The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Stirring the possum - eat to save the planet > Comments

Stirring the possum - eat to save the planet : Comments

By Geoff Russell, published 13/11/2008

Apart from being an inefficient and polluting food source, livestock is the largest driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
Some interesting points raised here, both by the writer and the panellists he's critiquing, all showing that when it comes to what we eat we really do face enormous and quite probably unsolvable dilemmas.

Raising livestock is environmentally damaging and often entails enormous cruelty to the animals involved, and yet the protein it provides is essential to good health for many people.

Eating a diet high in animal protein, along with high fruit and vegetable content, does make it possible to eat less food. The food stays with you longer and makes it easier to survive on three meals with minimum snacking. The consequent eating of less grain and junk food has to be a bonus for the planet.

Protein is good brain food and many mental health conditions can be greatly ameliorated by eating more of it. O blood group people in particular benefit from eating meat. So, while meat eating has obvious costs, I don't think the corollary of switching to veganism or vegetarianism is necessarily a healthy option for all people.

It's extremely convenient for agribusiness to promote the myth that high fertiliser, high pesticide, high food mile, high tech, genetically-modified and large-scale agricultural production is needed to feed the hungry. It ignores the fact that many of these 'hungry' once fed themselves and their villages perfectly capably. That was before western 'wisdom' forced them into their current subservience to GM and fertiliser conglomerates, to whom they have to pay huge amounts for inputs they once never needed, and all for the privilege of growing produce their families can't eat.

It's a difficult debate with no easy answers, but hopefully Geoff's contribution 'stirs' some interesting discussion.
Posted by Bronwyn, Thursday, 13 November 2008 11:18:27 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Bronwyn: If you check the NHMRC Nutrient Reference Values

http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/PUBLICATIONS/synopses/n35syn.htm

for protein, you will find they don't have one set of values for
animal protein and another for plant protein. This is because
the differences, as far as human nutrition go are academic, and
of no practical importance. Nutrition Professor Ken Carpenter
has a readable history of how the great myth of animal protein
arose:

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/116/7/1364

and he wrote a whole book on the subject a while after this
little piece.

What is the weapon of choice for dealing with children
with kwashiorkor? Plumpy'nut --- fortified peanut butter, a
plant protein. It works as good or better than the fortified
milk products that were previously (and still are) used.
Posted by Geoff Russell, Thursday, 13 November 2008 1:52:34 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
shall we talk about the v word
how meat eaters are all bad

how vegans are all pure

[that is what this boils down to]

so to no particular vegan
some loving critique

i have heaRD IT SAID KILLING BEASTS IS CRUEL
and yes it is

why even the bible says we shalt not MURDER

wel mr joe vegan is not a seed living ?

to make your soy latee how many LIVING seeds of soy were murdered,
has not science found plants FEEL emotions TOO?

how much amazon for-rest was destroyed to plant the soy seed

how much polution was produced to refined soys natural toxins out of the soy seed

[soy requires two alkaliod washes to refine the murdered seed into that curd like substance ,you so greedilly consume and salt up to make it taste like meat]

i wont get harsh about the fax paux
that labels meat eating as this huge evil

[yes there is cruelty but too much spoils the taste of the meat [adrenolin makes the meat tough,and yes some horrible land clearing practices and overstocking and pasture improvement practicies that haunt us with the guilt meat consuming brings.
#
but let those {V}with out sin not stain their purity by casting stones ;in real life there is no such thing as whiter than white
in this reality death frees the spirit to its next incarnation

religion proves we are spirits having an incarnate experience
why we humans even tend to reflect our previous incarnations [thus humans acting as beasts]
Posted by one under god, Thursday, 13 November 2008 1:59:10 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Very interesting Geoff. It would have been an interesting forum.

I was a vegetarian for a short time in my youth but found I became anaemic very quickly and don't absorb iron well, particularly plant-derived iron (non-haem). Even now that I eat meat I still have lower iron levels albeit in the normal range. We can certainly eat more ethically for sure - free range eggs, organic meat, avoiding veal and the like.

