Pest control

[pincerna]

In a recent discussion I was having online about veganism, someone tried to tell me that veganism killed a comparable amount of animals to being omni because vegans consume more plants than omnis, and some farmers use lethal methods of pest control to protect their crops. This person worked in pest control, but wouldn't give me an estimate as to

Comments

[aggie_zag]

someone tried to tell me that veganism killed a comparable amount of animals to being omni...

We do consume more plants than omnis, but way more plants are produced to feed the animals that omnis eat, so definitely fewer animals are killed when you eat a vegan diet.

[asmallplanet]

Agreed. One of the posts with the same tag as this has an email from PETA that says, for the USA, more than half of the grain produced goes to feed animals and the USA would need to grow less grain if it was a vegetarian nation.

[pincerna]

That's true, but I the person I was discussing this with was talking specifically about free-range animals who are only fed on pasture + otherwise inedible parts of the grain (i.e no grain is grown specifically for them).

[asmallplanet]

There probably isn't enough range land to support free range animals to the level of meat consumption in the USA at the moment. Also often free range animals have their grazing supplemented with feed. That becomes vital in droughts so it should be factored in averaged over the years.

In Australia, some people say we should eat kangaroos, but aside from other factors, the current cull and slaughter of roos provides a tiny amount of meat. Not enough to replace cattle, and there isn't room for any more free range kangaroos and we couldn't kill more roos as the roo population wouldn't survive. Also the roo population is fed on grain planted by farmers.

Unfortunately, situations are usually more complex than first imagined. Confounds me all too often.

[asmallplanet]

PS: Those free range hoofed animals would be killing heaps of ants etc that they stepped on or inadvertantly consumed when they chewed on some grass that had a bug or caterpiller happily living on it until a huge mouth gobbled it and leafy home up. Many livestock animals also have to be treated for pests like ticks and other insects, so they would die also. So I really don't think the free range animal causing less death argument has any certainty or even credibility.

[pincerna]

I hadn't really thought of either of those things, thanks. :) The insects thing I was really wondering about because they're harder to get rid off with non-lethal methods. It would be nice if someone would do a study on it or something so we could know for sure.

[asmallplanet]

No worries. Some of it was stuff I'd thought of or read before, but other bits I thought of when I wrote them, and that's fun to do. :)

[greenanimal]

This.