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Ebyss



Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 50

PostPosted: Thu May 19, 05 11:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Quote:
With respect to you, I have no respect for HIM in any way if that's what he really means.


Then we shall agree to disagree on this point.


Quote:
Not really. I resent the way that the claim that his farming is low input is patently untrue; I use a lower concentration of fertiliser than that in my garden and I get great yields, but I don't make a song and dance about it.


In fairness, fertilizer aside, his method involves plenty of other ways that differ in labour times, mechanical and chemical inputs that do make the farming low input compared to modern agriculture. This isn't just about fertilizer. It involves no tilling and no pesticides, that right there lowers the inputs (financial or otherwise). It also works on the principle of two crops per year, instead of one, although many modern farms work with a two crop system. Then there is the nitrogen fixing crop, which you also mentioned. He also advocates no pruning, and a rather haphazard approach to vegetable planting that I for one am excited to try out. It's not just fertilizer. To say that his method isn't low input because he uses more fertilizer is misleading, it doesn't take everything else he talks about into account.

I stand corrected on the fertilizer, as I don't have the books in front of me, I can't judge the exact context of the fertilizer application... other things were taken out of context in that article, this may be the same. By the sums you've provided, that is alot of fertilizer, even for two crops in the one year.


Quote:
Seymour didn't, to the best of my knowledge, make any completely unsubstantiated claims about what he was doing being 'low input' or even radically novel.


Again, I disagree that these methods are not "low input". If you only work 3-4 hours a day, use no pesticides, no tilling and no weeding, regardless of the amount of manure, it's still far less work than conventional agriculture if the yields are the same.


Quote:
Someone has to collect all that chicken waste and apply it. It's labour intensive, allbeit that you're paying someone else to do the labour.


Ok, if we're going to go EROEI, then we should take into account the process behind chemical agricultural products... that should include extraction of the natural gas or oil, refining, transportation, coverting it into fertilizer or pesticide, transporting to the outlet, transporting it to the farm applying it. Now, if you do what Fukuoka recommends, and use ducks on the land instead of chicken manure, then I would definitely maintain that this is lower input with a better EROEI than conventional farming.


Quote:
Hardly surprising when the inputs are far in excess of those of other farmers in his country.


Fertilizer input alone doesn't necessarily increase yields. It's no good fertilizing the hell out of your land if pests come down and destroy everything.


Conventional agriculture is starting to fail, world grain yields are down for the fourth year in a row, despite farmers shovelling on more and more chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Oil prices are rising, and long term they aren't going to get any better, so farmers will have to pay more for the pesticides than before. Also, the more chemical fertilizer is put on the soil, the more depleted it gets, and the more you need to apply next year. It's got to be so bad in some places, they actually have to cover farms in plastic wrap because of the excess of chemicals they've had to apply (I thought this was a joke when I heard it, but apparently it's becoming more and more common in the U.S.). This is massively high input in a monoculture system doomed to fail. I don't need to mention the damage it does to the environment. To me, the input difference between conventional agriculture, and Fukuoka/permaculture/organic is an easy one to see.

Shrink Wrapped Farm :

Ebyss



Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 50

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 12:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Milo, I'm interested to know if you have any ideas on how to combat crop loss due to animal pests (rabbits, deer, moles, pigeons, etc). Millions of animal pests are killed each year so that farmers can successfully grown grain (which no doubt you eat, being a vegetarian), how do you intend to deal with this problem with no loss of animal life or grain? And how do you justify eating grain knowing that millions of animals must die in order for it to be grown?

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 9:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Ebyss wrote:

In fairness, fertilizer aside, his method involves plenty of other ways that differ in labour times, mechanical and chemical inputs that do make the farming low input compared to modern agriculture.


But that's rather like saying 'chemical inputs aside, modern farming is low input compared to organic agriculture'. When you're using a MASS of fertiliser, as he's doing, it makes no sense to say 'fertilizer aside'.

Quote:
This isn't just about fertilizer. It involves no tilling and no pesticides, that right there lowers the inputs (financial or otherwise). It also works on the principle of two crops per year, instead of one, although many modern farms work with a two crop system.


Two crops a year is kind of normal in that climate. As for low inputs and no ploughing, well, yeah, if you completely cover the land in fertiliser and let the worms do it for you, you can suppress weeds and get away with very little soil moving. Like I've said, it's the lazy way to prepare a bed that you might do on a new allotment, but you wouldn't do it every year because the input in terms of fertiliser is far, far too high.

