Ok so I want to preface this by saying that I’m not asking this question to be snarky. Maybe I’m having a little trouble understanding, and my misunderstanding could be from the spectrum of vegans that are reasonable and level-headed people to the generic everyday vegan radical. Let’s just say i just need some clarification:
It’s ok to use animals as farming equipment even though it puts excess and unnecessary burden and stress on the animal?
toomanypancakes@lemmy.world
on 24 Jan 2025 17:08
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No, it’s not okay to use animals as farming equipment.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
on 26 Jan 2025 00:46
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The article is saying quite the opposite; it isn’t advocating for this but rather reporting on it and citing possible alternatives.
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 24 Jan 2025 14:21
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There’s no way to get around the use of animals in growing vegetables unless you want to rely on oil which is worse. Animal shit has been used as fertilizer since the beginning of agriculture.
queermunist@lemmy.ml
on 24 Jan 2025 15:41
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Rivers are also a source of nutrients, actually. That’s why floodplains are so fertile and why they predate fertilization.
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 24 Jan 2025 17:15
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And not everywhere is near a flood plain and not everything can be grown near flood plains without the risk of crop failure. 🙄
Tell me you’ve never grown anything without telling me…
queermunist@lemmy.ml
on 24 Jan 2025 17:35
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And not everywhere is a good place to grow crops. 🙄
And before you say we don’t have enough good cropland, remember that we waste huge amounts of food feeding livestock. Does the amount of nutrient you get back from manure even make up for the nutrient loss from growing animal feed? We probably shouldn’t be growing alfalfa in the California desert.
Then there’s compost. If we composted everything we possibly can, rather than dumping food waste into landfills, we’d be able to reduce the amount of artificial fertilizer required to grow our crops.
There are options.
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 24 Jan 2025 19:11
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Straw man argument nobody said anything about growing industrial agriculture farm animals or alfalfa.
I agree with compost but it’s not enough to feed all the worlds people. And the entire world population is never going vegan so that compost will be compromised of animal scraps.
You’ve clearly never grown anything before or you’d know how necessary animal waste is for soil nutrients. There’s a lot of food that can’t be grown in flood plains.
Where do you think artificial fertilizer comes from? Dead dinosaurs. It’s obvious to me you’ve never grown anything.
Just fyi: about 50% of crops use synthetic fertilizer. Animal waste is not a requirement. This article discusses the chemical discoveries that lead to the ability to synthesize fertilizer: ourworldindata.org/how-many-people-does-synthetic…
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t come from dinosaurs**
tl;dr - Haber-Bosch process
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 24 Jan 2025 21:14
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Phosphorus- and potassium-based fertilizers are made from mined minerals, while nitrogen fertilizer is manufactured using fossil gas based on a century-old method that originally produced nitrogen for use in explosives such as TNT. After World War II, nitrogen production turned to civilian purposes and the fertilizer industry was born. Synthetic fertilizer use per acre of farmland in the United States skyrocketed after 1960, reaching a peak in 1981. Nitrogen fertilizer use has continued to climb according to sales data, with major commodity crops such as corn using the largest share.
MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
on 24 Jan 2025 21:31
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You might want to look into how much obtainable phosphorous is left because it’s running low. We might not have other options
queermunist@lemmy.ml
on 25 Jan 2025 17:10
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Straw man argument nobody said anything about growing industrial agriculture farm animals or alfalfa.
But you are? You’re implying that there isn’t enough good land to grow our food, but I’m saying that there might be if we stopped both wasting good land and wasting fertilizer on growing animal feed in the desert.
But maybe there isn’t. Maybe we absolutely need fertilizer.
Okay, let’s work with that. I’m not saying that animals have zero place in agriculture. No vegan would be against having friendly bee hives to pollinate flowers, as long as no beekeepers come around to gas them and steal their honey. Why can’t we do this with other animals? Learn to live in harmony with our animal neighbors so that their manure can fertilize our fields without killing anybody.
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jan 2025 18:11
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No, I said nothing about not enough good land. You brought up rivers fertilizing soil. There’s a lot of the world including where I live where that’s not the case and we still grow food here.
We need fertilizer, therefore we need animals in agriculture. Some radical vegans who are completely divorced from reality are arguing otherwise that they shouldn’t be in agriculture at all. And those beehives you mention? I’ve encountered plenty of radical vegans against it. Literal cult behavior divorced from reality.
queermunist@lemmy.ml
on 25 Jan 2025 18:20
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There’s a lot of the world where we wouldn’t need to grow food if we didn’t waste so much land on growing animal feed. That’s why I brought up animal feed. We would need a hell of a lot less fertilizer if we stopped growing alfalfa in the desert etc. etc.
There are vegans who are against beekeeping. They don’t want bees living in artificial hives where they get gassed and their honey stolen and their limbs torn off etc. etc. No one is against bees just being allowed to live on a farm, side-by-side with us. That’s just nature! As long as beekeepers aren’t hurting the bees or stealing from them or invading their homes, it’s vegan.
Veganism is against animal exploitation. If bees just live in peace somewhere and pollinate the crops, no one is exploited.
veganpizza69@lemmy.vg
on 24 Jan 2025 17:41
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What do the animals eat?
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 24 Jan 2025 19:12
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Crops, which they fertilize by shitting and pissing on before the crops grow.
veganpizza69@lemmy.vg
on 25 Jan 2025 10:59
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Do you think that herbivores preceded plants on land?
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jan 2025 12:20
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Single celled organisms preceded it all, what’s your point?
