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Farmers are the victims of an ideological war against meat

Not low carb per se, but I'm sure will be of interest anyway:

Quote:

Farmers are the victims of an ideological war against meat

We members of the agricultural industry deserve to have our voices heard too

Farming hasn't been under attack from so many fronts since World War One. Joaquin Phoenix is the latest vegan crusader to have preached his eco agenda on a populist platform, using his Oscars acceptance speech to make his case against dairy. It was snappy, emotive and ultimately simplistic.

And herein lies the problem. Seldom do members of the agricultural industry get the chance to argue back. This week, though, the National Farmers’ Union president Minette Batters spoke out against Phoenix, stating: "There are people at the end of this. There are small family farms and they get hurt too."

Batters insists that the vegan movement does "enormous damage to the mental health of livestock farmers". As a farmer myself, I can sympathise.

Of course, animal rights groups were quick to condemn her, pointing to a lack of evidence that their campaigning was causing psychological distress in our community. How would they know? We may be a thorn in the side of their belief system, but we deserve a platform too.

So often the debate comes down to climate change, which some frame as an incipient catastrophe, when really it is much more complicated than most realise. There are so many glaring contradictions when we look at topics like diet, pollution, packaging and recycling that the temptation is to simplify.

The so-called evils of livestock farming are very simple to grasp indeed. When the subject of air travel or electric vehicles gets too tiresome, meat-eating becomes the default moral crime. But so few, upon hearing the message from eco-warriors like Phoenix, are willing to dig deeper.

Is it really better for the planet, for example, to import almond milk here to the UK, than to eat high quality, grass-fed beef, reared in a climate ideally suited to this type of farming? What would be the implications if we all so radically changed our diet? What about subsistence farmers in poorer countries?

True, not all farmers look after their land responsibly. But lots of us do. We work hard to plough, graze, and fertilise our soil to keep it healthy for the precious wildlife. We are knowledgeable far beyond some of the nature programmes on TV. We know when the barn owls nest, and how long to let the grass grow to provide the best habitat for field mice and pheasants.

We are the farming community, the mainstay of rural and village life; not all of us are only interested in exploiting the land and making a quick buck. There is nothing wrong with an honest, nuanced debate on veganism so long as you're listening to both sides. All that we ask is for our voices to be heard too.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...r-against-meat/

The answer to factory farming is to ban factory farming.

Yes, it would be a phase in process, but look at how the industry adopted the ideas of Grandin regarding (more) humane animal handling.

And it would solve the antibiotic overuse problem, too.

It wasn't so long ago that there wasn't any factory farms. This is not lost tech!

Here is the thing, 1% of the population produces all of the food in the US. Of that number, how many don't even break even, much less make a profit. Everyone that I know who raises cattle has another job to support doing that because the costs are off the charts.

Bottom line, we need farmers. Average age is over 50. Too many die by suicide. The weight if the wirld sits on their shoulders. Our current food system is failing the people that feed us. 2% feeds the other 98 +% .....

Small farms are making a come back. The number of farm stands in my area is growing.

At one time Massachusetts was mostly farmland. Now its farmland grown over in trees, yes trees. And the open fields are turned into houselots before the old pastures are cleared, as THAT costs more.

Somewhere along the way I realized the limits of mass produced food, and the benefits of homegown. But still recognize the need for commercial production.

As for dairy cows, unhappy cows decrease production. Though ideally, the old system of cows on grassland is a better ststem to support. And the girls are grazing as designed.

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Originally Posted by Ms Arielle

Small farms are making a come back. The number of farm stands in my area is growing.

Likewise, even though we are not in a great farming area; young people are getting cheap land together, dairy farms are adding cheese cellars, and goats are making a comeback.

It was corporations out of control that is destroying farming. That is what deregulation was all about: allowing corporations to make more profits despite the bad consequences of them doing so.

And then they are the enemy of us all.

Disallowed discussion about population control has been removed .. here's why.

Please stay on topic.