| Alright, thank you for your honesty and for making an effort to have a sensible
discussion. Yes, farmers don't populate their herds with wild animals. I didn't understand
then what you meant by "rescue". Without using the word "rescue" though, it is
the case that humans did take in those animals and protected them and nurtured
and cared for them, when they first domesticated them. Entire subspecies of
animals are living in our care and with our support and don't have to survive on
their own in the wild. You're wrong that I don't understand the evil of factory farming. It's actually
something that I have very strong opinions about: I believe it is an atrocity
that harms both animals and humans, both physically, mentally and ethically, and
that we will do well as modern societies to eliminate it. I don't believe it's
possible to raise healthy and happy animals at such mad scales. And I'm pretty
sure, though I've never worked in a factory farm (and I never would) that taking
part in that industry stains one's soul forever, at least for those people who
do have a conscience. I guess I don't have to say that I believe small scale farming is a different
matter. That should be obvious that I think so. But I also think you're wrong to say that small scale farming is not how most
people are getting their food. It absolutelyl is! I posted this link earlier, in
another thread, as a reply to another comment you made: > Five of every six farms in the world consist of less than two hectares,
operate only around 12 percent of all agricultural land, and produce roughly 35
percent of the world's food, according to a study published in World
Development. https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1395127/icode/ Most farming and agriculture in the world _is_ small-scale farming. And while
the food produced in such small scale farms is 35% of all food produced in the
world, that's partly because 2/3s of the world eat much less food than the other
third and it's also true that a third of all the food produced in the world is
thrown out: https://theconversation.com/we-throw-away-a-third-of-the-foo... And I probably don't have to give you any links to convince you that certain
people in the world eat way, way too much meat (as well as everything else!).
This is particularly true for the people in the Americas and Western Europeans
who eat about twice as much meat as the next people down the line. I believe
this is a matter of production, rather than demand, that the Americans
particlarly eat so much meat just because that's where most of the world's
factory farms are located, and I'm pretty sure we could feed all those
meat-lovers just fine without CAFOs if they could be convinced to at least halve
their meat consumption. I believe so for the reasons I gave above: that most of
the world already does fine without factory farms, most of the world eats a
small fraction of the meat eaten in the Americas and because there is so much
food waste that we could eliminate and that would help us feed everyone. I think it should be obvious that some parts of the world consume many times
more than they need and many times more than the environment and the economy
even can sustain and that those people really need to slow down. But that's not
true of everyone everywhere in the world. Perhaps we disagree then because we
are looking at things from a different place in the world? |
My worry is the trend is not going in the right direction. The world is eating more and more meat, the rest of the world adopting the Standard American Diet. This level of consumption can only continue by expanding factory farming. Especially as we add a couple of billion more people over the coming decades and they want to eat meat like the rich countries do. Most people just don't care where their food comes from (not all, I take it you are among the few who do care). So the way I see it, the only way out is for people to really change how they see food and whether we should be eating animals at all. Because they're not going to take the effort to figure out where and how their meat/dairy came to be every time they eat it.