It’s a fucking ECOSYSTEM, it all works together. Im not against veganism, I’ve been a lifelong vegetarian since before most of these radical vegans have been alive let alone been vegan for a year on processed overpriced garbage from Whole Foods not knowing a goddamn thing about how food comes to exist and being irritating, holier than thou, arrogant, ignorant, and completely out to lunch about it.
You NEED animal agriculture to produce crops to feed the worlds people. You don’t have to eat the animals, you don’t have to eat products derived from the animals, but their waste, their carcasses, feeds the soil that feeds the plants that feeds you. Period. Animals graze the fields killing weeds, by grazing they’re pooping and pissing everywhere fertilizing the land, and planting can happen.
Again tell me you’ve never grown a single fucking thing in soil without telling me.
threaded - newest
Ok so I want to preface this by saying that I’m not asking this question to be snarky. Maybe I’m having a little trouble understanding, and my misunderstanding could be from the spectrum of vegans that are reasonable and level-headed people to the generic everyday vegan radical. Let’s just say i just need some clarification:
It’s ok to use animals as farming equipment even though it puts excess and unnecessary burden and stress on the animal?
No, it’s not okay to use animals as farming equipment.
The article is saying quite the opposite; it isn’t advocating for this but rather reporting on it and citing possible alternatives.
There’s no way to get around the use of animals in growing vegetables unless you want to rely on oil which is worse. Animal shit has been used as fertilizer since the beginning of agriculture.
Rivers are also a source of nutrients, actually. That’s why floodplains are so fertile and why they predate fertilization.
And not everywhere is near a flood plain and not everything can be grown near flood plains without the risk of crop failure. 🙄
Tell me you’ve never grown anything without telling me…
And not everywhere is a good place to grow crops. 🙄
And before you say we don’t have enough good cropland, remember that we waste huge amounts of food feeding livestock. Does the amount of nutrient you get back from manure even make up for the nutrient loss from growing animal feed? We probably shouldn’t be growing alfalfa in the California desert.
Then there’s compost. If we composted everything we possibly can, rather than dumping food waste into landfills, we’d be able to reduce the amount of artificial fertilizer required to grow our crops.
There are options.
Straw man argument nobody said anything about growing industrial agriculture farm animals or alfalfa.
I agree with compost but it’s not enough to feed all the worlds people. And the entire world population is never going vegan so that compost will be compromised of animal scraps.
You’ve clearly never grown anything before or you’d know how necessary animal waste is for soil nutrients. There’s a lot of food that can’t be grown in flood plains.
Where do you think artificial fertilizer comes from? Dead dinosaurs. It’s obvious to me you’ve never grown anything.
Just fyi: about 50% of crops use synthetic fertilizer. Animal waste is not a requirement. This article discusses the chemical discoveries that lead to the ability to synthesize fertilizer: ourworldindata.org/how-many-people-does-synthetic…
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t come from dinosaurs**
tl;dr - Haber-Bosch process
Most fertilizer used in industrial ag uses fossil fuels.
You might want to look into how much obtainable phosphorous is left because it’s running low. We might not have other options
But you are? You’re implying that there isn’t enough good land to grow our food, but I’m saying that there might be if we stopped both wasting good land and wasting fertilizer on growing animal feed in the desert.
But maybe there isn’t. Maybe we absolutely need fertilizer.
Okay, let’s work with that. I’m not saying that animals have zero place in agriculture. No vegan would be against having friendly bee hives to pollinate flowers, as long as no beekeepers come around to gas them and steal their honey. Why can’t we do this with other animals? Learn to live in harmony with our animal neighbors so that their manure can fertilize our fields without killing anybody.
No, I said nothing about not enough good land. You brought up rivers fertilizing soil. There’s a lot of the world including where I live where that’s not the case and we still grow food here.
We need fertilizer, therefore we need animals in agriculture. Some radical vegans who are completely divorced from reality are arguing otherwise that they shouldn’t be in agriculture at all. And those beehives you mention? I’ve encountered plenty of radical vegans against it. Literal cult behavior divorced from reality.
There’s a lot of the world where we wouldn’t need to grow food if we didn’t waste so much land on growing animal feed. That’s why I brought up animal feed. We would need a hell of a lot less fertilizer if we stopped growing alfalfa in the desert etc. etc.
There are vegans who are against beekeeping. They don’t want bees living in artificial hives where they get gassed and their honey stolen and their limbs torn off etc. etc. No one is against bees just being allowed to live on a farm, side-by-side with us. That’s just nature! As long as beekeepers aren’t hurting the bees or stealing from them or invading their homes, it’s vegan.
Veganism is against animal exploitation. If bees just live in peace somewhere and pollinate the crops, no one is exploited.
What do the animals eat?
Crops, which they fertilize by shitting and pissing on before the crops grow.
Do you think that herbivores preceded plants on land?
Single celled organisms preceded it all, what’s your point?
It’s a fucking ECOSYSTEM, it all works together. Im not against veganism, I’ve been a lifelong vegetarian since before most of these radical vegans have been alive let alone been vegan for a year on processed overpriced garbage from Whole Foods not knowing a goddamn thing about how food comes to exist and being irritating, holier than thou, arrogant, ignorant, and completely out to lunch about it.
You NEED animal agriculture to produce crops to feed the worlds people. You don’t have to eat the animals, you don’t have to eat products derived from the animals, but their waste, their carcasses, feeds the soil that feeds the plants that feeds you. Period. Animals graze the fields killing weeds, by grazing they’re pooping and pissing everywhere fertilizing the land, and planting can happen.
Again tell me you’ve never grown a single fucking thing in soil without telling me.