Farming, The Environment, Morality And Vegetarians

[Tokis-Phoenix]

In this thread would i like to discuss a couple of issues on farming, the environment, vegetarians and morality. The first one is vegetarianism for the environment;
1. Now days there seems to be an increasing amount of people becoming vegetarians or vegans for environmental rather than moral reasons. Often one of the main arguments used by such people is that animals like cows, sheep, pigs etc produce a lot of gas which is thus bad for the environment due to pollution. But what people do not realise is that veg/fruit/general crop farming is not necessarily environmentally friendly at all.
Pesticides and herbicides cover so much of our green stuff now days which is obviously bad for both the environment and wildlife it holds (and also bad for our health too), and much of the veg and fruit in supermarkets is shipped over from abroad or goes abroad to be packaged etc- all this travel/transport and packaging causes much pollution and damage to the environment. It’s pretty much impossible to live a nutritionally balanced diet of plants native to your country which are not shipped or packaged from abroad. Veganism is only possible due to a great variety of non-native plants to eat in their countries, and even so many vegans risk suffering serious nerve damage through lack of certain B vitamins not obtained in their plant-only diet (ironically, as far as i am aware pill supplements for such b vitamins come from animals either way, so the vegan diet cannot be supplemented with such pills without breaking the diets rules).
Crops like rice are bad for the environment as well, according to the International Rice Research Institute, the world's rice fields in 2004 covered some 1,532,570 sq km (600,000 square miles) - an area equivalent to more than six United Kingdoms- rice paddies give off substantial quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

A lot of people also do not take into consideration that animal farming and agriculture go hand in hand as to grow plants you need fertiliser, and the main source of fertiliser is from animal excrement produced from animal farming. Although animals produce a lot of gas, their waste is vital to the success of agriculture- so in a way, even vegetarians support the farming of animals through the need for fertiliser for their vegetables etc.
But what about human waste you say- surely that can be used in place of animal waste? Human waste can be used but due to all the bleach and chemicals in it, is not a very environmentally friendly process to make it suitable for the fields- it also smells incredibly disgusting, even in when compared to pig muck, and thus people living around or near fields spread with such waste are often not happy at all. Human waste is also terribly acidic- not bad if you live in a highly alkaline chalk land soil orientated area where the ph of the soil could do with a little acidity, but more than often it is too acidic for the crops and soils to be of any good.

Also on the subject of the crops themselves, fields are getting more and more massive as the decades go by. The day of the picturesque little meadow is a very distant picture from the hundreds of acres of industrial one-crop fields of today. This is bad for the environment since it is bad for biodiversity over large area’s of land- animals like the hare suffer badly from this, rather than poaching, it is the lack of biodiversity in the flora caused by today’s large scale agricultural farming methods that is causing its large decline in hare numbers since WW2. The hare is not only an exception- there are many examples of wildlife suffering through a lack of biodiversity today caused by the modern farming methods used by the masses.

Also, when farming animals outdoors like cows, they do not need pesticides and herbicides sprayed on their fields for them to eat the grass. Fields which are not farmed for crops are very important for the environment as there is a great variety of insects/bugs, varieties of plants and animals that live off them other than the grasses that dominate the fields. If you banned all farming of animals, not only would we be completely struck for fertilisers which are not chemical based for our crops, importing veg/fruit/plants from abroad would massively increasing causing more pollution and strain on our resources (think of all those fossils fuels to power the lorries and ships), biodiversity would also go down even further due to more pressure for crops etc.


Personally, I believe that simply being a vegetarian or vegan certainly does not make you anymore environmentally friendly that a meat eater/omnivore. Certainly the current state of the farming of animals has much to be desired, it could certainly be done a lot more environmentally friendly and morally better in a lot of ways, but when gone about correctly it can actually be very environmentally friendly, even more so than agriculture in some cases. Either way, the farming of animals will never cease to be, it will always be a part of our lifestyle and diet, history and future, so IMHO, I think we might as well choose the more environmentally friendly forms of animal farming and agriculture rather than blindly believing that simply changing to a vegan or vegetarian diet is somehow always better for the environment and its wildlife (which it isn’t).


