| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Milo |
Vegan Organic FarmingMore good sense than, as yet, many folks can cope with:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bp2-bsRaow |
||||||
| Treacodactyl |
Welcome back. The idea looks very similar to permaculture, forest gardening and probably several other methodologies. Sounds very sensible to me although I'm not convinced by it being vegan, much reduced reliance on animals yes. | ||||||
| Rob R |
Only managed the first minute here so far, due to the connection speed, but I don't get the parallels he is drawing between lack of diversity in intensive monocultures and livestock, as if one is responsible for the other. 
|
||||||
| Milo |
I'll be watching it again (and again!), but I do recall the gist of what you refer to. On (this and?), other forums I've had it e-thrown at me that removing livestock from farming leads automatically to (increased) mono-cropping, a suggestion or argument which seems to me to be much too firmly based in very not-new thinking. Certainly there is now vast mono-cropping in order to directly provide feed / fodder / food for meat and dairy-producing livestock. We (pampered Westerners, etc.), have mostly come around to liking variety in our diets - why not assume that removal of livestock from land and human diet would lead to a significantly increased variety of crops, sensible cultivation of which is bound to avoid increased mono-cropping? |
||||||
| Rob R |
But why assume you need to remove livestock entirely from the equation to achieve that? It is merely limiting the types of diversity, hence your diversity isn't as diverse as it could be. Pasture is one of the most diverse and interesting food producing habitats and animals give us a whole variety of foods, materials and land management techniques that maybe, on the whole, aren't used to their full potential in the modern food system, but they could be. They are also a great way of storing and extending our diets into the winter months without oil. |
||||||
| SheepShed |
Surely that depends very much on the land in question. Upland sheep farming for instance, utilizes land that would be very hard pushed to produce any other type of crop at all. |
||||||
| Milo |
Tim-berrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!! Indigenous species for building, for biomass, for leisure, for employment, for carbon sequestration.... For generally returning much more of our land closer to the way it was before (neolithic) farmers messed it up. Do you know any upland sheep farmers who don't rely on subsidies? Perhaps you do know some, but I doubt it. But if you do, do these farmers give back the money they don't need? (Like most people, I don't like my taxes to support anything unnecessary). And on a wider scale (and why not indeed?), this just in: http://bit.ly/99D5GV. |
||||||
| Treacodactyl |
We've had these sort of conversations before. Looks like next year I'll be starting off our forest garden project (for want of a better description). That'll not rely on any animals and the main aim will be to have as diverse a range of plants as possible. However, it'll not be vegan as there'll be loads of wild animals about fertilising the soil and I hope to eat a few pests such as snails and grey squirrels. Can't see any problem with that, can you? (Other than I don't really like snails...) | ||||||
| SheepShed |
Funnily enough, I'm in the midst of 15,000 hectares of forestry and don't rely (or receive) subsidies (I have a 'real' job as well as sheep). The pasture land and boundaries of the few farms embedded in the forestry vastly increase the diversity of the overall environment. Britain is never going to be returned to pre-Neolithic times, but we can make the best of what we've got. |
||||||
| Milo |
Reluctant to trawl over old fishing grounds, but it'd be silly for me to pretend my opinions and leanings are not uninfluenced by my thoughts and values as a vegan. To put it simply, I don't want to cause any harm to any animals or to any thing, but I'm not prepared to sit under trees until food falls at my feet. Having such an attitude indicates a degree of bias(!), but no more bias, rather, much less I'd suggest, than people who farm animals, or people who eat animals and dairy products because they (have come to think that), they like the taste of those foods and that liking the taste is reason enough to cause, or be directly involved in causing, environmental degradation on a massive scale. (And cruelty, of course. Some things I will discuss quite happily, but I will never agree that it could ever possibly be kind to unnecessarily and avoidably kill any animal. And if it's not kind - it isn't - and it's not neutral - it couldn't be - then it's unkind, so very unkind as to be cruel). So, pasture. Not very diverse, is it. I've not looked up any definitions, but make a distinction between pasture and grazing land, and consider pasture to be fields of grass, a mono-crop situation if ever there was one. |
||||||
| Jamanda |
Not necessarily. Some pasture can be incredibly biodiverse. Literally hundreds of species - and grazing is what is needed to keep it that way.
