If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer • Hacker News Board

Re: If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer

#111

Post by cmroanirgo » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 8:44 AM UTC

Djvacto wrote: post #29

This article reads more like an ad for their farm, which granted as far as farms that produce meat from livestock goes, seems really nice. But their approach is not gonna work at scale, because you cannot have enough farms that operate this way to supply meat to a whole population. They also only compare their approach to what is basically the strip mining approach to crop growth. They don't look at things like crop…

I agree that the article would have been more stimulating if it had gone into detail about the methods employed, and the yields, etc.

This is a topic that I've just started looking into on my parent's small 20 acre farm, which run a few head of cattle and due to drought, has caused the soil to be highly compacted. Thankfully, the farm itself used to be an orchard (oranges and kiwifruit mainly), so the cattle have alternative feed sources beside just grazing land. (Believe it or not, cows love fruit, including the leaves!)

Recently I attended a seminar run by local government in conjunction with a group [0] about cover crops (which admittedly is more about vegetable farming, but parts can be used for grazing too). Their focus was mainly about getting the root structures right, which the above article hints. The link below shows a rather wide range of farms and environments that are being tested on. It also has information about 'biopesticides' [1], ie. plants that will help mitigate/eradicate unwanted pests, without need for pesticides.

[0] http://www.soilwealth.com.au/demo-sites/ [1] http://www.soilwealth.com.au/resources/fact-sheets/pest-and-...

Re: If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer

#112

Post by mcv » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #89

mcv wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There re many different kinds of soil. I can totally understand that some soils are better used for this kind of sustainable grazing. Other soils are great for growing crops. This should not be a veganism vs organic meat discussion, but an organic meat vs intensive meat production discussion. And a separate sustainable crops vs soil-depleting crop production discussion. You can't feed everybody on just meat; you're g…

"I can totally understand that some soils are better used for this kind of sustainable grazing. Other soils are great for growing crops." One could readily argue that most soils are better used for sustainable grazing. Tillage is very intrusive, destructive and unnatural. Most food crops require tillage. I used Montana as an example of a soil that would be quickly destroyed with a little bit of tillage. Luckily most…

What's better for the soil also depends on what you consider "good". Is it food production? Is it unspoilt nature? Soil used to grow food is different from soil left to nature, but expecting all soil to remain as natural as possible is unreasonable; we've got 7 billion people to feed, and building houses or streets in not good for soil either.

What matters is how you can produce food efficiently and sustainably. There is soil that can produce more food in a sustainable manner through crops than through grazing. There is also soil where the opposite is true.

Re: If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer

#113

Post by Spellchamp » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

vinni2 wrote: post #106

Spellchamp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you've read the article. The point he's making is that sustainable farming doesn't share all of the downsides of veganism, soil degradation for instance.

Sustainable Veganism is better than sustainable meat?

Not sure what the question is here. But the article points to veganism on it's own not inherently being the best option. That there are definitely ways to be sustainably vegan, but veganism alone doesn't guarantee sustainability.

Re: If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer

#114

Post by cannonedhamster » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #71

cageface wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being vegan is a lot easier than you might think, but you're right that reducing your meat intake and trying to buy more humanely raised meat also helps. What I recommend to my non-vegan friends is to just pick one day a week in which they consume no animal products and then expand from there.

Choosing one day a week to be completely miserable sounds like a much worse path to veganism than cutting back one thing at a time.

You could start by going vegetarian instead by choosing to eat a cheese pizza instead of a hamburger. There's a wide world between carnivore and Jainist vegan. There's also a ton of much better vegan/vegetarian meat replacements available than just a few years ago.