2. I can still understand why some people may choose to become vegans or vegetarians though due to the fact they don’t like the killing of animals.
But I believe that simply removing yourself from the animal food chain will not change the way things are- vegans/vegetarians make up a minority of the population, and their dietry choices may little difference to the way farming is gone about. Regardless of whether you eat animals or consume or use animal products or not, animals will be farmed and killed regardless of your personal decisions.

Personally, I don’t care if animals are killed or not as long as;
a. They are killed in a humane manner, which is quick and does not cause unnecessary stress or suffering.
b. They are killed for a justifiable purpose/reason- I personally think killing an animal for food is a justifiable reason, if I didn’t I would be a vegetarian as we speak lol.
c. They are not endangered or threatened or anything like that.

But I think to lead a morally correct diet you don’t need to become a vegan or vegetarian or anything like that. The problem with the current state of farming is that there are many methods/practices of farming, and many of them hardly take the welfare or quality of life of the animal into consideration.

Pretty much every farm animal you can think of (yes even ducks), people have found a way to farm them in an inhumane manner. From battery/barn range or intensive dairy and veal farming, to 0 grazing or the use of gestation crates for sows, there are many cruel farming practices widely used in our countries today.
From my experience, if a food product does not state its ingredients are free range or organic, they most likely aren’t. I’ve worked in food factories in the past myself so know this to be true as well- those cakes you buy in the supermarket, battery eggs, that pre-sliced ham for your sandwiches- battery pig meat. The burgers you buy at McDonalds, “spent†cows from intensive dairy farming and veal farming- the dog/cat food you buy for your pets, all battery and 0 grazing, the chicken tikka, battery chicken etc etc. Dairy cows in particular go through a lot of suffering and dairy farming is also directly related to the veal industry (which has many bad aspects to it).
So you get the point- a lot of our animal products are farming with cruel and inhumane farming methods. If you would like to know more on why they are bad, I can tell you if you want, but for now I want to get straight to the point.

Such immoral farming methods are only used because people pay for the animal products they produce. People either turn a blind eye to the suffering and hell the animals had to go through while the person is eating their KFC chicken drumsticks, or they are simply ignorant or in the dark information wise about such things.
I think a lot of the farming methods today used are absolutely appalling, but I also don’t think that becoming a vegetarian is not the answer either- to really change such thing, you need to buy whats good, instead of completely not buying anything at all or just buying the bad and turning a blind eye to the situation. Start by using local shops which are not run by huge supermarket corporations and sell humanely farmed animal products- regardless of what you buy at supermarkets, all supermarkets own and run their own battery farms and the more you buy off any supermarket, the more such farms will be funded. Also, by supporting the non massive corporation businesses, you will be doing good for your local economy and diversity of the area in which you live in and also it will be good for your health as you will go out more and will be generally buying better quality produce etc.

Many people say the price of humanely farmed animal products is an issue, they are too expensive- but seriously, what is 10p’s difference when you can buy free range eggs over some poor quality battery or barn range farmed ones?
IMHO, if you can afford to eat, you can afford to make choices in your diet- if you are truly poor, they stick to buying fresh vegetables and fruits and avoid pre-packaged and cooked meals and simply cook from scratch (which in the vast majority of cases, is much cheaper than buying pre-made meals, and also has the benefit of you having the choice to not have a dozen E numbers, preservatives and chemicals which you can’t even pronounce etc in your meals).
And when it comes down to it, humanely farmed animal products are only often more expensive than inhumanly farmed ones because people aren’t buying enough of them and are choosing the bad and cheap over the good and reasonably priced- if more people buy a certain product, its price will inevitably go down.

When it comes down to it, I doubt the government will make any changes to the current state of affairs with farming anytime soon, so I think it is down to us, the consumers to make the changes- we also have the most power of all when it comes to these decisions, so I think we should make these changes and educate others to help make a better country, healthier population and better and cleaner environment with more wildlife etc.

There’s more I want to say on this topic, but what are your opinions so far on these issues raised here?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

There's no real solution, really. It's just one problem after another. For example:

Positive:
Suppose battery farms get banned. Animals get to be raised healthy and humanely in appropriate farms/grazing lands. Consumers get healthy, organic meat.