Issues like land clearing for meat (or grain) or damming rivers for water are only problems while our populations continue to expand. Population and expansionist policies do more harm than our diet. Of course, we can all try to eat locally (meat or plant) to reduce food miles and help local communities to be more sustainable.

There is another school of thought that argues for no grain or reduced grain in our diets - also another great use of land space. The argument being that humans were never meant to eat as much grain as our modern diet contains; particularly the high level of carbohydrate. There is a bit about this throughout the net and too many sites to link here.
Posted by pelican, Thursday, 13 November 2008 3:29:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Bronwyn,
Excellent response. Especially the bit about local sufficiency. A point I offer Geoff.

Geoff,
One of the failings of this type of discussion is that they all tend seem to be shackled to a particular restrictive paradigm; that the way things are thought about and done are immutably fixed. Yet history tells us otherwise. What we view as history isn’t the consequence of some hidden plan it is the consequence of choices made in the context of the times. In essence I ‘m saying that while we maybe on a modern equivalent to the ‘Titanic’ I see no reason why we should make the mistakes of yore by continuing with their thinking.

We already have the means (technology, science to solve the issues). All we really need is the will to do so instead we bow to the vested interests of a minorities’ ‘cash cow’ mentality.
* “cash cow” minimal capital input maximum output *

There are enough caloric food produced today to feed all the people in the world the impediments are easier profits, distribution and stasis thinking that stops us.

Why for example (outside of cash cow focus on profits) don’t we set up village/tribal based hydroponics? The technology exists. “Feed a person today tomorrow they’re hungry again. Teach them how to farm and you feed them for ever.” Likewise it makes no rational sense to destroy this country in the long term to export to other wealthy countries to feed over consumption.

Instead of short term reactionary thinking of old paradigms it’s time to paint a goals and then systematically solve the issues. Much like the US did in landing man on the moon and bringing them back safely.
Posted by examinator, Thursday, 13 November 2008 4:06:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Examinator: Yes, indeed we will need plenty of new ideas. In
Europe recently a major project looked at shifting Europe from its
current pig protein focus to a pea protein focus:

http://www.springer.com/environment/book/978-1-4020-4062-7

This project had some serious industrial funding because Europeans
understand that their current agri-systems are unsustainable and
their days of just sucking food from the rest of the planet
are numbered.

But hydroponics? Buying bags of chemicals that come free with
any half decent soil doesn't look like a winner to me, but under
some circumstances it may well make sense. Meat grown in labs
will probably happen some time soon.

Pelican: of cereals produced in 2006/7, humans ate about 1000
million tonnes and livestock ate 700 million tonnes -- with
biofuels accounting for about 100 million. Humans have extra
copies (compared to chimps) of a gene for making amylase
to break down starch and while there is no shortage of internet
sites selling the "eat less grain message", their arguments are
theoretical rather than epidemiological. What I mean by this
is best illustrated by chicken and carcinogens. Cooked chicken
meat has plenty of HCAs which are potent carcinogens in animal
studies, but there is no epidemiological data indicating that
eating chicken causes cancer in people. I wish there were!
It is possible that the lack of evidence is because of the
way studies are designed and data is collected (but I doubt this).

So if I want to convince you not to eat chicken I can talk
about chickens living in pain for the last few weeks of life, or
I can talk about the increased risk of a global flu pandemic, but
I can't use a chicken/cancer argument.

The bottom line is I don't think much of the "we shouldn't
eat grains" arguments because they don't really have good data.

It's pretty academic anyway. Grains feed the planet, no other
food (except potatoes) is even in the running.
Posted by Geoff Russell, Thursday, 13 November 2008 6:31:16 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A timely article to remind we citizens, lazing about in our comfort zones, that ecological sustainablility is poorly practised in Australia. Thank you Geoff Russell.

