Vegan
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But not thi. Intensive dairy farming (cows in sheds) and is a relatively small part of UK farming at the moment. Intensive farming in the UK is mostly chicken sheds. The fall in biodiversity is not explained purely by putting livestock in sheds. Arable farming practices have probably had a bigger impact.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Breast milk is, of course, an even better source of all the things kids need.
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I doubt anyone is witholding a viable alternative to dairy milk to protect farmers, its not like there aren't loads of alternative milks already. More likely it is just more expansive than squeezing cattle.
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. . . though a bit of a surprise for a forty something prop forward
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
We have evolved to be able to drink milk, but it is only relatively recently which is why some people are still born without the adaptation, and entire communities in some parts of the world where drinking cow's milk is not a thing don't have the adaptation at all.
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Alternative milks aren't even allowed to be labelled milk. I think farmers would protest if this technology was brought in, putting many out of business.
Precision fermentation: A sustainable and scalable technology
The technique, which has been lauded for its sustainability credentials, has the potential to reduce the footprint of food production dramatically.
One study estimates that precision fermentation using methanol requires 1,700 times less land than the most efficient agricultural means of producing protein – soy grown in the US. This means it might use 138,000 and 157,000 times less land than the least efficient means: beef and lamb production.
Precision fermentation allows for scalable manufacture of virtually any ingredient, enabling companies to replace protein- and fat-rich foods – many of which are obtained from animal sources – with more sustainable alternatives.
It can also be used to produce bioactive compounds of interest to the nutraceutical industry.
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As an aside the best sausage roll I have ever had was from a Vegan cafe in Durham. I am not vegan and I love sausage rolls, so it was a bit of a surprise.
They also did a brownie, the only item on the menu that was not vegan because although the tried they could not get it to work without egg. It was also the best brownie I have ever had.
Sadly it looks as if the cafe has gone now.
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77% of UK land is used for agriculture. 67% of that is for livestock, 28% for crops.
Sheds/milk factories are popping up around here, with farmers always granted retrospective planning permission. The sheds are an eyesore, but for me the continual conveyor belt of tractors transporting grass/hay/silage to the shed, then removing all the slurry which is then sprayed over the fields (eventually a percentage ends up in rivers) is a huge negative. Even cycling on lanes has become somewhat less enjoyable with congestion, mud and slurry.
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I grew up in a dairy farming area. Cow shit on the lanes is just what happens when you walk cattle from one field to another. It's nothing to do with intensive farming. Muck spreading has been going on for centuries. It used to be 'nightsoil' (human waste) until we invented mains sewers.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
The sausage in sausage rolls is consistently disappointing. I think they skimp on the cost.
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This sounds great, but it is unproven technology and features lots of words like "could", "might" and "additional studies are necessary to evaluate emissions and other environmental costs". It also relies on carbon capture which is currently very expensive.
As I have posted many times, the challenge of climate change is about trying everything and seeing what works. This sounds worth exploring, but for now, it is just an idea.
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As I mentioned before it’s not just experimental as rennet has been produced this way for years.
Here are six companies in precision fermentation production, some having received FDA approval as far back as 2019.
https://brightgreenpartners.com/precision-fermentation-companies/
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The only vegan food I've (intentionally) made was chocolate brownie. It was excellent, just as nice as any non-vegan version I've had and all the vegans in my running club loved it. It cost a fortune to make though, the chocolate was really expensive.
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I currently live in a dairy farming area and have noticed a change. In 2000 there were no factory farms, now 73% (probably more now) of farm animals are reared in sheds in the UK.
Sheds or no sheds it's livestock farming that does the majority of environmental damage.
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I don't know how much clout you think farmers have but I suspect that if Nestle thought it was profitable and starting producing fermented 'milk' they would do it regardless of a parade of tractors through westminster.
Farmers may well protest should it happen but the idea that a viable alternative milk is being kept from the market by an elite group of farmers seems a bit far fetched
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Yes, the vast majority of those are chickens.
Cattle have always been housed in sheds over winter. Over in St Fagans there are a couple of examples where the overwintering cattle were used as a heat source for the farmers living upstairs.
There's an argument that intensive farming allows more control of the environmental impact than extensive farming and leaves more land free for other things. In much the same way, urban development has a lower environmental impact per capita than rural living.
Notwithstanding that a general reduction in the consumption of animal protein would probably be a good thing, I don't think it's useful to make sweeping statements about intensive/extensive farming.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Coming from the king of sweeping statements.. So far your arguments have been ‘I think that…’ , going against all evidence, statistics and proven science.
On the second page here, you were talking about the merits of small scale farms, promoting James Rebanks as having the answers to sustainable farming. Now you’re backing intensive farming as the answer. You are correct that efficiency is higher in these.
BTW it’s 85% of animals now that are reared permanently in sheds.
More evidence here:
UK Factory Farming Is Polluting Rivers and Harming Our Environment
Not only is this a barbaric and cruel way to farm, but with over 70% of the UK’s land dedicated to farming there are many negative impacts and reasons to stop the spread of intensive factory farms:
- Over a billion animals are confined in factory farms every year – that’s 85% of all UK farmed animals.
- Agriculture is the number one source of river pollution in the UK.
- The equivalent of 35% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from producing and eating our food and drink.
- Food production in the UK is threatening 40% of UK species already at risk of extinction.
- For every 100 calories of edible crops fed to animals, just 17 - 30 calories enter the human food chain as meat and milk.
