The cheer up thread.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

agreed with CoffeeGrunt. As a vegetarian I detest elitist and holier than thou attitudes that some of us have.

[Kirsten]

exactly, you have soil conditions, sun, rain, gradient, all major factors. a lot of land used for grazing animals is done because crops can't be grown there.

[Morgrim]

Some areas are completely unsuitable for cropping, but can happily feed up to a certain number of livestock. Also I guess it's the fact I'm aussie but I find the idea of animals being raised on grain weird. Supplementary feeding during droughts or after just having lambed? Sure. But a lot of that is lupin which is grown in rotation with other crops since it fixes nitrogen into the soil for the next year's wheat crop and the stubble is great to run sheep on during summer droughts, and I don't know of any other crop that does the same and can be harvested by the same machinery as wheat, so it doesn't feel like that's taking away anything from feeding humans directly.

Also kangaroo. If you want healthy, ethical, and environmentally sound red meat, try some kangaroo. Lean, iron rich, doesn't harm the environment, next to no methane production, cleanly culled from the wild by high powered rifle shot to the head, and the culling needs to happen because they reach plague proportions when there is enough water so shooting and eating some is much better than thousands starving to death.

[Psychosplodge]

I have, its probably the most Australian thing they serve in the walkabout

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

[CoffeeGrunt]

If the kangaroo has to be shipped halfway across the planet to get to me, it's no longer environmentally-friendly.

Also what massive job losses? Sheep could still be reared for wool, so that industry continues. There's still a leather industry. The point is mainly with regards to places like America, where land is given over to cattle ranches that is perfectly suitable for crop growth, or the constant deforestation of the rainforest for cattle land, which is inefficient compared to other uses for said land.

[Haighus]

Not to mention sheep especially are usually on land that is not suitable for crops anyway, so I think sheep farming would be largely untouched by a shift to efficient arable farming. The hills around where I grew up support a lot of sheep in the more inhospitable areas, and taking a combine harvester up there would be very impractical. Milk would also continue I reckon, because milk is a very versatile product, and renewable (which would mean a small amount of beef would still be produced as by-product).

I guess the job losses would be mainly in that arable is less labour intensive than livestock? Livestock require more care and attention than fields of crops generally. I feel like the job losses would mostly be absorbed by the gradual pace that arabilisation would happen by though- it wouldn't be possible to just kill off all the livestock intended for meat production overnight and replace them with crops (also, what is going to happen to animals such as pigs that don't have a use other than their flesh?).

[eldargal]

Speaking of pigs, they are actually an excellent way of converting inedible vegetable waste to edible meat, so any genuinely sustainable food plan should include them. This is the main problem I have with the whole 'meat isn't sustainable argument', like yes in some cases it is very true, especially where animals are being grazed on arable farmland or fed with grains that are fit for human consumption. But that is not universal or even necessary in some cases.

[Erik Setzer]

Mmm, meat is delicious.

Anyone who thinks what we do to animals is rough should see how hunters take down their prey and sometimes start taking them apart while they're still alive.

Really, it's about as silly as the people who claim humans are the only ones who hunt for fun. Felines especially are prone to just straight up stalking and murdering something just for fun. I don't have to worry about bugs sneaking into my apartment because my cats will kill them. They are sweet, adorable critters... but if a lizard got into my apartment, it would end up dead, and not eaten. It's just their nature. The only reason I doubt they'd use rifles if they could is because it's more entertaining to run at something that thinks it has a chance of escape, pounce on it, hamstring it, and finish it off with teeth and claws.

But, heck, some species of felines will see the males kill the kids just because they want their own litter. Oh, and there's also the issue that new mothers who aren't getting enough nutrition to their babies will eat the weakest to provide sustenance for the others. It's terribly sad, but, well, that's nature.

(We'll not get into what primates do to each other.)

And they want to lecture us on how animals are so much better than us? And hey, you shouldn't eat animals because they want to live? Okay, but I want to live, too, and how about those pure carnivores? They can't exist without killing and eating animals. Feed a cat a vegan diet and you'll kill it. (Let someone like me find out you're doing that to a cat and I'll kick your ****ing *** for being such a horrible little ****. Sorry, but I've seen the results of that crap before, people have messed up kittens bad trying to force them to eat a diet that doesn't work. It's animal cruelty of its own sort.)

[Mud Duck]

If the kangaroo has to be shipped halfway across the planet to get to me, it's no longer environmentally-friendly.

Also what massive job losses? Sheep could still be reared for wool, so that industry continues. There's still a leather industry. The point is mainly with regards to places like America, where land is given over to cattle ranches that is perfectly suitable for crop growth, or the constant deforestation of the rainforest for cattle land, which is inefficient compared to other uses for said land.

I'd argue that your incorrect, scrub land use for cattle ranching is not suitable for crop growth.