Quote:
Then there is the nitrogen fixing crop, which you also mentioned.


Yeah, that's interesting. Co-culturing clover and barley (I think) at the same time, in the same space. Nice idea. I've yet to find good data for his yields from that particular practice, at least data that distinguishes that from the massive use of nitrogenous fertiliser. But as an idea that's kind of intuitive, it -should- be interesting, and it -might- well be a cracker.

Quote:
He also advocates no pruning, and a rather haphazard approach to vegetable planting that I for one am excited to try out. It's not just fertilizer. To say that his method isn't low input because he uses more fertilizer is misleading, it doesn't take everything else he talks about into account.


It isn't misleading at all; he's not just using a LOT of fertiliser, he's using a MONSTROUS input of fertiliser. Take everything else into account and he's STILL got a massive amount of input there.

Quote:
I stand corrected on the fertilizer, as I don't have the books in front of me, I can't judge the exact context of the fertilizer application... other things were taken out of context in that article, this may be the same. By the sums you've provided, that is alot of fertilizer, even for two crops in the one year.


And bear in mind he applies that fertiliser twice, with another mulch.

That website is new since I last looked at this way, way back, and I don't think that the figures are quite the same. They're of an order, though.

Quote:

Again, I disagree that these methods are not "low input". If you only work 3-4 hours a day, use no pesticides, no tilling and no weeding, regardless of the amount of manure, it's still far less work than conventional agriculture if the yields are the same.


It's moving the input elsewhere; that much chicken muck produced, gathered, dried etc. is simply a huge, huge factor; it replaces tilling and it suppresses weeds, but that input is still made elsewhere. You're buying that input from someone else.

Quote:

Ok, if we're going to go EROEI, then we should take into account the process behind chemical agricultural products... that should include extraction of the natural gas or oil, refining, transportation, coverting it into fertilizer or pesticide, transporting to the outlet, transporting it to the farm applying it. Now, if you do what Fukuoka recommends, and use ducks on the land instead of chicken manure, then I would definitely maintain that this is lower input with a better EROEI than conventional farming.


Yeah, the duck thing is interesting. I don't know what you'd have to feed the ducks to get 900lb droppings dry weight on each quarter acre between crops, but I don't for an instant believe it can be good for them

And I agree, take all of the other factors into accound when comparing practices; including how much land you'd need to put aside to feed chickens to get enough manure that you can get good yields by this method on one farm. It's a false economy.

Quote:

Fertilizer input alone doesn't necessarily increase yields. It's no good fertilizing the hell out of your land if pests come down and destroy everything.


Ahh, but what pests? You've got rid of most of the weeds through mulching with chicken muck. You've also got average density rice and barley, which aren't typically prone to serious insect, fungal or viral pests at that density. And then look at the amount of input really used to prevent such pests anyway; one spray per year, at a vanishingly small concentration. I'm left thinking 'so what?'

Quote:
Conventional agriculture is starting to fail, world grain yields are down for the fourth year in a row, despite farmers shovelling on more and more chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Oil prices are rising, and long term they aren't going to get any better, so farmers will have to pay more for the pesticides than before. Also, the more chemical fertilizer is put on the soil, the more depleted it gets, and the more you need to apply next year.


Some of that's true; I'm forced to point out that fertility does not fall due to application of chemical fertilisers, it falls due to lack of paying attention to organic inputs (manuring, fallow periods, green manures) in addition. Total grain yields have fallen for a number of reasons, and you're right to point out that it's important, but ask yourself whether this chicken much came from organically reared chickens free from such inputs themselves.

Quote:
It's got to be so bad in some places, they actually have to cover farms in plastic wrap because of the excess of chemicals they've had to apply (I thought this was a joke when I heard it, but apparently it's becoming more and more common in the U.S.). This is massively high input in a monoculture system doomed to fail. I don't need to mention the damage it does to the environment. To me, the input difference between conventional agriculture, and Fukuoka/permaculture/organic is an easy one to see.


If only Fukukoas system was demonstrably a low input permaculture one, but it isn't. It's not the answer.

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 9:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Anonymous wrote:

I am a proper veggie, (5th generation) who also eats no eggs, very little cheese, no cow's (or should that be calf's) milk, unless someone's snuck it into summat we've bought in the form of a prepared meal.