I wish I had the photos of the meadows I studied in the Cantabrian mountains when I was a student - more orchids than you could shake a stick at. |
||||||
| SheepShed |
I'd suggest that you revise your understanding of pasture then. It can be just fields of rye grass, but good pasture has a huge variety of plants and flowers within it and supports an equally large variety of animals, birds, insects, fungi etc. More so I'd suspect than the neat rows of organic veg in the polytunnels shown in the film. The narrator seems to be comparing bad livestock rearing practice with good market gardening techniques, which is hardly a fair comparison. There's a bit at the end where he says about moving away from 'intensive farming' to 'livestock free', making the assumption that all livestock farming is inherently intensive and therefore bad, and all livestock free farming is inherently extensive and good. I'm sure you could do the opposite and show a large scale production of organic soya beans versus a small mixed livestock farm and claim the exact opposite. He also seems to be taking credit for various things like having bees and wasps around (unlike livestock farms that presumably wrap themselves in a giant mesh to keep them away), using polytunnels to grow veg in (who'd have thought it), and the use of green manure (which was actually something borrowed from livestock farming techniques). |
||||||
| Milo |
How many (hobby?), sheep do you have, I wonder. And your farming neighbours, full-timers in particular, do any of them receive no subsidies for farming? Free speech 'n' all that, but I'd've been happier if you hadn't pointed out the glaringly obvious fact that *Britain is never going to be returned to pre-Neolithic times*, as if perhaps I'd thought we could, or should. The thing is, I'm not attacking you, I'm simply not at all in favour of the very little I know about your farming lifestyle. Yes, making the best of what we've got is vital. Literally, I think. Allowing any sheep anywhere to eat my taxes, and every seedling tree and shrub they can reach, includes no new thinking and does nothing (I can think of), to improve the environment, still a big old place for sure. |
||||||
| Treacodactyl |
Funny you mention eating tree seedlings, I've got loads of deer that do that, I assume you don't object to me eating them? No tax payers money will be wasted, just my own. 
|
||||||
| Milo |
I've done that metre quadrat stuff too, but as you say, some pasture, (or would that be grazing land? I'm sure there's a distinction between the two), will include significantly diverse fauna and flora, but I doubt (don't know, but doubt), very much that it's anywhere near the biodiversity to be found in established indigenous woodland. |
||||||
| Bebo |
My neighbours have around 180 ewes. They get no subsidy for their sheep. They do get govt grants for land stewardship though (i.e planting new hedgerows etc) but they'd get that without the sheep. |
||||||
| Rob R |
Yes, well managed pasture is extremely diverse. I live in the middle of a SSSI that is internationally important for the habitats it maintains and wildlife that it supports. This landscape relies entirely upon grazing animals to maintain it and those animals are an essential tool in maintaining the vast biodiversity in every square metre. If you are starting out from the premise that grassland is a monoculture you are sadly mistaken. It can be a monoculture, but then so can any crop you care to mention. As well as the multitude of grasses there are an array of vetches, trefoils, sorrels, plantains, buttercups, daisies, herbs & many other wildflowers. There are also thousands of species of small mammals, insects, birds, molluscs & amphibians. And the soil life that we can't see with the naked eye is no less important. You are quite welcome to be a vegan, I have nothing against your choice of diet- it's a step further than I was prepared to go, but you can't honestly justify it upon the notion that either a) you are supporting any more diversity than the next man or b) that you are contributing anything statistically significant to any reduction in avoidable killing. By it's very definition the food chain means that if you do encourage life, at the same time you are encouraging death. Watching the barn owls fly over my pastures is a wonderful moment that can make an evening but I know that he is not flying for the good of his health - he is out there looking for food, small animals that are also looking for food. Even your man on the film mentioned parasitic wasps that eat the caterpillars that would otherwise decimate his crops. A vegan diet just means you aren't killing any animals to eat directly, but you are still having to kill animals to protect your crops as well as taking up land that would be otherwise used to grow food for those animals. The chap also mentioned how the hedgerows are maintained in his farming system - completely glossing over the fact that without animals there would be few hedges. |
