Animal deaths due to plant based farming?-Thoughts?

Peter Libre

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Animal Deaths Due to Plant Based Farming? Your Thoughts?


Well let's be frank the point of being vegan is to end animal cruelty, but is seems many vegans alike seem to dismiss, turn a blind eye or seldom talk about animals deaths that are involved in plant farming, aren't all animals equal in a way?

before getting started let's not involve the meat industry, rather this time lets concentrate on this issue.

for instance
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- Native forest and animals displaced, killed, destroyed for Plant production

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- Insecticides poisoning wildlife, also getting washed towards neighbouring wildlife and water ways, where either the animals die or live a miserable life which in some cases some become deformed due to chemicals.

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- Animals displaced or killed during harvesting or planting, like nesting birds on fruit trees, wild animals grazing on property which for instance might get ploughed to death by those heavy machinery like in wheat farming.

- Bugs have the highest death toll in plant based farming
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-Micro organism on plants which are not sedated before death, either boiled to death, squished with teeth, melted to death my stomach acids and etc.
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What are your thoughts on this? micro organism are not animals so they don't matter even though we used to be the size of one like a sperm? Collateral damage? it feeds me so...? to save many a few must die? It's wrong? it's horrendous? More needs to be done?

What do you have to say?
 
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I am vegan but I am not one of those that think I have a moral high ground over another, while others do their business I do mine, I am certainly not one of those vegans who hate on other because the same brutality can be seen the other way.

don't try to play the card of "you wouldn't slaughter you're family but why do you with animals" because that would make you a hypocrite vegan. .

Animals deaths are inevitable either way and just as much in plant farming as there is in another, being blind to that shows narrow thoughts , while many things can be done to limit suffering, but in all cases death brings sustenance to another, whichever way you choose!, but don't act like you care about animals yet turn a blind eye on the methods that get your food to the table.

Some people don't seem to care if it's about their food source, but alternately when it doesn't affect them they act like they care. what a load of snotty, ignorant fools, who live on this thin air of high morality... which is probably lead by guilt of one way or another. insecurities kills literally.
 
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Within the realm of consumerism, veganism is better for wild animals than non-veganism. It is on a higher moral ground with regard to wild animals because plant based agriculture is used to grow feed crops for livestock. It takes 1/6th of an acre to feed a vegan for a year but it take 3 acres to feed an omnivore for a year, due to the need for feed crops, so 18 times more wild animals/insects die as a result of the omnivore’s diet.

However, like non-vegan food, vegan food is packaged in plastic and procuring the oil to make the plastic and transport the food to the grocery stores causes the death of wild animals, as does the procurement and burning of other fossil fuels used in production. Also, if a vegan has a job and pays taxes, some of that money is used by the government to subsidize animal agriculture, which causes the deaths of both wild animals and livestock.

So in my opinion, veganism is not the peak of the moral high ground. It’s just higher morally than consumerist non-veganism, which is still something. The highest moral ground would look like this: you don’t hunt, trap or fish, you don't work (or if you do only minimally), you don’t drive (or if you do, you drive a biodiesel car that runs on used fryer grease), you don’t pay taxes, and for your food, you garden, forage for wild produce or dumpster dive. All of this would constitute the freegan lifestyle.

Personally, the reason that I am not a freegan is because I’m too lazy, evil and set in my consumerist ways to be one - not because I am telling myself that I am doing all I can for animals by being a consumerist vegan. That would just be lying to myself to make myself feel good about myself. But I’m not lying to myself, in my opinion, when I say that what I am doing is ‘better than’ what a consumerist non-vegan is doing.
 
This is a false comparison and the passive attitude you promote is common to vegans who aren't logical by nature or who simply lack education.

In the Los Angeles Community College system, Environmental Science text books now show mathematical proof that animal products are more destructive to all life on this planet than vegetable agriculture. In mine there was a table where you measure your globally accurate caloric foot print each day from the types of food you eat.

These text books should be in all high schools in the developed Western world. Even people who don't value sentience and suffering in other species are ill advised to argue with enviro sci stats (though of course you see even that in a country full of morons who think science is a religion.)

Anyhoo, most rational vegans know that insects and rodents will be killed accidentally. This isn't anything resembling a defense for intentionally raising animals for meat, fur or experiments when other options are available.

