced both industries first hand and find both to be absolutely terrible for animal welfare. After seeing them, trying to pick which is better feels like having to choose whether I would rather be shot in the arm or the leg. I've been buying meat from local farms for years and usually pick up the meat directly from them, meaning I get to meet the farmers and see the animals on a normal day. I actually started raising my own dairy cows, pigs, chickens, and eventually beef animals so that's a whole different ball game as I know the animals personally and know exactly how they lived their lives.

BenFranklin100 3y ago

Small farms aren’t great for the environment per kg food, and suffer the last mile delivery problem where the lion’s share of of the delivery pollution occurs just as badly if not worse than large overseas farms. You’re romanticizing a past that is long gone.

_heimdall 3y ago
I'm not sure where you got this data from, but small farms don't all operate the same way and can't be generalized to a simple metric of "environmental impact per kg of food". Massive farms get away with externalizing a large portion of their environmental impact. Does your data account for the impact of everything from fertilizer production and transportation to chemical use and ecological damage of pesticides and fertilizers? How is the environmental damage for the massive amount of soil loss with industrial farming even accounted for? > You’re romanticizing a past that is long gone. I'm not romanticizing anything and to assume that belittles the point. I agree that we don't have many small farms today and I was raising that as a problem, not a bygone era that we're better off without. Your assumption that I'm romanticizing it because we disagree in the feasibility or benefits is like me claiming that emissions controls will reverse climate change is a romanticized view, and implying that its a waste of time. I don't agree with anyone that thinks emissions controls will save the planet, but I wouldn't disrespect their ideas for a different future either.
- BenFranklin100 3y ago
  Large farms enjoy economies of scale that small farms can’t meet. Additionally, container shipping has to be one of the greatest innovations of the last century and is extraordinarily efficient at transporting goods. That overseas carrot could well has a lower environmental impact than the carrot grown on a farm tens of miles away. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23132579/eat-local-csa-farmers-markets-locavore-slow-food https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23132579/eat-local-csa-fa... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8147589/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8147589/
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    I don't have time to dig deeply into both links at the moment but I can reply to the Vox article and research it links to. That article actually makes my point. The consideration for comparison is exclusively the potential for reducing transportation a related emissions. No consideration is given to any externalized costs. The research assumes that local farms will have effectively the same farming practices and that emissions on the farm will remain unchanged. They assume that feed consumption will be the same, even though local farms more often graze their animals as much as possible and will use much less feed than feed lot operations. They even ignore the infrastructure required to make transportation work. They assume that the containers, trucks, freezer warehouses, grocery stores, etc. already exist that and that the emissions caused by creating and maintaining all that infrastructure can go ignored.

Recursing 3y ago

> cows are treated terribly whether they're being raised for meat is dairy Cows are treated much better than chickens, and plausibly have net-positive lives. (But of course, there is a lot of room for improvement and many cases of plain torture) See 2.2.3 here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-net-harm/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-n... As an almost-vegan, I think it's very important to highlight the huge difference between different kinds of factory farming, and eating cows might not be that bad. See e.g. https://faunalytics.org/animal-product-impact-scales/ https://faunalytics.org/animal-product-impact-scales/

_heimdall 3y ago
I'm honestly not sure how I would end up trying to really weigh the comparison "better" when it comes to cows and chickens. I've experienced both industries first hand and find both to be absolutely terrible for animal welfare. After seeing them, trying to pick which is better feels like having to choose whether I would rather be shot in the arm or the leg. I've been buying meat from local farms for years and usually pick up the meat directly from them, meaning I get to meet the farmers and see the animals on a normal day. I actually started raising my own dairy cows, pigs, chickens, and eventually beef animals so that's a whole different ball game as I know the animals personally and know exactly how they lived their lives.