||||||
| Rob R |
Noones sheep eat anyone's taxes in this country any longer - subsidy is now paid per hectare, not per animal, so you could grow anything you like on it, it makes no difference. | ||||||
| Milo |
Can I assume your neighbours are in Sussex, an area that as far as subsidies are concerned (and while there are still humans on the planet), will never be upland, and that they're growing those non-essential sheep on land that could grow far more food in the the form of fruits and vegetables? |
||||||
| gil |
Can I assume you've never heard of the South Downs ? |
||||||
| Bebo |
It's rolling downs rather than upland. Clay and chalk. It's always been grazing land. They'd have to pile is lots (and lots) of chemical fertilisers to get the land any decent crops off it. Anyway, more importantly, sheep tastes nicer than cabbages. |
||||||
| SheepShed |
I run 120 ewes and choose to avoid getting involved with any subsidies, grants or schemes, mainly because I'm independent and stubborn (to put it poliely). I don't know what my friends and neighbours receive in terms of subsidies etc. and wouldn't dream of asking them any more than I would ask you about details of your income or funding. I think that there are a lot of good points made in the Tolhurst Farm video, mostly well known good practice. I was slightly miffed by the holier than thou attitude, that suggested that anyone who didn't do things their way was bad, but that's not really important. I'll carry on with my farm, my way - surely that's the essence of diversity, people doing different things in different ways ? |
||||||
| Milo |
So it might well include sheep. But the subsidy is still considered necessary regardless of the relative inefficiency with which a subsidised upland farmer produces food(s) for us while his livestock prevent natural regeneration of species which would (eventually) flourish in the absence of farmed livestock? And year after year the nutrients leach from the soil and the (petroleum-based) fertilisers wash down the rivers because we've got it so badly wrong. Oddly enough, I don't think (livestock) farmers are 100% to blame for what I perceive to be a monumental mess. Traditionalists though they tend to be, farmers are very capable of change, but very unlikely to make any changes unless the government, or the supermarkets - little difference between the two - head them in a new direction. When the rainforests can be valued at $5 trillion http://ind.pn/9uOoeW, what price the reinstatement and continuous conservation of oak / mixed woodland on every slope (steep enough to be prone to run-off when ploughed) up to 2,000ft od throughout Wales, for example? Or is it appropriate to use our uplands to farm destructive herbivores for meat we don't need and wool we don't use? |
||||||
| T.G |
At the end of the day not everyone wants to survive on nuts, fruit, berries and veg, some of us want to eat meat and in a vegan system that meat would be the vegan
|
||||||
| Milo |
Ho-ho, etc. But do you so much want the taste of meat that you've convinced yourself that in the UK alone it is acceptable to unnecessarily kill 2.4 million farmed animals every day (100,000 an hour; 1600 per minute; 26 every second)? And if you find it unacceptable, will you say as much? And will you say why? And what will you do about it? 2.4 million. Every. Single. Day (figures for 2003). And all the imported food for those animals? And all the (imported) petro-chemicals for fertilizer? And all the land in the UK (and anywhere else in the world where food is grown to be fed to animals), which could be better used. And all the transport of fertilisers and of inefficiently grown meat? |
||||||
| Bebo |
Nope I don't accept its unacceptable. They taste nice. | ||||||
| Ty Gwyn |
If eating a Vegan diet,makes around your eyes dark and a pale complection,thats gaunt,give me a Pork chop anyday.