And, of course, if the vegan police came around they'd catch me out almost certainly but, as you've probably gathered, I'm not really gonna beat myself up.


If you eat, animals die. Pest control, organic or otherwise, land use, transport, it kills animals. I doubt whether the number of animals dying in vegan agriculture is significantly less than the number killed in normal farming. Take, for example, grain. Do you suppse the weevils are fished out before the grain is milled?

The number of animals we actually eat is vanishingly small compared with the number that die that we may eat.

Quote:

Sooner or later someone will mention, "leather shoes".

Well, I've a very old pair of leather boots, some non-leather open sandals which I wear all year round, smart veggie shoes for work, and two pairs of non-leather walking / climbing boots.


Wasn't going to mention it myself. I don't see the need to make the argument that veganism is non-self sustaining and inherently amoral. I don't see veganism as a moral stance, so I see no real problem with minor vegan indiscretions.

Quote:

"Let's try very hard and consistently to cause a real attainable minimum of harm to animals and to everyone and everything that's good and natural in our shared global environment"?


'good and natural' does not follow. I do not accept the premis of your argument.

joanne



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Milo,

I've got to be honest - I did think/hope this was going to be an interesting debate on the various viewpoints and I was hoping to see some strong information to back up your ideas.

Having been vegetarian myself and spending the majority of my time struggling with these very issues I was hoping for some insight from a committed veggie but so far all I've seen is you ignore the really difficult issues and bang on about everyone being kind to animals - I've no problem with that as a concept but I need to have a workable plan to understand why I should change my mind.

May I humbly suggest that we decide to agree to differ on this subject and call an end to the debate ?

tahir



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 11:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Agree with Jo, I don't know anybody here that doesn't seriously think about meat eating and it's implications, I've nothing against vegetarianism or veganism but it's not a realistic proposition to expect everybody else to be the same based on your moral or ethical viewpoint.

Andy B



Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 12:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Well repeating what has been said a few times, if people stop eating animals their will be no need for animals, and as an almost vegeterian i think that would be a terrible thing to happen.
We should just eat less meat, of a higher quality, sounds familiar?
On a slightly different note i went to Cardiff yesterday from B/ham on the train, Beutifull countryside. Hardly saw any crops apart from rape, or much livestock. How come !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Milo



Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 342
Location: Oop North-ish.
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 3:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Sorry, folks, I got the quoting system a bit messed up here, but I think you'll work out which bits are mine!

Quote:
Millions of animal pests are killed each year so that farmers can successfully grown grain (which no doubt you eat, being a vegetarian), how do you intend to deal with this problem with no loss of animal life or grain?
Quote:


Again, I'm no authority on anything (much). Somebody said that "the grey bits are more interesting" and they are. I deal with it by concentrating my thoughts on mammals and birds rather than on insects, (although I do realise that mammal and bird populations are greatly affected by levels of insect populations). Some loss of grain, greater than at present in a chemicalized field, can be stood. Disagree with that and we're into the GM argument and you must surely have done that one to death?

Quote:
And how do you justify eating grain knowing that millions of animals must die in order for it to be grown?


Do I (have to) justify it? To whom?

How much grain / what acreage of grain must be grown to kill 1 million animals?

Are you including removal of habitat in your "millions"?

We're back to the grey bits, aren't we. I can cope with my version of the grey bits.And I can modify it at any time. So can you.

if people stop eating animals their will be no need for animals,
Quote:


There will be a greatly reduced need for the types which are farmed.

it's not a realistic proposition to expect everybody else to be the same based on your moral or ethical viewpoint.
Quote:


It's so idealistic that I don't expect it to work (very well), but there's nothing much wrong with high ideals, is there? Unless you think mine are low.

I did think/hope this was going to be an interesting debate on the various viewpoints and I was hoping to see some strong information to back up your ideas...... I was hoping for some insight from a committed veggie but so far all I've seen is you ignore the really difficult issues and bang on about everyone being kind to animals - I've no problem with that as a concept but I need to have a workable plan to understand why I should change my mind.
Quote:


I think I've covered / touched on, though perhaps not adequately, far more than simply being kind / unkind to animals. My plan works for me.

