Quote from: Engine;233513This is my point. I favor limited usage of animals, mostly just because I like having them about, but they're by no means essential to the running of a self-sufficient farm [or community].

As I said, if you look at history, what you find is that every place which managed to have agriculture for more than a century or two on the same bits of land practiced mixed agriculture, with crop rotation and animals, and keeping a good part of the land forested. Every place which did not became a desert or savannah.

Quote from: EngineWithout disagreeing, let me say this: fuck them. Fuck them hard. Too much emphasis is placed on "want" in the first world. Our utter lack of sustainability is a direct result of the immense piles of "wanna" that we've accumulated through our success.

The preference for grains over legumes is universal. There exist very few cultures which eat the same weight of each. Typically some of the legumes are consumed while most get ploughed back into the ground.

Quote from: EngineIf you're not trying to feed a billion mouths, three-crop rotation works fine[...]  But of course, the industrial revolution - and three- and four-crop rotations - made feeding billions of mouths possible

It's a common misconception that the industrial revolution is what made feeding six billion people possible. It's not true. The industrial revolution just made feeding them while having very few be farmers possible.

Modern industrialised agriculture has its roots in the insights of people like Leibig, Lawes, Mendel, Pasteur and Koch, mostly in the 19th century. But it did not penetrate significantly into agriculture until the 1930s, when the world population stood at around 2,000 million. Most of the West's, and almost none of the East's farms at this time did not have any kind of mechanisation, artificial fertiliser, pesticides, etc. So there can be no doubt that the world can feed 2,000 million without industrialised agriculture, without fossil fuel inputs.

World land area devoted to crops has increased by about 50% since the 1930s, so that in effect 3,000 million could be fed by the same techniques as in 1930.

The "Green Revolution" was certainly due to artificial fertilisers, but it was also due to improved breeds, conventionally bred without any nonsense in the lab, which were able to take up the extra fertilisers. Other improved breeds have allowed farming in harsher conditions (colder, drier, etc). So that overall we may fairly say that 4,000 million people can be fed without industrialised agriculture.

But much of the "industry" isn't what we think of, big combine harvesters and so on. For example, being at the whim of the local climate restricts production - it may be huge one year, dismal the next. Having a reliable water supply - like Australian farmers pumping water 300km from the Murray-Darling river system - gives also reliable production. And that can of course be done without fossil fuels. When that's factored in, we find we're feeding another billion, bringing us up to 5,000 million who can be fed without any fossil fuel inputs.

Where industrialised agriculture has really had an effect has been in having less labour required for the same food. A single farmer with the right machinery can care for a thousand or more hectares - in other times and places that would be a thousand farmers, or even a thousand farming families. This frees us labour to work in factories (as in China today and Europe and the US in the 1900s) or to go live in slums (as in India, South Africa and so on today).

Around half the food produced in the world today is produced with little or no fossil fuel inputs. Most people are not using fossil fuels to feed themselves.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the world produces about twice as much food as needed. We produce some 2,100 million tonnes of grain annually, or about 310kg per person. 1kg provides 3,500 calories, and a moderately active adult requires 2,000. So that the grain alone could provide about 3,000 calories daily.

We also produce about 130kg per person of vegetables, 50kg of fruit, and 24kg of sugar.

So that in all with merely plant matter we could provide each person in the world with 4,000 calories and 100g protein daily - twice as much as needed.

In practice, we do not eat all the grain directly, but of the 310kg about 150kg is consumed, 115kg goes to livestock to give us 42kg of meat, and 45kg to biofuels. The livestock and biofuels fractions are increasing.

Of course the food is not distributed evenly. In Australia and the US we have about 3,500 calories daily, and 100+kg of meat a year. Since worldwide 2.74kg grain goes to make 1kg meat, we are indirectly consuming twice our fair share. And with that, 25-40% of food in the West is discarded uneaten.

