If the world goes completely vegan

Again with the "innocent" bit.
Looking back at your earlier post is it your consideration that farmed animals are "innocent" but if running wild, such prefixes do not need apply?
"Horrible life"? Methinks you are either unfortunate enough to only know the kind of individual who should never be let care for animals, or choose to consider all farmers as such.
Interesting to read that you consider an artificially constructed substance, produced at the lowest possible cost (as it surely would be, to maximise profit) and by a process owned by bio-tech/chemical corporations as an acceptable food.

But back to my original question, is it meat?
Is reactivating part of an animal dead for years, encouraging those cells to multiply and then killing them again actually progress?

El Tarangu wrote: »

If we weren't using one-quarter of the ice-free land in the world for livestock grazing, we could use some of that land for growing food for people instead - I'm sure we would manage without a bit of manure.Well, if we didn't have to dedicate a full one-third of ALL of the cropland in the world to feeding (methane-producing) livestock, we wouldn't have to use nearly as much fertiliser, now would we?And I while I'm glad to hear about your concerns for the environment, I think the sentiment is a little misplaced - it would be a lot more efficient to just grow some crops, and have people consume them directly, rather than:

• chopping down rainforests in South America to produce feed for cattle;
• shipping that feed to Ireland;
• feeding it to the cattle (as I am sure you will know, it takes many, many kilos of feed to produce a single kilo of beef;
• shipping those cattle to north Africa to be hacked to death.

That's the thing. You cannot grow commercial crops without widespread use of fertilisers. And lots of land simply can't be used to grow crops because the soil, topography or climatic conditions are simply not suitable. Remember the dust bowl in the US and what happened when natural grasslands were used for growing crops? And artificial fertilisers require huge amounts of fossil fuels and release huge amounts of methane. Definitely not efficient for the environment.

And the fact is globally there is no shortage of food. Where shortages happen at present - its mainly due to corruption social and economic inequalities.

And that 1/3 cropland statistic again. This ignores that a full 86% of what is fed to animals is not suitable for human consumption. And is largely made up of the byproduct and left overs of the human food industry.

Terrible waste to throw that away ...

As to these often repeated stories

• Deforestation in Brazil etc - where the bulk of what is being grown is used iin Brazil or directly exported to China.
• the relatively small amount of animal feeds used in Ireland primarily comes from the US, Europe and elsewhere.
• in Ireland again most cattle are fed a grass based diet with additional feed used as necessary during winter months etc.
• "Hacked"??? Dont agree with Hal al practice but of the relatively small numbers of cattle who are exported to such countries - are killed using this method. Increasingly Hal al practice includes stunning.

But perhaps most importantly what was not included when quoting the land use and livestock figures from that source previously quoted is this section.

"One billion poor people, mostly pastoralists in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa depend on livestock for food and livelihoods. "

But perhaps we should tell them such sentiments are misplaced and that they should just grow some crops.

gozunda wrote: »

That's the thing. You cannot grow commercial crops without widespread use of fertilisers. And lots of land simply can't be used to grow crops because the soil, topography or climatic conditions are simply not suitable. Remember the dust bowl in the US and what happened when natural grasslands were used for growing crops? And artificial fertilisers require huge amounts of fossil fuels and release huge amounts of methane. Definitely not efficient for the environment.

And the fact is globally there is no shortage of food.

Great - I don't see why the fact that crops can't be grown on land, it automatically defaults to "well, I guess we need to raise beef here" - this land could be used for anything else

gozunda wrote: »

And that 1/3 cropland statistic again. This ignores that a full 86% of what is fed to animals is not suitable for human consumption. And is largely made up of the byproduct and left overs of the human food industry.

More harping on about fertilizers, while ignoring the fact that this 86% of crops would not need to be grown, at all, were it not for the billions of livestock animals on the planet. Also, the article does not say that this is all "byproduct and left over of the human food industry" - this line you added yourself. This has been claimed time and again on this forum, with zero evidence to support, and in fact much evidence being posted to the contrary.

[*

]Deforestation in Brazil etc - where the bulk of what is being grown is used iin Brazil or directly exported to China. - used in Brazil for what? Is it.... feeding cattle?
[*]the relatively small amount of animal feeds used in Ireland primarily comes from the US, Europe and elsewhere. - that's a wonderfully-opaque statement - how much is "a relatively small amount"? Also, is shipping thousands of tonnes of feed from the U.S. also not contributing greenhouse gasses?
[*]in Ireland again most cattle are fed a grass based diet with additional feed used as necessary during winter months etc. --nice to know; again, zero figures being offered
[*]"Hacked"??? Dont agree with Hal al practice but of the relatively small numbers of cattle who are exported to such countries - are killed using this method. Increasingly Hal al practice includes stunning. - if you search 'live exports' in the Farming & Forestry forum, you will find many examples of farmers soul-searching about sending their animals off to north africa - though for most this only goes so far as that it does not affect their bottom line.

But perhaps most importantly what was not included when quoting land use figures and livestock from that source previously quoted is this piece.

"One billion poor people, mostly pastoralists in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa depend on livestock for food and livelihoods. "

But perhaps we should tell them such sentiments are misplaced and that they should just grow some crops.

If your aim is to improve the lot of your farming brethren in the global south, perhaps your time would be better spent campaigning for CAP reform, rather than expending so much worry about veganism.

El Tarangu wrote: »

Great - I don't see why the fact that crops can't be grown on land, it automatically defaults to "well, I guess we need to raise beef here" - this land could be used for anything else

Other than the fact that indeed crops can't be grown and that many people around the world depend on livestock for food and their livelihoods and as detailed in the article you linked which shows how livestock farming (not just "beef") can work as an benefit for people and the land itself.