The number of animals we actually eat is vanishingly small compared with the number that die that we may eat.
Quote:


Well, lets do what we can to keep the number to a minimum?

veganism is non-self sustaining and inherently amoral.


Blimey, where d'you get that one from? That warrants more explanantion surely. A dairy farmer once said to me that vegetarianism is hypocritical because of the dairy angle and that veganism isn't.

Quote:
'good and natural' does not follow. I do not accept the premis of your argument.


I strongly suspect, and have done for a while, that you simply enjoy taking an opposing stance. I am prone to that too. As a premise, I think mine is pretty good. The alternative is what? Bad and natural? Good and unnatural? Nature is bad?

I suggest that you'd do yourself and the discussion a disservice if you don't expand on your point(s).
[/quote]

cab



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Quote:

Do I (have to) justify it? To whom?


You're basically vegan. You have put forward your belief that man should not kill animals. Man, however, kills animals. All of the time. By his very existence. All of the time.

Quote:

How much grain / what acreage of grain must be grown to kill 1 million animals?


Significantly less than an acre; or are you going to exclude tardigrades, rotifers and the like?

Quote:

Are you including removal of habitat in your "millions"?


Don't have to. But you can if you like; continued deprivation of habitat (i.e. farming) also restricts animal populations, very effectively killing progeny.

Quote:
We're back to the grey bits, aren't we. I can cope with my version of the grey bits.And I can modify it at any time. So can you.


Actually, no, this isn't grey. It's black and white. By existing you are responsible for the death of countless animals. Live with it. But don't try to define any moral structure based on not killing animals, it is not consistent with your own existence.

Quote:

Quote:
The number of animals we actually eat is vanishingly small compared with the number that die that we may eat.


Well, lets do what we can to keep the number to a minimum?


Why? I am aware of no moral or ethical reason to do so that is consistent with the knowledge that to eat at all animals die.

Quote:

Quote:
veganism is non-self sustaining and inherently amoral.


Blimey, where d'you get that one from? That warrants more explanantion surely. A dairy farmer once said to me that vegetarianism is hypocritical because of the dairy angle and that veganism isn't.


I see the dairy farmers point. I don't accept it, except as an economic argument.

Veganism is not self sustaining; you are not a vegan, no one is. People who aspire to veganism are nothing of the sort; that we may eat, animals die. That we may live, animals die. Veganism cannot, therefore, be defined as a moral position that takes not killing animals as its starting point; it is not therefore any kind of moral position. It can either therefore be viewed as amoral (not moral or immoral), or as foolish. I don't think that it's foolish, I merely see it as not a moral stance.

Quote:

Quote:
'good and natural' does not follow. I do not accept the premis of your argument.


I strongly suspect, and have done for a while, that you simply enjoy taking an opposing stance.


I do enjoy taking an opposing stance; I also fundamentally disagree with you, as I have outlined.

Quote:
I am prone to that too. As a premise, I think mine is pretty good. The alternative is what? Bad and natural? Good and unnatural? Nature is bad?


Nature is neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral, a model to be aspired to nor a 'force' to be ignored; nature is a human construct, it is an idea we have defined. What is or is not natural is irrelevent from a moral perspective. The question of whether nature is good or bad is therefore entirely meaningless. Simply, nature is not a valid aspiration. 'Good and natural' isn't an oxymoron, it's merely a mismatch of concepts.

I do not accept the premis of your argument becuase I do not accept the moral construct you have based around 'natural', nor do I accept that what you have defined as 'natural' is valid.

Quote:

I suggest that you'd do yourself and the discussion a disservice if you don't expand on your point(s).


I put to you the counter suggestion that I have amply dealt with your points, and humbly suggest that you do the same with mine.

Gertie



Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 1638
Location: Yorkshire
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 3:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I may be wrong here, but surely if we were all vegans there would be no need for us to sustain farm animals therefore they would all be slaughtered and due to the increased interest in vegetation we would not tolerate animals eating them anyway and shoot the lot.

judith



Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 3:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

But we wouldn't enjoy it Gertie, so that would be OK.

Milo



Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 342
Location: Oop North-ish.
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I enjoy sarcasm.

Or don't I?

Anyway, it’s interesting, isn’t it, how we folks determine to which points we'll reply. To me it’s almost as interesting, if not sometimes more so, than the replies are.

*Do I (have to) justify it? To whom?

