All farming is bad for nature. There is no such thing as environmentally friendly farming. The “less damaging” methods of farming are “it only destroying 95% of the habitat, not 98%.”
We could grow everything we need with 1/2 of the land if we banned dry land farming and moved to all irrigated. What’s better? less damaging farming or millions of acres re-wilded.
It’s still “bad” for some values of bad. I’ve demonstrated on my own farm that it’s possible to employ permaculture-ish principles (permies freak out when I say that) and make an adequate living. But make no mistake, you are supplanting nature and interacting with it in competitive and often adverse ways no matter how what practices you use. It’s kind of a spectrum - the better the interface with nature is, the less viable it is financially and vice-versa.
You’d be right if people started permaculture in untouched Amazon, but they don’t. Like easily 30%+ of soil in most countries (exceptions aside like Russia or Finland) have been exploited by humans for decades if not centuries. Biomes have been so modified in these places that nature would take insanely long times (in human timespan) to recover. Steading it and directing it with the input of humans can be a great way to accelerate that and get something for humans in return.
I wouldn’t say mostly. There’s plenty of BS around it since it’s very prone to attracting hippies, and there’s plenty of grifting around it and pseudoscience as well. But some concepts such as certain plant species working together, soil regeneration, planting pollinator-attracting plants, diversity to prevent plagues, organizing land in such a way that it’s most useful to people and more intensive the closest to them and less intensive the further it is, reusing every output as much as possible and minimising artificial inputs, working with nature and not against it… There’s plenty of valid themes in permaculture than can be used.
Over 70% of farmland worldwide is used to make animal feed for the ranching industry, so if you’re not eating meat you’re already doing your bit to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture.
By “animal feed”, do you mean hay, grass or silage? That kind of animal feed is vital habitat for many species besides livestock, let’s get specific, instead of making sweeping, emotional appeals. Surely, there are stronger arguments against eating meat than that.
All of the above, as well as other feeds such as corn. That percentage includes pastures and growing crops for feed. Here’s a pretty good breakdown.
Interestingly enough, if someone doesn’t care at all about veganism but wants to reduce agricultural land use, removing beef, lamb and dairy from their diet would be enough to get there (while continuing to eat chicken, fish, etc).
sweeping, emotional appeals
I don’t think my comment was very emotionally charged.
Surely, there are stronger arguments against eating meat than that
The power of an argument is determined by the reader. There’s compelling reasons in terms of zoonotic diseases and rampant antibiotic use, there’s other reasons from a moral point of view, there’s others in terms of environment (like this argument), there’s others in terms of human health, etc. Which one is convincing to which person depends entirely on what that person cares about.
All farming is bad for nature. There is no such thing as environmentally friendly farming. The “less damaging” methods of farming are “it only destroying 95% of the habitat, not 98%.”
We could grow everything we need with 1/2 of the land if we banned dry land farming and moved to all irrigated. What’s better? less damaging farming or millions of acres re-wilded.
Nope. Regenerative agriculture is absolutely a thing. I recommend you check the video series on Al Bayda’s permaculture project, really worth a watch.
It’s still “bad” for some values of bad. I’ve demonstrated on my own farm that it’s possible to employ permaculture-ish principles (permies freak out when I say that) and make an adequate living. But make no mistake, you are supplanting nature and interacting with it in competitive and often adverse ways no matter how what practices you use. It’s kind of a spectrum - the better the interface with nature is, the less viable it is financially and vice-versa.
You’d be right if people started permaculture in untouched Amazon, but they don’t. Like easily 30%+ of soil in most countries (exceptions aside like Russia or Finland) have been exploited by humans for decades if not centuries. Biomes have been so modified in these places that nature would take insanely long times (in human timespan) to recover. Steading it and directing it with the input of humans can be a great way to accelerate that and get something for humans in return.
Permaculture is mostly bollocks.
I wouldn’t say mostly. There’s plenty of BS around it since it’s very prone to attracting hippies, and there’s plenty of grifting around it and pseudoscience as well. But some concepts such as certain plant species working together, soil regeneration, planting pollinator-attracting plants, diversity to prevent plagues, organizing land in such a way that it’s most useful to people and more intensive the closest to them and less intensive the further it is, reusing every output as much as possible and minimising artificial inputs, working with nature and not against it… There’s plenty of valid themes in permaculture than can be used.
I agree, but the well is so utterly poisoned.
Over 70% of farmland worldwide is used to make animal feed for the ranching industry, so if you’re not eating meat you’re already doing your bit to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture.
By “animal feed”, do you mean hay, grass or silage? That kind of animal feed is vital habitat for many species besides livestock, let’s get specific, instead of making sweeping, emotional appeals. Surely, there are stronger arguments against eating meat than that.
All of the above, as well as other feeds such as corn. That percentage includes pastures and growing crops for feed. Here’s a pretty good breakdown.
Interestingly enough, if someone doesn’t care at all about veganism but wants to reduce agricultural land use, removing beef, lamb and dairy from their diet would be enough to get there (while continuing to eat chicken, fish, etc).
I don’t think my comment was very emotionally charged.
The power of an argument is determined by the reader. There’s compelling reasons in terms of zoonotic diseases and rampant antibiotic use, there’s other reasons from a moral point of view, there’s others in terms of environment (like this argument), there’s others in terms of human health, etc. Which one is convincing to which person depends entirely on what that person cares about.