I pray that most young vegans will pursue science degrees. I get heartily sick and tired of older vegans passively sabotaging our movement due to their ignorance.
 
“I am affronted!” Mrs Tabitha Twitchit.

Roger.


I don't mean all older vegans or even necessarily vegans "over a certain age" lol...there are obviously many passionate and well educated vegans from prior generations.

I've also seen the annoyingly passive approach in one person who is only 22.

This approach gives meat eaters especially and even some vegetarians the idea that veganism is some silly headed experiment by soft hearted people who dont think their values count for much more than preferring a certain color.

In some cases this is actually moral sloth or fear of social rejection. Why? Because the same "I dunno if Im right tee hee" vegans would probably become much more assertive in the face of racism or a dog being kicked, and that type of hypocrisy pisses me off more than anything.

The ignorance though is sometimes completely not the persons fault, they really dont know that animal agriculture is significantly more damaging than plant food, or that deer hunting actually leads to "deer overpopulation that the hunters valiantly must address", or they havent taken so much as a basic logic class and really think "rats in the wheat thresher" is a credible argument against intentional exploitation. This is a concrete problem that can be solved by activism, education and politics shifting the bias in dismal American public schools.
 
I don't mean all older vegans or even necessarily vegans "over a certain age" lol...there are obviously many passionate and well educated vegans from prior generations.

I've also seen the annoyingly passive approach in one person who is only 22.

This approach gives meat eaters especially and even some vegetarians the idea that veganism is some silly headed experiment by soft hearted people who dont think their values count for much more than preferring a certain color.

In some cases this is actually moral sloth or fear of social rejection. Why? Because the same "I dunno if Im right tee hee" vegans would probably become much more assertive in the face of racism or a dog being kicked, and that type of hypocrisy pisses me off more than anything.

The ignorance though is sometimes completely not the persons fault, they really dont know that animal agriculture is significantly more damaging than plant food, or that deer hunting actually leads to "deer overpopulation that the hunters valiantly must address", or they havent taken so much as a basic logic class and really think "rats in the wheat thresher" is a credible argument against intentional exploitation. This is a concrete problem that can be solved by activism, education and politics shifting the bias in dismal American public schools.

Out of curiosity. How many years have you been vegan?

Regarding the younger generation: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rown-18-brains-don-t-fully-mature-hit-30.html
 
Out of curiosity. How many years have you been vegan?

Regarding the younger generation: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rown-18-brains-don-t-fully-mature-hit-30.html


Well I'm over 30 so there goes yet another of your crackpot theories.

Sorry maybe you didn't mean that directed at me as though being an assertive vegan is "immature."

Actually many people who voted for Bernie Sanders in the US rather than Hillary Clinton were under 45, not under 30. Many people "involved" up and coming in new American politics are in their 30s. People who voted for Donald Trump began largely around 45 with Gen X and skewed wildly towards him over 60 with Baby Boomers.

Veganism is similar with many vegans being under 25 now, and by and by large early 40s or younger.

The lack of science education is exactly what made veganism largely philosophically indefensible in the past which is why I wish science ed for younger people.

Conformity and passivity aren't hallmarks of maturity they're hallmarks of either stupidity or weakness. The confusion began with the working class keeping their head down to survive. Sure conform if your survival depends on it otherwise it renders you complacent.

A 60+ woman was bragging recently that her neice had always been a strict rule follower since childhood. I'm like wow imagine bragging that your relatives were intellectually handicapped.
 
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The link wasn't directed at you. It was to make you see that someone under 30 can't debate and it's self evident you're over 30.

You're making gross assumptions about what I'm implying. Seems like you need some rest because people are driving you crazy.
 
I disagree with this article, but it's been on my mind lately and is relevant:

If Vegans Replaced Plants with Insects, They'd Harm Fewer Animals

If vegans who are unsure that insects suffer take the leap and eat insects anyway, they know there’s a slim chance animals might suffer. But if they stick to an exclusive plant-based diet, they have to concede that animals will definitely suffer.
 
This post was suggested to me on another thread. It's a subject I have tried to research but have largely come to a brick wall as it is so hard to get solid figures. While I think Lou's response above is probably as succinct an argument as can be made, it doesn't often carry so much weight with non-vegans who can often muster very strong arguments against (for example, if all we care about is exploitation and cruelty, in effect all animal use by humans, we may commit worse cases of harms more generally that seem to fly outside our scope of moral concern).