#You're basically vegan. You have put forward your belief that man should not kill animals. Man, however, kills animals. All of the time. By his very existence. All of the time.

*Well, let’s kill loads more then? It doesn’t matter how many we kill? What type we kill? Why we kill them? (I trust you can readily identify a rhetorical question?).

*How much grain / what acreage of grain must be grown to kill 1 million animals?

#Significantly less than an acre; or are you going to exclude tardigrades, rotifers and the like?

*Including the smartarse? You’re right, btw, I don’t even know what tardigrades, rotifers are, but I assume that they are very, very tiny squiggly things. Am I right?

*Are you including removal of habitat in your "millions"?

#Don't have to. But you can if you like; continued deprivation of habitat (i.e. farming) also restricts animal populations, very effectively killing progeny.

Hey, let's all eat dictionaries! I suggest that we’re now back at, or close to, the 10acres and how many people can be fed on what.

*We're back to the grey bits, aren't we. I can cope with my version of the grey bits. And I can modify it at any time. So can you.

#Actually, no, this isn't grey. It's black and white.

* I can no longer remember what this was about.

#By existing you are responsible for the death of countless animals. Live with it.

* “Live with it”, put like that does seem to me to fall somewhere between totally dismissive and moderately aggressive, and it definitely seems to me to be ill-mannered, but perhaps I’m just a sensitive little flower!

#But don't try to define any moral structure based on not killing animals,

* Well, I don't think I've made any reference to morals, have I, but now that you mention it, I might just give it a try! Your comment is comparable with actually telling someone what to think – pretty damn pointless, I suggest.

#it is not consistent with your own existence.

#The number of animals we actually eat is vanishingly small compared with the number that die that we may eat.

* Well, let’s do what we can to keep the number to a minimum? And aren’t you clinging rather desperately to your tardigrades?

#Why?

*OK, let’s kill lots and lots of animals and not bother about it at all?

#I am aware of no moral or ethical reason to do so that is consistent with the knowledge that to eat at all animals die.

*Oh, man, I can still just about make you out….. Yes, hold on, there you are….. That is you, isn’t it, scrabbling around down there at the very bottom of your thought-barrel? And apparently, gosh, yes, you’re collecting lots of tiny insects! I guess now you’ll pile them up and stand on them so as to improve your perspective?

#veganism is non-self sustaining and inherently amoral.

*Sustains my self pretty well.

*Blimey, where d'you get that one from? That warrants more explanation surely. A dairy farmer once said to me that vegetarianism is hypocritical because of the dairy angle and that veganism isn't.

#I see the dairy farmers point. I don't accept it, except as an economic argument.

*Which is.........?

#Veganism is not self sustaining; you are not a vegan, no one is.

*Well, something’s sustaining me. Vegans don’t exist? Dreamers, the lot of them!

#People who aspire to veganism are nothing of the sort; that we may eat, animals die. That we may live, animals die. Veganism cannot, therefore, be defined as a moral position that takes not killing animals as its starting point;

*Uh-oh, back to the tardigrades.

#it is not therefore any kind of moral position. It can either therefore be viewed as amoral (not moral or immoral), or as foolish. I don't think that it's foolish, I merely see it as not a moral stance.

#'good and natural' does not follow. I do not accept the premis of your argument.

*I strongly suspect, and have done for a while, that you simply enjoy taking an opposing stance.

#I do enjoy taking an opposing stance; I also fundamentally disagree with you, as I have outlined.

*I am prone to that too. As a premise, I think mine is pretty good. The alternative is what? Bad and natural? Good and unnatural? Nature is bad?

#Nature is neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral, a model to be aspired to nor a 'force' to be ignored; nature is a human construct, it is an idea we have defined. What is or is not natural is irrelevent from a moral perspective. The question of whether nature is good or bad is therefore entirely meaningless. Simply, nature is not a valid aspiration. 'Good and natural' isn't an oxymoron, it's merely a mismatch of concepts.

*Should I have split it into “what is good and what is natural”? Apparently not, because you’d say that nature doesn’t exist? Anywhere? In the world?

*I do not accept the premis of your argument becuase I do not accept the moral construct you have based around 'natural', nor do I accept that what you have defined as 'natural' is valid.

* I didn’t define “natural”, did I.

*I suggest that you'd do yourself and the discussion a disservice if you don't expand on your point(s).