The most extensive land use in Australia is livestock grazing in arid and semi-arid regions and covers 430 million hectares or 56 percent of Australia. In total, agricultural land is 473 million hectares but we must also add to livestock grazing, the additional crops grown for stock when our native pastures are stripped of vegetation.

Moderate to major change in hydrological conditions , including changes in infiltration and run-off due to soil modification by extensive cultivation, are also caused mainly by intensive livestock grazing on developed pastures.

Some 79% of Australia’s live sheep exports are from Western Australia, however, WA is now losing the equivalent of 19 football fields per day to salinity (EPA SOE) yet the meat and livestock industry representatives accompanied by Minister, Tony Burke, travel overseas endeavouring to coerce additional countries to buy live exports from these arid lands, thus growing even more non-value adding hoofed animals.

I have pondered many times whether our body politic is swamped with chancers, second raters, snake oil salesmen or buffoons.

The Centre for Rural Social Research, recently advised: “WA has not enforced ecologically sustainable productivity on the management of its publicly-owned rangelands.

"Whereas the land-use managers - whether of pastoral leases or agricultural freehold - are culpable for the resource degradation they tolerate or have caused, society is culpable for allowing those who have over-cropped, over-grazed, over-cleared and are continuing to do so.

"The common public good seems to have been neglected by government in favour of private landed property ownership. The plea of government ignorance could once have been sustained, but certainly not at any time during this last quarter century at least.”

Yet we consume more meat than ever and now suffer more cancers than ever. Animals for human consumption are cruelly pumped with antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, with impunity, without regard for the human and animal health impacts and zoonotic diseases are rampant.

We will indeed have to learn the hard way.
Posted by dickie, Thursday, 13 November 2008 8:18:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Geoff, one of the complaints that I have is that many greeny
academics on this topic, are throwing all livestock and meat
production, into the same pot.

I think you need to separate free range livestock grazing
from factory farmed animals, there is a huge difference!

Grazing livestock can be done well or it can be done badly.
Overtocking causes problems, not grazing sustainably in
the first place.

Now what we know is that if grasslands are left to themselves
and grow without any kind of grazing, the fuel load increases,
next you have a hot summer, a bit of lightning and woosh,
the whole lot burns. How much CO2 is released in these
grass fires and how many local species are wiped out by
the fires?

Please don't just throw all meat production into the same
hat, for factory farming and sustainable grazing are
simply not the same and their effect on the environment
would be quite different.
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 13 November 2008 8:24:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Interesing .. I'm out of my field here but will offer some observations of some of the local indigenous Islamic Indos.

1. They live @ subsistence levels (<less than $AU5 per day)
2. Predominately Blood type O
3. Diet consists of fresh fruit straight from the trees, fresh veg straight from the fields and if the rice is more than 7 days old they complain.
4. Only eat meat on Holy days when the local rich dude (who owns the rice factory) has some goats slaughtered and hands it out to every one that can't afford it pursuant to religious custom.
5. Fish (what we'd call bait fish) is readily available.
[A meal mostly consists of rice, veg & hot spice with fruit + ice for desert - Aqua, Coffee & Fruit Juice(chopped up and blended)]

6. There are a LOT of antique people - those who are over 90+ yrs old and in good nick.
(One fact book put Indo life expectancy at an avg of about 65yrs. I wld assume city slum dwellers actually form a big group at one end of the bell curve and die much younger)
7. These people live "organically" on the PooWee river system.
8. They have very little access to modern medicine.

9. The males are terribly addicted to nicoteine but they almost never drink booze.
(Well, the rare one on the sly with me out the back but don't tell anyone.)
10. Regular daily exercise
11. Virtually no one dies from being fat or lonely.
12. Wk day goes from Sun up till mid avo, hit the river for a bath and then sing some prayers.
13. They have an extreme aversion to stress and are very, very easy going relaxed people for the most part, generally speaking.
14. My *BeLuved* says W.A. food generally is stale & tastes like the proverbial and the water tastes like p!ss.