Nobody is going hungry because the world does not produce enough food, and, absent an asteroid strike, nobody in the future will go hungry because the world cannot produce enough food. In the future as today, people go hungry because we choose for them to go hungry, because they have civil conflicts and tyrannical governments, and because we say, as the British did with the Irish, "let the market decide."

This notion that absent fossil fuels the whole world will collapse in a Malthusian nightmare really needs to be shot dead and buried.

Quote from: EngineAnyway, I just wasn't certain if you were aware that livestock aren't necessary to the process

They're necessary for returning nutrients to the land quickly, otherwise you reduce the productive yield of the land - and across the world, good fertile land and with it water are diminishing in supply. They're necessary for improving and sustaining soil structure. Otherwise within a generation you must find some new land to farm.

It's pretty simple, really. In nature we see a mixture of plants and animals, and these mixtures - various as they are - are systems which last thousands of years. If we want an agricultural system which can last thousands of years, then we are not likely to be able to do better than natural systems have done. We should follow what we know works.

That means we use animals, and may or may not eat animals, but certainly won't lock them up in concrete pens and hose their shit away into the water system.

Again, though I am not a vegetarian, I have sympathy for an aversion to killing animals, and consider it quite rational. But not veganism. An aversion to using animals at all can only come from ignorant bourgeoise city-dwellers, from a people long separated from the soil. The earth works with animals, to think we can work without them and have sustainable agriculture is as absurd as thinking we can confine them in concrete pens and not get problems of disease and pollution and so on.

Do they not get that someone's child died on that bus?




Rhetorical question, I guess.

Seanchai

I just don't like the idea of meatless agriculture because I like meat so much. Obviously, I disagree with you that it's impossible to achieve in the long term and small scale - I'm surrounded by evidence to the contrary - but the idea of not having some cooked cow about when I want some is anathema to my midwestern American sensibilities. Plus, no bacon? What kind of world is that?

Quote from: Seanchai;233596Do they not get that someone's child died on that bus?

I would suspect they get it, but find communicating their message to be more important than sensitivity to the grieving.

Quote from: Engine;233603I would suspect they get it, but find communicating their message to be more important than sensitivity to the grieving.

It's like when the NRA did those gun ownership rallies in areas where there were school shootings.  Different end of the political spectrum, same wankery behavior.

Quote from: Engine;233601I just don't like the idea of meatless agriculture because I like meat so much.

That's just custom, which changes for society and changes even more easily for individuals. Things like carrying around water bottles - what the fuck? When did we become such delicate flowers that we'd wilt if we went an hour without a drink? It's just custom. Same with whether you eat meat two or three times a day, once a week, or never. You do it one way for a while, become accustomed to it, and pretty soon it feels "natural" and you're hopping onto internet forums to tell people they can't possibly live without a burger every day, or that humans aren't designed to eat meat, or some similar bullshit.

The truth is that grains or tubers as the main dish, with legumes a large side dish and meat a small side dish, or as flavouring, this is the pattern which has appeared again and again in history, and shown itself to be compatible with good health, kind to the environment, and kind to the animals.

Quote from: EngineObviously, I disagree with you that it's impossible to achieve in the long term and small scale

Again, there exists no settled agriculture which has lasted a thousand or more years in one place which did not involve livestock. That does not mean the people always ate the livestock, but they certainly used them. Hindus are against eating beef, but are happy to drink milk, use oxen to plough the land, and so on.

Quote from: EnginePlus, no bacon? What kind of world is that?

A Jewish or Moslem one? Some Koreans or Chinese might be shocked at a world without dog to eat. Custom!

Actually, many Moslem villages in the world have pigs around, not to eat, just to act as garbage disposal. PETA would be horrified.

Quote from: jgantsIt's like when the NRA did those gun ownership rallies in areas where there were school shootings. Different end of the political spectrum, same wankery behavior.

I think it's essentially branding, they just want to get their brand name known and publicised. Anything to get into the news.