- Intensive industrial livestock production entails crowded and stressful conditions which can lead to more harmful strains of disease emerging.
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The public is overwhelmingly in support of livestock farming, hence vote in governments with similar views who then protect farmers. Wasn’t Starmer overheard saying “I hate tree huggers”?
There have been two large farming protests recently. One about setting aside land for nature, the other on inheritance tax. No farmer has been arrested despite blocking roads (breaching protesting laws?) and the government backed down about setting aside nature on farms.
The NFU and rich landowning farmers are famous for their militancy and hold sway in this country.
So that’s the public, the government and the farmers holding back progress.
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Erm, statistics, much. "One billion animals". Of which 2.65 million are dairy cows. See RSJ's point about housed poultry. I was a herdsman for fourteen years, and the best part: when the cattle went outside in the spring.
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Sorry, probably poor wording on my part, but the difference between intensive and extensive farming is mostly how much land and other resources are used for a given output. I'm not trying to argue that either is 'the answer' just that it's more complicated and that the overall environmental impact of a farm is the result of more factors than whether there are livestock and how long they spend inside.
Yes farming occupies most of the UK land area and has done for a couple of thousand years at least. A lot of it is unusable for arable farming.
Small scale farms may well have a smaller impact, but if you can't make a living from it it's not going to exist for very long.
And let's not pretend that arable farming is free from environmental impact nor suffers from some of the same, very valid issues you note, particularly large single crop fields being more vulnerable to disease.
Lastly, this is an interesting point as well.
All animals emit GHG. Long before North America had lots of feedlot cattle farms, it had huge herds of wild ruminants farting and belching away.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
How did that fit in with teaching and trumpeting?
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After uni, before teaching, but used to turn up at orchestra rehearsals smelling ever so slightly of cow.*
*To others, probably less than "slightly", despite my best efforts. My dog was well known as smelling of cow rather than dog.
🐕🐄🤔🤷♂️**
**Specially for Bean, as I know he likes them so much.
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The last time I looked, a chicken is an animal therefore classed as livestock. Those factory farms are mostly responsible for the state of the Wye and other river systems.
The trend is for increasing the number of factory farms, keeping cattle permanently indoors, so your anecdote adds animal cruelty into the negative side of livestock farming, but I deliberately didn’t go there. These cow’s will never feel the sun. The quaint images of milkmaids and milking stools are over.
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If livestock farming is sustainable and climate change and biodiversity loss isn’t negatively impacted by farming to any great extent, I’d be interested to read any mainstream science that backs this up.
I like the taste and texture of meat, eggs and dairy and would probably return to a ‘normal’ diet. If you could explain the following. Why nature is in such steep decline. I’ve recently read about there being 40 million less wild birds in the UK since 1970. Where did they go? Why don’t I see any insects on my car windscreen? Where did they go? Frogs, newts, toads, (amphibians are a barometer of ecosystems) Where? Hedgehogs (98% less of them!) some in road traffic accidents, but the rest.? I could go on…Noooooooooooooo!
I think what I’m saying is that I believe (together with most mainstream science) the evidence points to livestock farming being a huge factor. Habitat loss, lack of food sources (stop flailing the hedges 3 times a year), pollution…
As for grazing land not being suitable for arable, an ideal opportunity for getting the sheep off the land and rewilding it (carbon sink).
North American Ruminants farting, were doing so long before we added 38 billion livestock animals extra ones to throw it all out of balance.
96% of mammals by weight are... wait for it..farm animals.
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Indeed they are all animals, but it feels rather like you are quoting something that includes that extremely problematic area of poultry farming in the figures ("Wow, a billion is a lot isn't it!") to make your case against milk.
As you'll have worked out, keeping cows indoors all year round is not my idea of fun, and I think it's a pity that for whatever reason (mostly down to farming having to make money against the constant downward pressure on farmgate prices by the buying power of the big processors/retailers) that mega dairy farms are becoming more common.
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I'm making a case against livestock as a whole, not just dairy. Well it's not really my case, just a sad reality
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Most people of North European descent absolutely have evolved to drink milk of another species. It’s one of the best examples of human evolution in recent (post ice-age) times and has occurred in more than one genetic group.
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A lot of that seems to be an argument for organic farming rather than veganism.
I guess your argument is that a lot of crops are used to feed animals, so if everyone was vegan then less would be grown which would enable rewilding. In reality, the same would be grown, but more would be exported, so you really need worldwide veganism.
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OK, well it's an case worth making, but I'd suggest that it's more likely to have success if the argument were finessed to take account of the different impacts not only of each sector (e.g. poultry being particularly egregious), but within sectors (e.g. in the south west, cattle and sheep often graze land which is entirely unsuited to arable). A blanket "One billion!" just sounds like picking a very big number to put people off the rearing of any animals in any circumstances - a bit like (for a very lazy analogy) Putin saying "Nuclear war!!" to try to avoid all the messiness and complications of a long term war in a country with multiple challenges.
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The problem with organic farming is more Co2 is released and increased land is needed for similar yields.
'A new study suggests that a switch to 100% organic food production in England and Wales would see an overall increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
While going fully organic would produce fewer direct emissions than conventional farming, researchers say it would limit food production.
As a result more imports would be needed, resulting in up to five times more land being used overseas.
Overall emissions could rise by 21% compared to the conventional approach.'
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