El Tarangu wrote: »

More harping on about fertilizers, while ignoring the fact that this 86% of crops would not need to be grown, at all, were it not for the billions of livestock animals on the planet. Also, the article does not say that this is all "byproduct and left over of the human food industry" - this line you added yourself. This has been claimed time and again on this forum, with zero evidence to support, and in fact much evidence being posted to the contrary.

Well my apologies I was replying to your own comment on fertilisers. But yes fertilisers are required for the commercial growing of crops. Getting rid of animals won't reduce the vast amount of crops grown or artificial fertilisers required or indeed crops being shipped around the world.

And again Animal feedstuffs are largely made up of the byproducts and leftovers of the human food industry (my words). That also includes those crops which fail, are diseased, dont meet human grade food standards etc. Btw this is the part of that report to which I referred.

This study determines that 86% of livestock feed is not suitable for human consumption. If not consumed by livestock, crop residues and by-products could quickly become an environmental burden as the human population grows and consumes more and more processed food

And also

A new study by FAO and published in Global Food Security found that livestock rely primarily on forages, crop residues and by-products that are not edible to humans and that certain production systems contribute directly to global food security, as they produce more highly valuable nutrients for humans, such as proteins, than they consume.

El Tarangu wrote: »

if you search 'live exports' in the Farming & Forestry forum, you will find many examples of farmers soul-searching about sending their animals off to north africa - though for most this only goes so far as that it does not affect their bottom line.

Many many farmers have issues regarding live export. One being the one you raised ie the use of Hal al. I've already detailed that. It remains a tiny amount of live cattle are exported from Ireland every year.

El Tarangu wrote: »

If your aim is to improve the lot of your farming brethren in the global south, perhaps your time would be better spentcampaigning for CAP reform, rather than expending so much worry about veganism.

Again it's is a discussion and yes all everyone should be concerned about the impacts of what we eat on the planet.

richie123 wrote: »

Are you suggesting lab grown meat is not a vegan product?

If its "meat" lab grown from vegetable cells, of course it's not real meat ..
My question is, as its the replication of existing poultry meat cells, and grown in a broth synthesized from bovine blood cells, what exactly is it?
It's more a "meat" than any vegetable product is.
I haven't read anything yet about the growth rates possible for this product, can you speed it up?
I'm sure that would be the aim of the companies producing it.
Would ingesting a material made of cells designed or adapted to reproduce at an accelerated rate have health risks?
Would total removal of the chemicals required to achieve this growth be possible, or possible to guarantee?
I am interested particularly because both my parents died from cancer, and while 33% of us will get it anyway, I would be wary of eating something which was grown with chemicals designed to speed up cell division and growth.
It's strange that a group of people who are particularly concerned about the origins and ethical source of their food would consider it as an acceptable product.

Bill Hook wrote: »

Not a vegan myself but I happened across the concept of stockfree organic gardening last year when I was looking into maintaining fertility in my no-dig vegetable garden without the use of farmyard manure. I can't find local organic farmyard manure so I am trying to generate fertility on site using homemade compost.

Anyway, for anyone that is interested there is a bloke called Iain Tolhurst in the UK running a market garden without animal manure.

https://www.tolhurstorganic.co.uk/about-us/what-is-stockfree-organic/

Hey Bill if they are using peat off a bog/moor it's not really good.

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/04/global-soils-underpin-life-but-future-looks-bleak-warns-un-report

Much of the world's soil may not be of much use in the near future. I think vegan or not, the world is facing some serious issues in the coming decades.

Thats tillage land. Land used for grazing only, is actually in a very healthy state. Just don't tell that to vegans. Sustainability doesn't seem to be on their radar.

Gary kk wrote: »

Hey Bill if they are using peat off a bog/moor it's not really good.

They're not using peat apparently...

https://organic-plus.net/2019/04/10/wood-innovation-to-phase-out-peat/

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/dec/04/no-kill-lab-grown-chicken-burger-restaurant-israel

Report of trying a lab grown chicken burger in Israel, it sounds delicious tbf. Maybe it's coming sooner than we think.

Another interesting fact from the article

In the US, dogs and cats are estimated to eat around a quarter of all meat - yikes.

Here is a very useful visualisation of the issue: livestock takes up 80% of agricultural land at the moment, and yet provides less than 20% of the world's calories - https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets

If you scroll down to the second image, you will see a map with the legend: "Share of global habitable land needed for agriculture if everyone had the diet of..." - and you will see that for basically all of the western countries, we use far above our share of the earth's agricultural resources - this is almost exclusively determined by the amount of meat a country consumes.
.
So, not sustainable.

Anyhow, for many people this is just a sidebar - the real "meat" of the issue for many people that want to live animal product-free (or as close to an approximation of this as possible) is that they think things like killing thousands upon thousands of male dairy calves when they are a few days old because they would be too expensive to rear, is wrong.

Hey guys where did they get the 80% figure on the paper. By what metric did get that figure.

NcdJd wrote: »

From what i read on the cultured meat breakthroughs it is aimed at the fast food sector. More processed rubbish.

Is was this bit which would concern me personally

There is still no regulation around cultured meat in Israel, meaning SuperMeat cannot charge customers. However, it intends to invite members of the public to try its dishes, to create a buzz. A waiver agreeing to “voluntarily assume any and all risks” must also be signed.

:eek:

https://twitter.com/Rothamsted/status/1335136816278745093?s=19

NcdJd wrote: »

When they talk about adding carbon to the soil Gary is this referencing biochar?

I don't now I only a quick read through and I wouldn't not be the best to answer. It is interesting given that grassland (mixed sward) will store more carbon then a fallow field.

England and Wales are banning live export of cattle, meanwhile in Ireland...

https://twitter.com/GreenpeaceEU/status/1337526780391985153