BIASED CONCLUSION: The Australian "supermarket" model is NOT conducive to optimal health and well being.

;-)
Posted by DreamOn, Thursday, 13 November 2008 8:38:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Whilst not medically qualified, I hand out over the counter pharms from the up town apothecary and look 4ward 2 doing some courses with St John.

In return, I receive an ongoing plentiful supply of fresh produce delivered to the door.

Oh by the way, another important part of the Indo secret 2 success - daily massage - everyone is into it and everyone loves it.
;-)

Seems to assist in a good nights sleep/rejuve.
Posted by DreamOn, Thursday, 13 November 2008 8:58:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Interesting article about the most crucial item of them all-- how to feed us all.
I find the woke of Michael Pollan quite useful, particularly as he shows that dominant food production system is very much related to all the other imporatant aspects of our modern techocratic society.

Michaels book IN DEFENSE OF FOOD is a good place to start.

Plus he recently published an open letter titled: DEAR MR PRESIDENT FOOD FOOD FOOD. A letter which raised all the issues re the current food production system(s) in the USA.

Although it was written in the context of the USA Presidential election and USA "culture" altogether it has relevance to both Australia and the entire planet.

Plus if anyone thinks that Monsanto etc should be given the power to determine our food future(s) why not check out a DVD titled THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO by Marie-Monique Robin.

Back in the 90's Jeremy Rifkin wrote a superb critique of the Beef production industry titled Beyond Beef.

There has been massive amounts of research done on the topic of food, diet and nutrition in recent decades, including the emerging new topic of raw food.

Some of the leading edge research is summarised in the work of Douglas Graham, particularly in his book The 80/10/10 Diet

And by David Wolfe via his book The Sunfood Diet Success System.

Plus The Green Gorilla by Adi Da
Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 14 November 2008 10:20:15 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Just some feedback to the organisers of this event. We got tickets and got there early as the "interactive" display was being plugged pretty heavily in the ads. When we arrived, there simply wasnt room to fit all the vendors stalls and the gusts and what you ended up being a part of was a shuffling herd in one direction. It was hot with the mass of people and completely embarassing to be there to tell you the truth. I think you need to have the interactive display after the talk or have it somewhere where there is room to accommodate people without herding them. You can open the interactive display before the end (not the start) so those without tickets can benefit from that too. Having said this, the talk was pretty good.
Posted by Karlos73, Friday, 14 November 2008 5:05:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yabby:

Yes, there is a huge difference between
various types of extensive livestock systems and
factory farms. But globally, 45% of all meat comes from
factory farms, 8% from pure rainfed extensive grazing
with the rest split between rainfed and irrigated
mixed systems (where crops are grown on farm for
feeding). For details see:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/10/09/the-global-food-system-and-climate-change-part-i/

The 2006 UN Report "Livestock's Long Shadow"
was written by pro-meat authors, and their
judgement was that environmental concerns will require
that most future expansion of meat production be in
factory farms. Their nutritional ignorance and lack
of concern for pain and suffering didn't really give
room for other conclusions.

As for ungrazed grasslands, yes, just
like unlogged forests, they will occasionally burn,
but the CO2 is irrelevant. The grass regrows
and absorbs the same amount of carbon from CO2. The
methane from such fires is, correctly, counted by
our Greenhouse Offce, but not the CO2. The same is true
for forest fires. Why is the methane counted? Because
methane traps heat far more effectively than
CO2. Imagine diving into a swimming pool, the water
provides little resistance. Now freeze the water. The
resistance to your diving changes (ouch!) despite
the number of molecules being unchanged. Likewise a
million molecules of CO2 traps a certain amount of
heat, but transform some of those to methane (CH4)
and you trap far more heat until the methane breaks
down. What is critical is the ratio of CO2 to CH4.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/10/nitrogen-climate-change-and-diet/

DreamOn:

Yes indeed. In developing countries, low life
expectancy is more frequently because of the impacts
of poor medical systems and bad water
engineering and less commonly from nutritional
and lifestyle problems.

