Subject: Re: Vegan Pc - again

From: "Michael Miller & Ute Bohnsack" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 14:13:06 +0100

Lee, I'm afraid you are mistaken where it comes to the space needed to feed
vegans/vegetarians versus 'omnivores'. Unfortunately a very big proportion
of the domestic
animals in the western world do not graze on native grasses or browse
trees/scrub - in fact, a lot of them never ever see so much as a blade of
grass; they are kept indoors and fed huge amounts of concentrates, grains,
soybeans etc.
which are grown in large-scale intensive tillage plots. I don't have up to
date figures but I saw figures in the early eighties which stated that
"four-fifth of Swiss cows 'graze' in the Third World", i.e. they were fed
on imported concentrates. Also think of the huge areas of rain-forest
cleared in the Amazon region to create grazing land for cattle to supply
beef burgers to the US. 
If the grains/legumes were eaten directly by humans it would take a lot
less space to feed them all.
Obviously it's a different story if we are talking about organic integrated
/ PC systems where animals are part of the nutrient cycle on a holding and
graze/browse areas that cannot be put to a use which would directly feed
humans.
Personally I was a vegetarian for 12 years. I now eat meat maybe once a
month (home-butchered goat kid or the odd chicken and home-butchered
venison or pork which the neighbours kindly supply at times). 
What I'm trying to say is that there are *huge* differences in terms of
production systems. 

I wholeheartedly agree with your other post "re: vegan permaculture".

Greetings from Ireland,
Ute

----------
: From: Lee Flier <[email-masked]>
: To: [email-masked]
: Subject: RE: Vegan Pc - again
: Date: 19 April 1998 07:45
[big snip]
.....  So I guess what I'm saying is that a
: community can support some number of vegans or vegetarians, but trying to
: form a whole community around veganism would, IMO, be ultimately a
problem.
:  Just the amount of land that would have to be used up to grow enough
: grains and legumes to support a lot of vegetarians, could be a problem.
: Whereas eating ruminants who graze on native grasses or tree browse
doesn't
: pose the same problem.  So again there is something of an impasse when
you
: try to incorporate veganism into PC... 
: 
: = Lee =
: 
: 
: 
: 
:
***************************************************************************
: Lee A Flier
: [email-masked]
: Atlanta and Ellijay, Georgia, U.S.A.
: http://lflier.home.mindspring.com

---

From: Lee Flier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 13:32:26 -0400

Ute wrote:

>which are grown in large-scale intensive tillage plots.

Yeah I know.  That's why I don't eat meat (well among other reasons).
However we aren't discussing animals the way they are raised in factory
farms, we're discussing Permaculture systems.  If you have no choice but to
eat factory farmed animals or else be vegetarian, believe me, I vote for
being vegetarian!  But when you design a Permaculture system you don't put
your whole piece of land under cultivation - a lot of it is presumably
restored to native forest or grassland, which contains a lot of things that
people can't eat but animals can.  However the people can eat the animals,
making it then unnecessary to put a lot of land under cultivation of wheat
and soybeans.  So in a PC system, animals make it possible to eat and
without destroying native ecosystems... that is obviously not the case in
conventional agriculture!

= Lee =

***************************************************************************
Lee A Flier
[email-masked]
Atlanta and Ellijay, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://lflier.home.mindspring.com

---

From: Lee Flier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 13:32:26 -0400

= Lee =