For someone that harps on about Subsidies to hill farmers,which as Rob mentioned are now Acreage based not Animal number based Does he Not know about Set aside,where Arable farmers on some of the best land in the UK are paid Not to plant food. Its clear you have No idea about Care of the land,can you imagine what a Hill farm bordering a Mountain would look like with out Livestock,it would revert to Mountain,then you can go and pick your Wimberries. |
||||||
| Milo |
I've no need to imagine, I do know what a mountain(side) looks like when the livestock are removed / reduced / fenced out. This summer and over previous years I've observed planted trees returning vigorously to the Applecross peninsula. Last summer I was around the top of Cwm Cywarch where zero-grazing has caught on and farmed livestock are now to be found only in some, but not all, of the big ugly barns. There's almost no sign at all of any stock on the hill. Probably wimberries, certainly saplings of native trees (and some at present up towards 15ft high), some bushy growth, and more bracken are all rapidly returning to the hillside. Defying logic a large section of the steepest ploughable hillside (about 1:3, I guess), had recently been ploughed - how much of it ended up in the river I don't know. And altogether how much bale-wrapping plastic (that's more petro-chemicals), was in the river, I don't know, but any is too much. And the extraordinarily biodiverse meadow I remembered playing in as a child had been ploughed up and turned to a mass of much too vividly green seedlings( which I couldn't identify), and the once fast-flowing stream in that former meadow had become a sluggish, muddy mess. I could see sense in the land use if the hillside were planted with trees or simply allowed to revert to (scrub, but improving), woodland, and the flat valley bottom were used to grow crops for humans', not livestock's, consumption..... Lyfli, lyfli, lyfli people, but guardians of the countryside? It'd be funny, if it wasn't tragic. |
||||||
| Shane |
|
||||||
| Shane |
It's all very well to hanker for a landscape free of farmed animals, but they have been there for millenia, and have shaped the land we have today. If we eradicate the farmed animals, there's also a danger that we'll eradicate the complicated biosystems that have become entwined with their presence. What you're basically saying is that it's okay to make certain wild species (such as the small blue) extinct in order to transition the landscape to a condition that it hasn't seen for many centuries, if at all. Strange argument. Oh - found a quote here:
|
||||||
| SheepShed |
So the biodiverse meadow, that would have been used for grazing livestock or hay making, has been ploughed up and planted with some sort of arable crop, and you don't like the result ? Haven't you just shot your own argument down in flames ? |
||||||
| Ty Gwyn |
[quote="Milo"]
I was referring to the fact that them 2 men looked un-healthy, Imagine the UK on a Vegan diet,It would be the land of the Living Dead
Not to Anything in the Video,just to your Blinkered ramblings
I've no need to imagine, I do know what a mountain(side) looks like when the livestock are removed / reduced / fenced out. This summer and over previous years I've observed planted trees returning vigorously to the Applecross peninsula. Last summer I was around the top of Cwm Cywarch where zero-grazing has caught on and farmed livestock are now to be found only in some, but not all, of the big ugly barns. There's almost no sign at all of any stock on the hill. Where is this Applecross Peninsula and Cwm Cywarch I know a farm not far from me that Fattened 25,000 lambs a year in large sheds,these lambs are purchased from Cumbria and Scotland,as well as thier own ,that don`t finish off grass,thier own ewes are out on the hill,except when thier brought in for shearing,dosing etc. |
||||||
| Rob R |
It might include sheep, or it might include a vegan organic farm both are equal and subsidy can't be used as a stick to beat sheep farmers with any more than any other type of farmer now. I just happened to be reading a farming paper last night in which a FWAG officer a little further North than here was advocating that cattle should return to the uplands to increase biodiversity. In the same article he also referred to areas of upland bog that were fenced off to 'protect' them from grazing livestock. Sadly biodiversity had declined as the coarser grasses and bracken had taken over and smothered out the more delicate species. Yes there was overgrazing when headage payemnts encouraged farmers to keep more animals but at this present time that is outdated - the biggest threat facing our uplands is undergrazing. We don't have vast herds of large wild herbivores in this country, but if we did they'd also be eating that guy's cabbages and there ain't no parasitic wasp that will kill a deer. Petroleum based fertilisers are a big problem, but again their overuse is becoming outdated as they become more expensive and less effective (through overuse) it is far less economical to keep using more. Again that is not proportional to livestock - we can compare their use between organic and non-organic farming, but not between non-organic livestock farming and stockless organic farming. You need to assess the comparable systems and organic farming can be mixed, livestock or stockless (arable, as it is otherwise known).
Herbivores aren't destructive, it is the management (or lack of) that makes them destructive, and that goes for both livestock and arable farmers, including your man there on the video. You, perhaps, don't need meat nor use wool but many of us do. Some of us prefer not to use the petrochemical-produced materials that vegans rely upon, and wool is about the most sustainable renewable fibre known to man. In my biodiverse organic managed grazing system I can produce highly nutritious protein food that propels itself, feeds itself, reproduces itself, weeds, fertilises &, to a certain degree, sells itself. It is only the fact that I'm not allowed to walk it to the abattoir/it can't be killed on the farm that means that it must be transported by motor vehicle when it reaches the end of it's life. I'm not going to shoot the vegan organic farmer down, because he had many good points to make that we all can learn from, but using his Zetor in several shots means that he is reliant upon some diesel fuel as are we - the only difference being that he didn't, and wouldn't, use an ox to replace some of the diesel fuel used in the system. I'll try and take a look at the latter half of the film that my connection wouldn't allow me to yesterday but if you want to know more about what can be achieved with animals, in terms of food, power, fertility and biodiversity, feel free to ask or visit. |
||||||
| T.G |
So few to feed so many.. crikey |
||||||
| Mrs R |
inefficiently grown meat isn't the fault of the concept of 'livestock farming', just one way of doing it. Personally, I've devoted my life to making it sustainable and healthy, and the though tof living without meat, leather wool etc. and relying solely on petrochemicals for my fibre, food production and vitamins fills me with horror. Nobody wants our meat or wool.....have you tried running that past our customers?