HoHum:

Pollan thinks organic farming can feed the planet. I
reckon that's almost surely false, for a heap of
reasons. Not the least being that the population
has lost both the skills and the will to grow food.
Raw diets can be fine nutritionally but you
can't feed the planet on raw food unless you can find
a way to eat raw wheat, rice and/or potatoes.
Posted by Geoff Russell, Friday, 14 November 2008 6:28:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Perhaps, maybe we will all have to relearn how to grow our own food again because the current system is unsustainable.

This website provides links to people and groups who are willing and able to teacxh people how to do it.

http://www.seedsofchange.com/cutting_edge/default.asp

Howard Shapiro was here in OZ a few years back. He stated that using organic methods, he could teach anyone, anywhere.

Plus this organization has been promoting the necessary ideal/practice of a local economy for all of its existence.

http://www.orionmagazine.org

A few years back, in response to Sept 11, they published an essay by the ever wise Wendell Berry titled the Idea of a Local Economy. An excellent statement re the practical Wisdom of localism and the absurdities of the current system too.

By the way the author of the last reference in my previous post is also a strong advocate of localised food self-sufficiency. Again as an applied exercise in Social Wisdom.
Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 14 November 2008 8:42:48 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ok Geoff, according to the article that you linked, you are a member
of animal liberation. That explains alot :)

I have many points that I could raise, but given the word limit,
I will just raise a few.

Firstly society is peeing in the breeze about all this, whilst
they don't address the problem of adding 80 million humans a year
to the planet's population. IMHO family planning should be a right
for all women. Whilst its not being addressed, other species will
have less and less land and humanity will take more and more.
Ship more boatloads of grain to sub Saharan Africa for instance,
your net result will be even more babies, due to increased fertility.

Forests are not being bulldozed because of cattle or soyabeans, but
because Govts allow it to happen. The palm oil from a plantation
could well land up in the tank of a diesel driving vegan like
yourself! So don't blame meat, blame corrupt Govts for the problem.

Next point, much of Australia was actually cleared for wool production,
long before nylon was
invented. Australia rode on the
sheep's back remember, not on the back of cattle.

I would dispute the 8% figure. In much of the third world, people
graze livestock, they eat what people can't eat, all basically
an extra, for they are not cropping those soils. Most of Australia's
sheep and cattle, once again come from grazing country. The fact
that they are fed some grain in times of drought and stress, does
not mean that the system is not basically a pasture based system.

Much of Australian agriculture involves rotating livestock and crops
in a clover ley system, which is far more sustainable then
continual cropping.

To be honest, it seems to me that you'd like to use the CO2 story
to justify your animal liberation philosophy. Ok, fair enough,
as long as we both understand where you are coming from.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 14 November 2008 9:03:16 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A very interesting article which -as a piscatarian- I am largely sympathetic to.
However...
"But hydroponics? Buying bags of chemicals that come free with
any half decent soil doesn't look like a winner to me, but under
some circumstances it may well make sense. Meat grown in labs
will probably happen some time soon."
The modern (dastardly) dairy farmer regards his land as a vessel.
It is a comparatively simple excercise in chemistry for the farmer to know exactly which chemicals (in the form of marketable product) are being exported from his land. The local produce store can make the analysis, and recommend the appropriate mixture of replacement chemicals.
In other words, the farmer buys in one set of chemicals, processes it (through the guts of his/her livestock) and sells it off for -hopefully- a profit.
Clearly, the contents of the vessel must be maintained at adequate levels, or land degradation and consequent drop in productivity must result.
The need to maintain -if not improve- soil quality and productivity is so blindingly obvious, one wonders how soil degradation can possibly occur.
The obvious flaw in this formula is the all important 'market'.
Farmers have long been price takers, rather than makers. The major food chains insist on cheap product (to improve their profit margins) which often means the farmer cannot afford to 'top up' his vessel.
This is very much like getting into debt. It is very hard to get out, and very easy to go deeper and deeper, until the farmer and his farm become unviable.
That was a very long winded way of saying: "I think there is a future for Hydroponics".
Posted by Grim, Friday, 14 November 2008 9:09:40 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-warning-we-are-actually-heading-towards-a-new-ice-age-claim-scientists.html#comment-84367
[this global warning scam is the symptom of what is really going on[the pole shift;2012 dec;remember?]