Negative:
There aren't enough grazing lands to properly house all the animals that are currently kept in battery farms (this is assuming that we need the same amount of animals to meet market demands). Trees/Forests will have to be cut down to be turned into grazing lands. We're also taking away grazing areas from wild horses and other animals. This was an actual issue --- there was a clash between the wild horse conservationists and herders in Texas some years ago. Apparently the cows were taking over the grazing areas of wild horses. There were also some reports of cowboys killing them and selling them to dog food factories to eliminate competition. It can only get worse

I would say that we are actually producing too much meat, we are also extremely wasteful when it comes to farming animal products- part of this is because the general public is not very well informed, but also because being wasteful seems to have become a part of our culture.
There are many good cuts of meat that people are simply unnaware of, and many parts of the animal that go wasted which actually taste very good.
I havn't read up much about the wild horse situation in Texas, but also as far as i am aware its not like horses are native to Texas either way? Horses aren't native to america, they were only brought over when we arrived in there- to be honest i think we should be caring less about conserving non-native species of animals such as horses in Texas, and be putting more focus on native animals like buffalo. Overall though, i think cattle are being over-farmed in places like Texas, the native ecosystems are too fragile and often can't handle the vast ammounts of cattle and the land is turned to waste.
I do not doubt that animal farming can sometimes certainly be bad for the environment just as much as agriculture can be, particularly when such things take priority over the environment.

EDIT:
(I'm not singling you out or anything, just a general observation)

I also find it funny that only those that are well off (read: non-third world country citizens) would stop and question the correlation of food-environment-morality. Last time I checked, third world countries outnumber first and second world countries combined. They don't really care if the meat that they're eating came from battery farms, or if the rice/vegetables that they are eating are causing greenhouse effect. They're just happy they could eat. Does that make them immoral when they pretty much didn't have a choice on what (and in most cases when) to eat?

They are different cultures, different situations... I don't think battery farming is morally correct no matter where it is done and under whatever situations, but at the same time we don't really have the right to impose our culture upon theirs. People eat dogs in korea- do i think it is right? No, in the vast majority of cases. But then again, i don't have the right to go there and start forcing my cultural beliefs upon their's.
It would be a bit like saying people in the mountains of New Guenea(sp?) are grateful to eat bush meat like barbequed gorilla or monkey when they can, but does this make it morally correct?
Also, coming from a well off/non-third world country i also have the privilage of coming from a more educated and aware background than a lot of people living in third world countries have access to. Perhaps i come to my current beliefs simply because of this? Maybe so, but i don't think that makes them wrong. I certainly don't think that battery farming has come about because of poverty (and i don't think it is the answer to the feeding problems of third world countries either) but rather the opposite, it has only come about in modern times when we have been free of money concerns over food. People living in poverty need employment to make money, you actually need to employ more people to run a morally correct farm than what you need to run a battery farm.

 

[PlecMama]

I think FKNM has made the point that usually comes to mind. There's a lot of money to be spent "doing the right thing" and while I don't knock anyone else for doing it, I personally can not afford to spend £8 on a joint of free range meat when I can pay £3 for a farmed joint. It probably does taste better from a flavour and moral pov, but for me, it's all about the money.

I support my family on one salary, we shop late at night when they reduce the perishables. We bought a joint of pork, a joint of beef, some minced pork and some sliced turkey tonight for a grand total of £5. It should have been £15 at full price. The turkey was £6, the pork joint £3, the beef £4 and the mince £2. I paid £1.50, £1.00, £1.89 and 58p for them.

The pork was organic but not specified as free range, the rest - well, I try not to think about how it must have lived, I just try to do the best for my family.

I don't believe in man-made Global Warming, I do believe that we are destroying our environment when we clear forests to graze animals or farm crops, but until I start growing my own crops and rearing my own animals and become totally self sufficient, I can not critisize anyone else for providing the products I want, at a price I want to pay.

I'd love to support the local bakery, but a loaf of bread is £1.19 there and in ASDA at 8pm it's 10p.....Einstein not required.

 

[-germ-]

Not had the time to read everything here so sorry if i'm repeating someone, but (in the UK) farming is hardly worthwhile for the farmers anymore, farming in England has proportionally one of the highest suicide rates for any profession. With cheap imports from Argentina, New Zealand etc. etc. its increasingly hard for farmers to make a living. With farm owning generally being a generational hand down, this leaves many farmers convinced they have no applicable skill outside farming, with alot of land and outside of intensive farming (or even then) great difficulty turning a profit.
Did anyone hear about the small scandal in Scotland recently? Where farmers were renting their land to knowledgable individuals who then ignored their land (no money in it) but used their deed to claim lucrative farming subsidies from the government.
British farmers may have the publics support in thought; but not in deed, in fact as was mentioned earlier, due to the cost of living in the UK, little can we afford to......

 

[andywg]

I used to live near farming communities in the UK. the reason most farmers don't have a great deal of support is because we never saw a poor farmer. They were all driving around in brand new cars and had plenty of money.

It might not be like that for everyone, but there isn't the saying "Have you ever seen a poor farmer?" for no reason.

As an interesting environmental point on the effects of farming (from wiki citing the UN):

According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock is responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. This however includes land usage change, meaning deforestation in order to create grazing land. In the Amazon, 70% of deforestation is to make way for grazing land, so this is the major factor in the 2006 UN FAO report, which was the first agricultural report to include land usage change into the radiative forcing of livestock. In addition to CO2 emissions, livestock produces 65% percent of human-induced nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of human-induced methane (which has 23 times the global warming potential of CO2)

 

[-germ-]

On your second point, if farming and the killing of cattle wasn't so common there'd be a hell of alot more cows to create methane.
On your first, no i've never heard that phrase, maybe its area specific or the farmers near you had taken up intensive farming....
I come from a farming background and the idea that most farmers are rich is mind-bogglingly ignorant. Most traditional farmers have been bought out by business men who use their land to provide stock for tesco and such like = loads of money!
I'd assume if the saying is well known it must be quite an old saying? 50 years ago we didn't have the huge amounts of imports we have today so traditional farmers were probably alot better off?
There is a SERIOUS issue as regards traditional farming!

 

[-germ-]

Farming issues...
Farmers, however, continued to receive world market prices for their produce and the total income from UK farming rose to a high in excess of £5 billion in 1995/6.[9]

Between 1996 and 2000 the pound increased in value against the ecu/euro by approximately 33% and as a consequence farm prices and incomes fell dramatically. The total income from UK farming fell by 70% from its 1996 high to a low of £1.8 billion in 2001/2 in the year of foot and mouth. It has since recovered slightly, rising to £2.36 billion in 2002 and to £3.23 billion in 2003.[10]

Despite the recent recovery, the underlying pattern is of a long-term decline in farm incomes. The total income generated by agriculture has declined in real terms by around 40% over the past 30 years (see figure below).

Annual surveys by Deloitte & Touche show that the average net farm income fell dramatically from £80,000 in 1995/6 to £8,000 in 2000 and to £2,500 during 2001, the year of foot and mouth.[12] The average net farm income has since recovered somewhat, to £10,100 in 2001/2002, and to £12,500 in 2002/3.[13]

But incomes for some, predominantly small farmers, remain well below the minimum wage.[14] 69% of farmers are still reliant on farming as their primary source of income.[15] But an increasing number of farmers now work part-time off the farm, relying on this non-farm income to support their businesses.

It is a widely held belief that farmers are creaming in a fortune through European subsidies. UK farmers received almost £2.6 billion in subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2002.[16]

But because subsidies are production-based (i.e. the more acres of cereals you grow or the more animals you have, the greater the subsidy), the bulk of the subsidy goes to the larger, richer farms.[17] It is commonly stated that within the EU 80% of farm subsidies go to 20% of farmers.

However, the majority of UK farmers (63%) receive less than £5,000 a year in farm subsidies,[18] and some sectors - pigs, poultry and horticulture - receive no subsidies at all (see 'The subsidy myth' section below).

 

[geo7x]

I'm a vegetarian myself, and im not having a moan at you or anything, but it does kind of get on my nerves when people say

But I believe that simply removing yourself from the animal food chain will not change the way things are- vegans/vegetarians make up a minority of the population, and their dietry choices may little difference to the way farming is gone about. Regardless of whether you eat animals or consume or use animal products or not, animals will be farmed and killed regardless of your personal decisions.

personally i think that is quite a shallow thing to say, just because we might not make a difference, does it mean to say I should be eating meat? I know being a vegetarian wont, but i still wouldnt be able to bare shoving a pork chop down my throat, because i know its been slaughtered. It's not all about whether it will make a difference.
I think its slightly hypocritical to say that we cant make a difference anyway when you say this:

When it comes down to it, I doubt the government will make any changes to the current state of affairs with farming anytime soon, so I think it is down to us, the consumers to make the changes- we also have the most power of all when it comes to these decisions, so I think we should make these changes and educate others to help make a better country, healthier population and better and cleaner environment with more wildlife etc.

I know its your opinion and I have no problem in your ambition in this matter, infact i admire it, but it doesnt mean to say that vegetarians who want to see a change cant have their own ambitions.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I think FKNM has made the point that usually comes to mind. There's a lot of money to be spent "doing the right thing" and while I don't knock anyone else for doing it, I personally can not afford to spend £8 on a joint of free range meat when I can pay £3 for a farmed joint. It probably does taste better from a flavour and moral pov, but for me, it's all about the money.

I support my family on one salary, we shop late at night when they reduce the perishables. We bought a joint of pork, a joint of beef, some minced pork and some sliced turkey tonight for a grand total of £5. It should have been £15 at full price. The turkey was £6, the pork joint £3, the beef £4 and the mince £2. I paid £1.50, £1.00, £1.89 and 58p for them.

The pork was organic but not specified as free range, the rest - well, I try not to think about how it must have lived, I just try to do the best for my family.

I don't believe in man-made Global Warming, I do believe that we are destroying our environment when we clear forests to graze animals or farm crops, but until I start growing my own crops and rearing my own animals and become totally self sufficient, I can not critisize anyone else for providing the products I want, at a price I want to pay.

I'd love to support the local bakery, but a loaf of bread is £1.19 there and in ASDA at 8pm it's 10p.....Einstein not required.

When it comes down to it though, the only reason why poorly farmed animal products are cheap is because people like you buy them- and there are a lot of people in your position at that that do this. In a way you are your own worst enemy in this aspect, you want better quality food products but you are not willing to pay for them?
The only way food prices for better quality farmed products are ever going to drop is by;
a. People choosing the good over the bad for health and/or moral reasons.
b. Rely less on supermarkets- almost all supermarkets run their own battery farms, its not in their best interests if good farmed animal product prices fall too low. However, supermarkets will have to lower their prices for better quality meat if other places start to (and they will be able if people buy more of their good farmed animal products) as the supermarkets will be forced to compete with them.
If battery farm no longer becomes justifiable/profitable enough, it will cease to be.

Basically, with food, you pay for what you get. If you spent 10p on a loaf of bread you can only really expect to buy some pre-sliced rubbish sprayed with mold killer (ever wonder why bread last for ages and then suddenly goes moldy over night? Mold killer. They use it on all pre-sliced bread to prevent it going stale or moldy, but when it wears off, which it does quickly, the bread practically turns into a fungus overnight when it does), which is about a fortnight old by the time you buy it and is already stale but only artifically kept fresh by chemical preservatives.
If you pay £1.19 though, you can expect to get something reshly made that morning made out of proper ingredients with real effect put into the making of it and not excessive salt, sugar or mold killers/preservatives etc.

Even better- buy a bread making machine and make your own bread. This is what i do- i just measure out some ingredients, chuck it in the machine and then come back a couple of hours later and there's a freshly baked loaf of bread in the machine- its also cheaper in the long run to have bread this way, and the machine can be used for much more than just making the standard loaf too.


We live in a very wealthy country, but we have some of the worst eating habits in the world IMHO. Our children are raised on pre-made ready meals and foods with more E numbers, preservatives, colourings, additives, flavourings, chemicals you can't even pronounce and on top of everything, pumped full of more sugar and salt than you would believe. We feed them the worst quality foods, often due to the price (even though we live in wealthy countries), and now we are beginning to pay the consequences in our health and environment.

It is also worrying because a lot of battery farmed animals are fed chemicals which are banned for human consumption, but not animal consumption, often due to things like high cancer causing ingredients or chemicals which cause retarded mental growth etc. But there are now worries that these chemicals and toxins are being passed from the animals to us when we eat them rather like how mercury builds up in marine food chains or pesticide and herbicide chemicals in wild predatory birds from their prey. We don't know what the consequences of these chemicals and toxins built up in our food chains are going to have on us yet as it is too soon to tell, but there are already worrying signs- to be honest, i would not want to risk paying the consequences for the effects of eating poorly farmed animal products for a life time if purely due to all the chemicals/toxins/hormone's these animals are fed.

Another reason why battery farming is "popular" is because land is at a premium. They can't just buy land anywhere and build a ranch with grazing areas. Weather and topography have a lot of influence. Texas have been overfarmed and overrun with cattle herders because of that. California's a good cattle ranch location but it's really expensive here. From a business standpoint it's cheaper and more profitable to run a battery farm than an open range one. Ban battery farming and you'll see the prices go up. First and second world countries will recover from the sticker shock, but third world countries will not. The meat that they can barely afford will be even more out of their reach.

I'm all for saving the environment and all, but I just can't see people starve for morality's sake. It's a tough call, but that's what I believe in right now.

Seriously, people would not starve if there's no battery farmed meat- you don't think that people were starving before battery farming became popular in the 70's or couldn't afford animal products do you?
Besides this thread is primarily about where we live, not people living in third world countries and such- their issues are a completely different problem- personally i don't see their problems getting any better until their corrupt governments are dealt with and some form of control over the population problems is done. People living in various parts of Africa will always live in poverty for as long as their governments stay corrupt and they cannot handle their massive population and birth rate problems.
Anyway, firstly there are plenty of others things you can eat, secondly the market would be very quickly be filled up by better farmers in the situation of a battery farm ban, and thirdly it would improve the local economies. Besides, i'm not asking for a ban on battery farming as i know that certainly within my lifetime it will not happen, i am simply trying to make people more aware of the consequences of what they are buying and eating so they will make the moral decision themselves.


If you really want to see what you are financially supporting with your money every time you buy such farmed animal products, see here;



http/www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp


fishkiller_nomore and SuzieQPlecMama you should see the above link.
You go a long way to create a good aquarium, with happy fish which are not kept in cruelty. I’m sure you would never intentionally cause an animal suffering- you would never put a kitten in a box and force it to live in its own excrement, never seeing the light of day or breath fresh air.
But in essence you are doing that in a way- you might as well say ‘â€here, I will give you some money if you keep this chicken in a cage so small it cannot even stretch its wings and is given chemicals and hormones to produce an abnormal amount of eggs which causes it much pain and its life is generally one of suffering and hell etc. Every time you farm this way, I’ll give you money for it†when you buy battery farmed eggs for example.
This is essentially what you are doing every time you buy such farmed products- what you buy is what you inevitably end up financially supporting.

Not had the time to read everything here so sorry if i'm repeating someone, but (in the UK) farming is hardly worthwhile for the farmers anymore, farming in England has proportionally one of the highest suicide rates for any profession. With cheap imports from Argentina, New Zealand etc. etc. its increasingly hard for farmers to make a living. With farm owning generally being a generational hand down, this leaves many farmers convinced they have no applicable skill outside farming, with alot of land and outside of intensive farming (or even then) great difficulty turning a profit.
Did anyone hear about the small scandal in Scotland recently? Where farmers were renting their land to knowledgable individuals who then ignored their land (no money in it) but used their deed to claim lucrative farming subsidies from the government.
British farmers may have the publics support in thought; but not in deed, in fact as was mentioned earlier, due to the cost of living in the UK, little can we afford to......

Yes farming is a tough way of life, IMHO, to be honest you shouldn't do it unless you are doing it for the lifestyle aspects of farming and are not massively concerned with making a lot of money from it. Suicide rates are very high amongst farmers- they have to work exceptionally hard to make hardly any money, and most farmers barely scrape by financially every year. Even my mother who runs a very large farm has to work very hard just to keep the place afloat.

But it means that for every farmer who is able to farm their animals in a morally correct and humane manner, we should give them our highest respects and support as much as possible for their massive achievements so we do not end up losing all of our farmers who make an effort to be good and not go down the intensive/battery farming route etc to make some quick cash.

Farming issues...
Farmers, however, continued to receive world market prices for their produce and the total income from UK farming rose to a high in excess of £5 billion in 1995/6.[9]

Between 1996 and 2000 the pound increased in value against the ecu/euro by approximately 33% and as a consequence farm prices and incomes fell dramatically. The total income from UK farming fell by 70% from its 1996 high to a low of £1.8 billion in 2001/2 in the year of foot and mouth. It has since recovered slightly, rising to £2.36 billion in 2002 and to £3.23 billion in 2003.[10]

Despite the recent recovery, the underlying pattern is of a long-term decline in farm incomes. The total income generated by agriculture has declined in real terms by around 40% over the past 30 years (see figure below).

Yes the major problem with farming at the moment is foreign imported food prices taking over the market. How can you posibly compete with someone when it costs £500's per year to raise and keep a single cow (and so you must sell the cow for more than that to make any profit), when someone from another country is selling cows in yours for just £300's a cow?? Same goes for crops and other animals etc...
I think the government should take more responsibility over imported animal products.

I'm a vegetarian myself, and im not having a moan at you or anything, but it does kind of get on my nerves when people say

But I believe that simply removing yourself from the animal food chain will not change the way things are- vegans/vegetarians make up a minority of the population, and their dietry choices may little difference to the way farming is gone about. Regardless of whether you eat animals or consume or use animal products or not, animals will be farmed and killed regardless of your personal decisions.

personally i think that is quite a shallow thing to say, just because we might not make a difference, does it mean to say I should be eating meat? I know being a vegetarian wont, but i still wouldnt be able to bare shoving a pork chop down my throat, because i know its been slaughtered. It's not all about whether it will make a difference.
I think its slightly hypocritical to say that we cant make a difference anyway when you say this:

When it comes down to it, I doubt the government will make any changes to the current state of affairs with farming anytime soon, so I think it is down to us, the consumers to make the changes- we also have the most power of all when it comes to these decisions, so I think we should make these changes and educate others to help make a better country, healthier population and better and cleaner environment with more wildlife etc.

I know its your opinion and I have no problem in your ambition in this matter, infact i admire it, but it doesnt mean to say that vegetarians who want to see a change cant have their own ambitions.

Thats your moral decision, if you don't want to eat any thats been killed then that is your decision.

But my point is the only way you can make a stand by being vegetarian for anti-animal slaughter reasons against the farming industry is by essentially saying "i disagree with the slaughtering and thus farming of animals" through your decision. But the thing is the world will never be completely vegetarian and give up animal farming or the killing of animals for that matter, it is simply impossible for numerous reasons, and by being vegetarian you will never change the way animals are being farmed because all you ae doing by being vegetarian is simply removing yourself from the situation rather than taking a part in it and saying "i want good farmed animal products" or "i want bad farmed animal products".
That is what i don't get about vegetarians who don't eat meat because they want to change things with the way farming is done.

In your situation you don't eat meat simply because you don't like eating animals which have been killed so you don't eat animals at all, so i am not argueing against the logic of your decision as it is purely a personal choice of yours and so far you do not seem concerned about being a vegetarian to change the bigger picture of farming and the way animals are farmed, only the issue of them being slaughtered is what made you vegetarian.


Farming will always be around. You can never stop that regardless of what dietry or lifestyle decisions you make- but the consumer can change the way animals are farmed (which i think is more important).


I gtg now, my laptop is being sent off for repairs and so I may not be here for a couple of weeks, but I hope to return to this thread as soon as possible either way.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sort of side issue but a lot of people think that simply by being vegetarian they are stopping the slaughter of animals (well not stopping it, but it's supply and demand, if they stop buying and eating meat the demand reduces and therefore supply will eventually reduce proportionally) however the dairy and cottage farming industries go hand in hand, what do you think happens to the cow's after they've produced your milk? if you do not wish to support cottage industries you should also not support dairy industries i.e. go vegan. it really surprises me how many people are not aware of this. i do think there is a lot of 'blind' vegetarianism, whereby people think i don't like animals being slaughtered, I don't want to eat it therefore I'm going veggie and that's the end of it without finding out what other products are linked to the cottage industries and also withdraw support from them.

get a lot of this with my family, my dad and sis are both vegan, my sisters incredibly strict about it. don't know how they have the discipline personally.

 

[-germ-]

my head hurts.....
Just to quote you; "to be honest you shouldn't do it unless you are doing it for the lifestyle aspects of farming and are not massively concerned with making a lot of money from it."
Most traditional, and by your account morally at ease farmers, are born into that lifestyle rather than happening on it as a career choice.
A small pedantic point...

 

[andywg]

-germ-

Had I not had to fight to prevent farmers selling off land left right and centre trying to break our village envelope in order to make money for themselves, I would be more inclined to feel sympathy for them.

That Deloitte report mentioned above (though I can't open the link) shows they used to receive £80,000 net on average in 1995/6. That is a huge amount. That is the profit after all other costs are deducted (and all the farmers' living expenses will come out of that).

For me to earn that much on a PAYE I would need a salary of over £125,000. And I would have to deduct living expenses such as food and heating from that amount.

So let's be honest, until very recently they have had it good.

And any subsidy is better than what almost any other sector gets. I didn't see the government paying out to help IT programmers keep programming regardless of what programs were needed after the dot com bust.

I repeat, I have never seen a poor farmer. And despite growing up in a somewhat rural area, neither have any of my friends or family, or anyone I have met.

 

[-germ-]

I repeat, I have never seen a poor farmer. And despite growing up in a somewhat rural area, neither have any of my friends or family, or anyone I have met.

Sorry to again be a pedant but i hate sweeping statements, have you ever polled your friends, family and the people you meet to ask if they'd ever seen a poor farmer? Lets be realistic.... That statement is no defence! It is however magnificently daft
I can see your point i digress......
Your opinion is obviously based on a personal grievance so there'd be no point in debating the subject against your dogmatic (?) opinions (there never is.....)
Peas.

 

[andywg]

I repeat, I have never seen a poor farmer. And despite growing up in a somewhat rural area, neither have any of my friends or family, or anyone I have met.

Sorry to again be a pedant but i hate sweeping statements, have you ever polled your friends, family and the people you meet to ask if they'd ever seen a poor farmer? Lets be realistic.... That statement is no defence! It is however magnificently daft
I can see your point i digress......
Your opinion is obviously based on a personal grievance so there'd be no point in debating the subject against your dogmatic (?) opinions (there never is.....)
Peas.

My opinion is not just personal grievance. I still state, I have never seen a poor farmer, and we have discussed this at family get togethers and at least 20 of my family living from Kent to the Midlands have never seen one either.

And being pedantic myself, my statement was not at all sweeping. Saying that none of my freinds or family have seen one is mostly positiely confirmed. All of my relatives have been present at get togethers when the question is asked

"Have you ever known a poor farmer?"

No one has been able to answer in the affirmative. So it is not as daft as you would make out. It is based on my observations. No one has ever been able to show me a poor farmer. A sweeping statement would be to say that "All farmers are rich". My statement allows for the possibility, but points out I am yet to see it.

Perhaps I should have worded it slightly different stating that in many discussions with friends family and people I have met no one has ever mentioned knowing a poor farmer.

Maybe I do start from a slightly sceptical view, but that is me. The only problem with farming is it is catching up with the real world, in which a large amount of primary manufacture is handled by fewer, larger organisations. That is the way the world goes.

No one provided subsidies for small corner shops to protect them from Tescos. Likewise, there should be no subsidies to protect small farmers just because they can't compete. They have had it good for years and years, now they haven't.

Thems is the breaks I'm afraid.

I know for a fact that whenever my family is in financial trouble we have to start looking at other jobs and reigning in spending. If there really was a demand for traditional farming then the prices would be there to sustain them.

 

[PlecMama]

Tokis, we're not stupid, we realize the evils of factory and intensive farming, but it's about the money. Simple. We are not our own worse enemies, we are not lamenting the quality of our food, just the price. Simply stating that we can't afford the morals you want us to have.

No real "poor" person buys ready meals, they are to expensive. Notice I said I bought a joint of pork, beef, sliced turkey and mince - no ready made meals there, tonight one will be in a pasta sauce, one will become a casserole, Sunday one will become a roast and in the mean time, one will be in sandwiches.

Even better- buy a bread making machine and make your own bread. This is what i do- i just measure out some ingredients, chuck it in the machine and then come back a couple of hours later and there's a freshly baked loaf of bread in the machine- its also cheaper in the long run to have bread this way, and the machine can be used for much more than just making the standard loaf too.

...how can you preach to me when you don't even know that bread flour is more expensive then cheap bread? go shopping on £30 a week then come back and tell me how moral you can afford to be. No harm meant, but you sound like you think you are not only taking the moral high ground but believe you are standing on a superior intellectual plane - just because you have more money then us.