They allegedly tried to run the ad in the local Portage paper.  Note that Portage has a population just under 13K, and there's no way that paper's going to run that ad.  PETA manages to get some press without paying a dime by 'trying' to put an offensive ad in a newspaper for a tiny tiny market (broadly speaking; the second-largest city in Manitoba is Brandon with a population of only about 40K or so) and gets attention internationally (throughout Canada and the U.S.).  Nice and distasteful.

And speaking of distasteful, on a related note, the Phelps/Westboro Baptist Church goofs have decided to picket the victim's funeral.  The Conservative government told the border guards to keep out anyone carrying pickets and pamphlets and stuff, which makes me proud of this government (for a change), but apparently some got through.  Though they sound a little worried about the harsh reception they're getting, like it's some sort of surprise; my favourite bit is the spokesperson for the "God as spree killer" church describes Canadian politicians as "talking like they are in a back-alley brawl."  And the Conservative Party actually fought against legalising gay marriage.

Yeah, apparently when God wants to make a point about "abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage," He uses a young unmarried presumably straight carnie as the victim and a guy in a straight marriage as the instrument of His wildly misdirected wrath.  But, Phelps, your signs have shown me the way!  I love your God now, that kill-crazy MFer with a hair-trigger temper and a list of pet peeves as long as His infinite arm!

What is it about a gruesome, insane murder that brings out the worst in some people?

Quote from: Stuart;233311Seriously... WTF is wrong with people?

:mad:

The simple answer- the people running PETA are mentally ill.

I work with animal rescues and places that are legit, I would never ever be within a mile of a PETA event.

Sadly, they are loosing crediability but there are people out there who still support them

Quote from: Seanchai;233596Do they not get that someone's child died on that bus?

Seanchai

PETA doesnt care about humans, only animals.  I sometimes think they think that animals are more importent then humans.

It would be better if PETA's track record were at least consistent on that count, but the mass animal killings, their extremely high shelter kill rate...they're just a political machine, and a strident ally in the fight for animal rights. ["MoveOn.org: 10 years of making even people who agree with you cringe."]

Quote from: Mike S.;234230PETA doesnt care about humans, only animals.  I sometimes think they think that animals are more importent then humans.

That's exactly right.  Obviously, PETA has had a pretty inconsistent agenda but if you try to understand the idea that most PETA members consider an animal life to be as, if not more, important than a human one, you can see where an idea like that ad doesn't seem all that insane.

Quote from: walkerp;234520. . . if you try to understand the idea that most PETA members consider an animal life to be as, if not more, important than a human one, you can see where an idea like that ad doesn't seem all that insane.

When I understand that "most PETA members consider an animal life to be as, if not more, important than a human one," it doesn't make the ad look less insane.  It makes those PETA members look even more insane.

Having a sane underlying premise would help them.  I could sympathize with someone who was trying to make a good point but chose a dumb way to do it.  Here, though, the underlying point (killing a man is as bad as killing an animal) is so absurd that it magnifies the rudeness of this ad.

Quote from: Patriarch917;234683Here, though, the underlying point (killing a man is as bad as killing an animal) is so absurd that it magnifies the rudeness of this ad.

Only absurd from the limiting lens of your humanocentric position.  What would a bear's position on that be?  Or an alien?

We're not bears, nor are we aliens, still less are we walkerists, wanting to wipe out humanity. We're humans.

It is right for humans to control and kill animals. It is not right for humans to be cruel to animals. Most of modern agriculture constitutes cruelty to animals; cattle, pigs and sheep are regularly confined, fed and drugged in ways which would get me fined or imprisoned if I did it to a dog or cat.

Again, if you believe all humanity should cease to exist, begin with yourself. Live according to your principles, or shut the fuck up about them.

Quote from: walkerp;234689Only absurd from the limiting lens of your humanocentric position.  What would a bear's position on that be?  Or an alien?

That killing a man is worse than killing an animal is not merely a position upon which we can have different but equally valuable opinions. Murder is not ice cream, and you don't get to choose your favorite flavor based on your own particular tastes. If a bear thinks that a man killing bears is as wrong as a man killing men, then that bear is just as wrong as PETA.