put it together
the sun has its cycle[11 years]of sunspot activity[and non-activity]
that puts in heat and light[life]into our little earth[amoung other things]
but the point is this

sunspots are magnetic lines-of-force distorting[prior to the POLE shift]
on a water planet,we dont have'sun spots'[we get weather anomilies]

get it [our cyclones are the sun spot equivelent of OUR lines of force
interacting
prior to OUR pole shift,

so what does this EARTH pole shift look like
imagine an earth sunami[a slow moving wave]

[releasing other bigger waves,releasing a lot of dust]
think of it as if the earth is ringing vibrating

or as the australian alfa/beta[AB-origonals[the lost tribe]says in their song
it looks like a fish swimming[or rocks walking]through the earth

EAR-th let those who have ears hear

and prepare[this poleshift creates a lot of dust[blocking out the sun
[and its light ;sustaining life]
as well as its heat[cold dark noisy,hell]

oops that triggered a flash back
[as the one in the pit has his 1000 years annual re-lease
[this is satans/realm after all]

jesus was offered these realm's but wisely refused]
what better than people know the satan clause
is come in xmass seasoning?

also solar power dont work in the dark
and wind power cant do what prepared[2012 certified]coal power stations could[ie get us through the 18 mths of blackout]even if the coal ran out we canm burn wood[if needed to keep the power on]

with coal power[or magnetic drtiven generation]
we can convert office space into hydro food production
[is office lighting suitable to sustain life?

thing is we have 4 years[maybe]
till the expected'big one'

but one third survive aparently
[lest these days be cut short]
so make sure you got a good read
and do your research

[make sure you still have access to the web food water.light.life]
knowing we are spirits having an incarnate[sewn into skins]life experience]

have you your 7 years of food?
thats good
but are you prepared for the[maybe]oncomming dark times ahead?
Posted by one under god, Saturday, 15 November 2008 10:31:36 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yabby:

Yes, my affiliation with Animal Liberation (which is
also in my OLO bio notes) does explain a few things,
in particular my respect for data and evidence ---
Peter Singer is a Professor of Philosophy and my
first degree was also in Philosophy. The second
was mathematics, also a discipline with a high respect
for data.

Thus, you are entitled to think that the figure of
8% for the global quantity of meat produced by pure
grazing is wrong, but until you have alternative data,
you will need to live with it. The Livestock's Long
Shadow authors didn't just pluck it out of the air,
they went to a great deal of trouble to calculate
it. My judgement would be that their figure of 45%
of global meat from factory farms is rock solid --
that's easy to calculate. The other numbers will be
a little softer.

As for land clearing, sure wool was the major culprit
early in our history but for the last couple of
decades the major culprit has been cattle. There is
a good chart of land clearing data between 1973 and
2004 here (based on satellite data):

http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/drs/indicator/30/index.html

Given that sheep numbers began their long decline
around 1991, most of the post 1991 clearing is cattle. The
AGO estimated 85% of clearing in the 1990s was due
to cattle:

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/inventory/enduse/index.html

Again, if you want to dispute this, you need to
find a flaw in the data collection, or the analytic
method, not just tell a story of how you think
things are.

Lastly, I don't think its accurate to say that
Australia's cattle are just "fed some grain times
of drought and stress". According to MLA (not the
most trusted source of data - but the figure sounds
credible given ABARE figures on grain usage),
grain fed beef now accounts for 1/3 of Australia's
beef production.

http://www.australian-beef.com/trade/pdfs/MLA_GrainBeef.pdf

Grim: Sure there will be hydroponics, the question is "how much".
Posted by Geoff Russell, Saturday, 15 November 2008 10:32:06 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
If we were meant to be vegetarians we would have barrel-like guts in similar style to the gorilla; and our present susceptibility to diabetes would not be the same.