In the end, my conclusion has to be that veganism is a personal choice and how we apply that (more exactly, the set of personal ethics we wish to bring to the table) might for now accept that some animal use is better than no animal use, for the sorts of reasons in the OP. My own calculations tend to point to the fact that taken overall, it is probably better not to eat any animals at all, but I am not totally confident I am right as some degree of animal farming may be net beneficial for all.

I disagree with nobody above because the numbers of wild animals suffering is likely to be far greater in crop farming than in certain kinds of animal farming, it isn't just a raw number per acre equation.
 
This post was suggested to me on another thread. It's a subject I have tried to research but have largely come to a brick wall as it is so hard to get solid figures. While I think Lou's response above is probably as succinct an argument as can be made, it doesn't often carry so much weight with non-vegans who can often muster very strong arguments against (for example, if all we care about is exploitation and cruelty, in effect all animal use by humans, we may commit worse cases of harms more generally that seem to fly outside our scope of moral concern).

In the end, my conclusion has to be that veganism is a personal choice and how we apply that (more exactly, the set of personal ethics we wish to bring to the table) might for now accept that some animal use is better than no animal use, for the sorts of reasons in the OP. My own calculations tend to point to the fact that taken overall, it is probably better not to eat any animals at all, but I am not totally confident I am right as some degree of animal farming may be net beneficial for all.

I disagree with nobody above because the numbers of wild animals suffering is likely to be far greater in crop farming than in certain kinds of animal farming, it isn't just a raw number per acre equation.

Provide evidence from a peer-reviewed journal of agriculture or other related science. We need numbers here, or we risk being the creators of fake news.
 
David3, that is what I am suggesting - we do not have very good numbers on which to base our findings. Several researchers have tried, Fischer and Lamey's efforts recently being very good examples, but even they conclude the evidence is scant. And unlike many vegans, they have to disregard insects because when we include those, it is clear that free range animal farming is far less harmful than large-scale crop farming.

Intensive animal farming (eg pigs and poultry) is very harmful, both to the farmed animals and wild animals killed to grow feed. So too is fishing. But free-range cattle with limited supplementary feeding may be better, on balance, when taken at scale (even though I think one could argue either way, but when we consider the full gamut of issues I do feel the animal farming is better).

Individually, I think it is almost always the case that for an average urban dweller, the vegan will cause fewer animal harms than the non-vegan, again ignoring insects (and perhaps amphibians and the like).
 
"It takes 1/6th of an acre to feed a vegan for a year but it takes 3 acres to feed an omnivore." - Nobody

@ Nobody - Excellent Point. This means that even someone like me could feed a family of 4 by gardening for an hour a day. You are giving me ideas.
 
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David3, that is what I am suggesting - we do not have very good numbers on which to base our findings. Several researchers have tried, Fischer and Lamey's efforts recently being very good examples, but even they conclude the evidence is scant. And unlike many vegans, they have to disregard insects because when we include those, it is clear that free range animal farming is far less harmful than large-scale crop farming.

Intensive animal farming (eg pigs and poultry) is very harmful, both to the farmed animals and wild animals killed to grow feed. So too is fishing. But free-range cattle with limited supplementary feeding may be better, on balance, when taken at scale (even though I think one could argue either way, but when we consider the full gamut of issues I do feel the animal farming is better).

Individually, I think it is almost always the case that for an average urban dweller, the vegan will cause fewer animal harms than the non-vegan, again ignoring insects (and perhaps amphibians and the like).

Please provide the numbers, and links to your cited studies.
 
Hog, something I have in mind is that when we consider crop related deaths and harms, all of us - vegan and non-vegan - cause such harms for that proportion of our diet which is plant-based. Even non-vegans are supposed to eat fruit and veg. This means that there is, perhaps, a shared cost in terms of area under crops and animals harmed. The non-vegan on the other hand requires some number of animals to be killed to supply them with the protein they need over and above our shared cost. For a non-vegan to replace that with protein crops (eg beans, lentils), I calculate that we might need as little as .1 of a hectare to feed a vegan the protein lost by not consuming animals. It really is very little land.
 
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