#I put to you the counter suggestion that I have amply dealt with your points, and humbly suggest that you do the same with mine.

Humbly? Ho-ho.

We both lack humility, I’m sure. To what extent, I wonder, am I imposing my views? Or am I just airing them? I don’t feel as if I’m even trying to persuade people to change their minds, but I do think it’d be a damn good thing if some folks did.

Anyway, whatever your thoughts on democracy, healthy disagreement is something upon which democracy depends and it’s essential in order for change to take place.

As I see it, what we eat should not be seen simply as a matter for individuals. Meat-eating and vegetarianism are not two sides of the same coin - one brings death and suffering to animals, disproportionately damages the planet and harms human health. And the other doesn’t.

The reason that some (those less humble) vegetarians and vegans do try to change the minds of non-vegetarians is because individual choices affect countless other beings, human and non-human.

Every year in Britain more than 850 million animals are slaughtered, many while fully conscious. Most spend their short, often brutal lives in confinement, pain and misery.

Every year in the US 27 billion animals are killed for human consumption.

Global figures? I don’t know, but how much avoidable death of what are very evidently sentient beings, can you tolerate?
The average British meat eater consumes, in the course of their lifetime, 5 cattle, 20 pigs, 29 sheep and lambs, 780 chickens, 46 turkeys, 18 ducks, 7 rabbits, 1 goose and half a tonne of fish.

That is (the hell of) a lot of lives to be saved in a move towards what I do believe would be a more compassionate and rational world.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator


Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Milo wrote:
Meat-eating and vegetarianism are not two sides of the same coin - one brings death and suffering to animals, disproportionately damages the planet and harms human health. And the other doesn’t.


Put simply I think that's wrong. Both forms kill animals. A land owner in this country is legally obliged to control rabbits for example, so a cereal farmer may kill countless rabbits. Thousands of insects will die when crops are sprayed and therefore bird life and animals higher up the food chain will then struggle to live. All to feed people including vegans and vegetarians!

So, in my book good farming practices and bad farming practices are different sides of the coin.

Still waiting for your realistic idea of how everyone could live in a vegan way in this country and not harm many animals. However, I doubt we will.

wellington womble



Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Milo, you may enjoy sarcasm, but its getting in the way of your argument. I don't understand the points you're trying to make, and I am really trying. We all enjoy debate and you are right to say its healthy.

I understand you think its wrong to kill animals. I don't share that view. Animals which I keep (or pay someone to keep on my behalf) healthy, sheltered, happy and as naturally as possible for a domesticated species may have a short life, but its a comfortable one. We can't ask them to choose, and you can't speak for their choices.

Man is part of nature, nature evolves and changes, and changes its environment. Thats not an excuse, we have responsibilities that come with our evolution. Other species kill and eat other animals, some in pretty horrific (certainly compared to a good abbotoir) ways. Why are we different? every animal (and plant) is dependent on other animals. We can't live independently, or remove ourselves from the ecosytem. Even if you were totally vegan, you would still have to defend you crops from competitors, somehow. I'm sure it could be done, with either enormous capital, chemical or labour outlay.

I think its unlikely to be sustainable on a global long term basis. I've said before I think balance is the key and I think a totally vegan system is just as unbalanced as the present one.

Clearly you have very strong views. Most people here do, and most people with have thought very carefully about the meat and right issue. They have good points to make too - don't alienate them beofre you've heard what they have to say, or before they have listened to what you have to say.

Milo



Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 342
Location: Oop North-ish.
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 05 9:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

*Meat-eating and vegetarianism are not two sides of the same coin - one brings death and suffering to animals, disproportionately damages the planet and harms human health. And the other doesn’t.

#Put simply I think that's wrong. Both forms kill animals.

*I would say that one form kills far fewer animals, and by that I mean animals as we generally understand the word, i.e. not including very, very tiny squiggly things.

Forgetting factory farming for just one minute, are you saying that a farmer who grows nothing but arable will kill, or be involved with the deaths of just as many animals as one who on the same acreage “grows” pigs, sheep, cattle, etc?

#A land owner in this country is legally obliged to control rabbits………….

*Source for this? I understand that landowners have a legal right to kill rabbits, but where’s the “legal obligation” to be found?

Has anyone ever been prosecuted for not killing (sufficient) rabbits on their land?

Last edited by Milo on Fri May 20, 05 11:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

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