Tony McMichael puts the issues of human diet into perspective in Human Frontiers, Environments and Disease.(Cambridge University Press 2001).

For a lot of our generations yet to come we will be stuck with an evolutionary heritage based on about a third each of vegetables, meat, fruit: vegetables pesticide-free, fresh (tubers, leaves, grain); meat au naturelle, sans hormone additive, wild-range grass-fed and lean; fruit fresh in season. An absence of continuous availability - occasional gross-feasting (stranded whale, trapped mammoth?), occasional fasting. Nutritional absorption greatly assisted by adequate exercise, and something which was denied our primate cousins – cooking.

Great oceans of canola, wheat, rice, corn --- in landscapes denuded of natural biodiversity will never overcome the problem of overnumerous humanity. They do no more than defer that problem to the next generation when it will be even more awesome.
Posted by colinsett, Saturday, 15 November 2008 10:49:52 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Geoff, I'm not disputing the 45 % factory farmed figure, for there
is much intensive production of pigs and chickens going on. I'm
certainly saying that the 8% figure is distorting and wrong. It
has partly to do with they way that they have classified the data.

Dont' forget, nonsense into a computer also means nonsense out the
other end.

If you spend a bit of time tallying up the number of grazing
livestock on the planet, it is enormous. Even just the figures for
Africa. But the data for meat production from these animals is not
recorded anywhere, despite the fact that people slaughter them and
eat them every day. Most of Australia's livestock would not be
included in that 8% figure, nor most of America's cattle, despite the
fact that tens of millions of animals spend most of their time
grazing and are not in intensive systems.

Was bushmeat allowed for? I remind you of the tragedy in Africa,
where shooters follow logging trucks into forests and shoot anything
that moves. If you are interested, do a google search on bushmeat
and you will be shocked. These are unsustainable forms of production,
for species like bonobos, gorillas and chimps are being shot, driving
them to the verge of extinction.

Yes, since the 70s land in Australia has been cleared mainly for
cattle, but most of Australia was cleared a long time before then.
The land that I am on was cleared well over a hundred years ago
with an axe!

Yes, there are are up to a million cattle in feedlots in Australia
at times, where kgs are added and to produce the kind of meat that
customers want, ie grain finished, tender, muscles full of glycogen.

Grassfed beef is also available in stores, its darker, leaner and
cheaper, rated 2nd grade. It is really up to consumers to choose.

I produce lambs and they are often grain fed in small paddocks for
the last couple of weeks, so they eat a mix of pasture and natural
grains. But the system is still a free range, pasture-based-system.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 15 November 2008 1:21:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
yabby [have you heard of sprouted seeds as feed for stock?]
its vagly mentioned here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fodder

cant find the origonal article [a dude from toowoomba sells the sprouted grain for around 15 cents a kilo ,compared to arround 50 cent for just the grain

thing is there are divergent husbandry teqniques that vegetariona [vegans] have no intrest in dis-cussing

as your post pointed out we get our protein via many divergent production teqniques ,

anyhow i added the link
[sorry a link]

cheers
Posted by one under god, Saturday, 15 November 2008 8:11:29 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
came acxross a link
[re the stock food]
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=f4jKHzsa5kw

also come across this one
http://www.prisonplanet.com/austrian-government-study-confirms-genetically-modified-gm-crops-threaten-human-fertility-and-health-safety.html

not sure gm corn would 'hatch'
but its worth vegans noting this gm infertility link

lest we forget that aids came from live monkey virus serun via VACINATION's to prevent polio pumped into africans [as well as the lesser known northern release into gay black people]
Posted by one under god, Sunday, 16 November 2008 11:03:45 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy