Image by Don-Pixel via Flickr
Amid Bennaim | Staff Writer
opinion@fiusm.com
Since the 1970s there have been a lot of people who turn to vegetarianism as a way to reduce their negative effects on nature, the general pain and gloom of life for livestock and the guilt that comes from knowing that, when it comes down to it, steak is animal muscle. There are two types of people who live this way. The first and largest group will eat fish and parts of harvested animals without killing them. Vegans, however, won’t eat any sort of animal product; they rely solely on first-tier energy producers like plants.
Let’s keep in mind the benefits of the vegetarian lifestyle.
Animals suffer in captivity. While the extent of this suffering can’t really be measured empirically, life is rough for livestock. Also, according to the EPA, raising these animals creates an environmental impact, mainly from methane created by cattle–yes, cattle farts–that traps much more heat than CO2.
Additionally, agriculture is one of the most destructive human activities. The farmer must clear acres of wild land to make space for the produce that the farmer will plant. Habitat loss is arguably the biggest threat to animal species worldwide, except perhaps climate change. The problem is that it takes more land to grow the equivalent of a cow’s worth of protein than the space that such a cow would take up.
However, this is not the true genocide. Mice are exterminated by the millions through agriculture. There is rat poison in the grain silos that store grain and there are mice that die from field pesticides. A study from Australia (the only place where such research exists) found that there are 500 to 1,000 mice per hectare of farmland and 80 percent of them are killed. If the land used for agriculture accounted for just 1 percent of Australia’s land mass it would be 7,686,850 hectares of land, so 2.5-6 billion mice die every year due to agriculture in that country alone. If everyone became a vegetarian, these numbers would skyrocket.
Even though pesticides and fertilizers are mostly made from petrochemicals, the organic alternative is also damaging to the environment. While organic farmers do less damage to the soil that they cultivate, the runoff of excess fertilizers causes putrefaction in nearby bodies of water. The Gulf of Mexico is a perfect example, most of which has slowly died due to the fertilizers that find their way into the Mississippi River. If cow excrement creates putrification around cattle pens it’s logical to expect that effect would be similar if the farmer sprinkled the manure on their produce. The same goes for pesticides, even organic farmers use natural pesticides which still kill the insects, spiders and mice.
In terms of greenhouse gasses, agriculture is not necessarily a good practice. The chemicals used in non-organic agriculture are mostly petroleum derivatives. While organic produce reduces the use of those chemicals, organic foods make up a small portion of agriculture and are expensive enough to keep many people from being able to buy them. All agriculture relies on heavy vehicles such as trucks and tractors and also uses up a lot of water.
The only way to reduce animal suffering is by changing our behaviour as consumers, which is exactly what vegetarians are doing. However, turning everyone into a vegetarian doesn’t sound feasible and some ways of raising livestock are much more humane than others. While the end result of killing the animal will not change, the life of the animal could be much less miserable. There should probably be a law protecting the rights of livestock, but considering that animals aren’t entitled to rights according to the law and that the cattle industry is very rich and profitable, I wouldn’t bet my savings on that happening soon.
My recommendation: Buy local! To me this is the most important step to take. Chickens have a shorter lifespan, require less space to raise and are much healthier sources of protein than cows and pigs. Farm raised fish don’t deplete the natural fish populations and recent breakthroughs in technology allow the fish farms to be in the open sea–as opposed to bays and pools which is the current method–which greatly reduces the problem caused by fish waste. If you do chose to eat red meat, the least destructive form of doing that is by eating free range cows –- cattle raised in pastures eating grass.
Lastly, if you can afford it, eat organic. The ideal way to reduce your footprint – for those who have time – is to have a small vegetable garden to reduce your dependence on agricultural produce. These foods require no transportation and the gardener controls exactly what goes into the food, but not all of us can afford the spare time.