|
||||||
| Rob R |
Where are those figures from? A quick run down gives you 876m every year with a population of 60m that is 14.6 animals every year for every man woman and child. I eat a lot of meat but for my personal family consumption I don't even kill that many animals. With five of us that would be 73 animals killed a year just to feed us, never mind what we sell. If we take off the total number of cattle (10.1m), sheep (31m) and pigs (4.5m) in the UK this June you are left with 830.4m poultry which can't be right, can it? OK pigs reproduce quickly but that would be countered by the slower reproductive capabilities of cattle and sheep, plus the fact that these figures include breeding stock that won't be slaughtered in any one year. |
||||||
| Rob R |
I stand corrected. Just checked the HSA website;
http://www.hsa.org.uk/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.htm#Q1 That equates to 905m slaughterings, 0.3% of which are cattle, 1.4% pigs, 2% sheep, 7.7% fish and 88% birds. |
||||||
| Mrs R |
I find the numbers discussion a bit silly really, what difference does it make if we kill 9 or 10 million? We kill alot more chickens than cows, but probably similar amounts in kgs produced, so should we be eating more beef in order to keep our head count down? Would it be OK to kill 10 cows, but not 2.4milion? I don't get it.
|
||||||
| snozzer |
We need beast in the mix for proper Horn and Corn farming | ||||||
| snozzer |
Perfectly acceptable |
||||||
| SheepShed |
Especially is you put the figures in context 800 million chickens per year, 60 million population. That means that each person eats about 1 chicken a month. That doesn't sound so dreadful does it ? |
||||||
| Treacodactyl |
Mind you, if you think about the number of people who don't eat them or have less than 1 a month I expect there's quite a few people who eat a couple a week along with several kg of other meat. |
||||||
| Rob R |
There are no two ways about it, the modern intensive poultry industry is horrible as is the waste and the produce that it generates. But Mr Milo was attributing public taxes towards supporting damage by animals, however poultry is largely where it is because that was one of the sectors that didn't receive subsidy to get to where they have today. He was citing sheep, which account for 2% of the slaughterings, whereas the sector that contributes most, a whacking 88%, towards his 'shocking' figures, were unsubsidised.
Without birds and fish the daily slaughterings are 103,200 or 0.63 animals per year per person. Of those three animal types, proportions based upon their percentage of the total numbers slaughtered and at 20kg finished lamb carcass, 45kg pork and 200kg of beef, each person is responsible for consuming 28.2kg of 'meat' annually. Of course it is not all meat, there are bones, fat and connective tissue in there, but you get the gist. |
||||||
| gil |
Where does pet food come into those figures ? Does that account for some of the weight ? | ||||||
| Rob R |
Good question! Yes, pet food will be a part of that weight.
I've always assumed that pets are un-vegan though. I'd be interested to know where they stand on carrion, however. |
||||||
| Jamanda |
They don't stand so much as roll on it in my experience. |
||||||
| Rob R |
Does we assume that vegan organic farming is indefensible? | ||||||
| Tavascarow |
Does we assume that vegan organic farming is indefensible? |
No I think it's perfectly defensible as an environment beneficial form of farming.
Whether it could feed the nation is questionable unless the nation gets back to the land.
But the current means of food production is definitely indefensible, unsustainable & damaging to the environment.
As resources become scarcer & transport costs rise we are going to eat less intensively produced food anyway whether we like it or not.
& for the sake of the environment & human health IMHO that's a good thing.
One question I would like to ask the vegans amongst us is where do you stand on draught animals & animal produced natural fibres like wool?
