Vegetarian dilemma?

[nightshade]

Can you afford to be vegetarian?
Health News - The vegetarian dilemma

[bigdave60dog]

I never wanted to be vegetarian anyway. If we were all veggies there would be no Cattle, No Sheep, No Chickens, No Pigs etc.
Not a world that I would like.
Dave

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by nightshade

Can you afford to be vegetarian?
Health News - The vegetarian dilemma

Unless (as seems to be ergued) there is some special problem in Australia, then this is clearly nonsense. Look, for instance at:
"Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required)."

In fact, globally, much land which was either originally grassland or cleared woodland used for arable farming, has been taken over either by cattle grazing or gfrowinf crops for cattle. The biggest nonsense is that more grassland would be cleared to produce plant crops - if we (or Australians) became less meat dependent then land would be freed from (a) grazing, (b) growing vegetables to feed livestock and (c) by more efficient use of land: producing/processing/distributing cereals/legumes takes less space and is more energy efficient than doing the same thing and then repeating all the palaver to produce meat.

This bloke is clearly not a great arithmetician .....

PS: organically farmed arable land is very good for wildlife whereas intensive pastoral farmland has little wildlife value at all.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by bigdave60dog

I never wanted to be vegetarian anyway. If we were all veggies there would be no Cattle, No Sheep, No Chickens, No Pigs etc.
Not a world that I would like.
Dave

Fine - cattle, sheep &c are products of human development - unnatural, would not survive without humans - but they have taken over vast swathes of the world eliminating much wildlife .... anyone interested in wildlife and the health of the Earth would want to minimise the numbers of these .... greatly ....

[Sigrunn]

I choose to be a veggie (well a part time one) so I only eat meat when it’s been produced local and I am satisfied that it’s been killed humanely. Everyone is entitled to their own views and opinions, but for everyone to turn veggie then Big Dave makes a very valid point. There would be not point in keeping pigs etc so they would become rare.

Although, it is a fact that it takes far more resources (feed, treatments, water etc) to produce a kilo of meat than it does to produce a kilo of veg.

I often find the debate regarding the price of locally produced good to be very strange. I go to many local farmers markets etc and buy my veg and it’s cheap as chips (as long as you get the un-preped stuff) while going to a supermarket they blatantly rip you off for “local” produce.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

This bloke is clearly not a great arithmetician .....

That's an unchacteristically polite description from you I thought he was just talking baldilocks.
CM

[Meta menardi]

No sheep, no moors and fells.

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Unless (as seems to be ergued) there is some special problem in Australia, then this is clearly nonsense. Look, for instance at:
"Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required)."

In fact, globally, much land which was either originally grassland or cleared woodland used for arable farming, has been taken over either by cattle grazing or gfrowinf crops for cattle. The biggest nonsense is that more grassland would be cleared to produce plant crops - if we (or Australians) became less meat dependent then land would be freed from (a) grazing, (b) growing vegetables to feed livestock and (c) by more efficient use of land: producing/processing/distributing cereals/legumes takes less space and is more energy efficient than doing the same thing and then repeating all the palaver to produce meat.

This bloke is clearly not a great arithmetician .....

PS: organically farmed arable land is very good for wildlife whereas intensive pastoral farmland has little wildlife value at all.

He is talking about Australia. He's not talking about England or the rest of the world...

It all makes sense to me. From what he says, 70% of Australia is natural rangelands, primarily native ecosystems. That is where their animals graze. The majority of their grazing animals are not fed on grains so their arable land isn't taken up with vast acres of crops for animals. Which suggests that the arable land is used primarily for crops for human consumption instead. If more Australians went veggie then they'd need to eat more grains, pulses, vegetables so they would need more land for crops for human consumption. For this, if it is to come from Australia then they'd either need to dig up some native ecosytem grassland for this or cut down more woodland. As these habitats contain more animals than intensively managed croplands then there would be more killed as a result. And after clearing the land the ongoing management of arable land with intensive ploughing and pest control means many more animals are killed than would be if the land was retained as unimproved rangelands pasture. Different types of animal though. Not ones with long eyelashes that go moo, or with woolly coats and go baa, or curly tails that go oink but ones that buzz or squeak etc, i.e. those animals that are considered pests and are to be eliminated, or those that just happen to live in the soils and get in the way. That for getting Ikg of protein from Australia's grazing animals fewer animals are killed than by getting 1kg of protein from Australian plant crops due to the differences in the way the land is managed.

Take a look at what has been happening to Argentina's cattle in the last decade ...

The Hidden Costs of Feedlots|The Argentina Independent

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

He is talking about Australia. He's not talking about England or the rest of the world........ ............... That for getting Ikg of protein from Australia's grazing animals fewer animals are killed than by getting 1kg of protein from Australian plant crops due to the differences in the way the land is managed.

But Australian agriculture isn't a closed system, agriculture is a global business and the pattern of production in Australia is responsive to worldwide demand and national Governmental ambition, not ecologically beneficial models. That current Australian agricultural practice is unsustainable has been widely understood for 30 years, the challenge has been to establish an alternative that would be readily adopted by Government interests and the industry. However none of that answers the far big qustion of "How does Australia best contribute to a sustainable global agriculture in the face of an approaching 9 billion human population ?". Local 'purist' notions of ecologically beneficial practice are unlikely to answer this question in any comprehensive manner, and neither will concentration on protein production as a primary metric assist its resolution.

A 100% vegetarian human population may not of itself be either desirable or achievable, but if we are to adequately feed 7billion plus humans, (the ecological consequences of not doing so are likely to be as bad as unfettered agricultural development) then animal sources of food will have to be profoundly limited on the basis of production inputs. Kangaroo and Rhea meat might need to expand at the cost of Australian and Argentine beef, but overall meat consumption per person will have to fall and vegetarianism for some human populations will need to be the norm. This isn't about achieving a perfect balance - it's about choosing the least worst option.

CM

[Johnny Redgate]

As a sheep farmer you would hardly expect me to be an advocate of vegetarianism. Rangeland/extensive livestock farming is capable of extracting human food from environments where nothing else is viable (even if my vegan friend points at a 45 deg + Welsh hillside and says we could be growing cabbages there she is wrong), and if overgrazing is avoided, in a relatively ecologically acceptable way maintaining the open habitats we all love. But many lowland pastures could be arable and indeed there has been wholesale pasture to arable conversion (where have all the chalk grasslands gone?). Feedlot livestock rearing is just totally unacceptable whatever. The main point of livestock is to turn grass/herbage into human digestible protein (+ a few other products). Yes, we all should eat less animal protein. The trouble is, if livestock rearing becomes so limited that meat is too expensive for most people to buy it might disappear anyway.