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submitted 2 weeks ago by Shailu45@lemmy.world to c/vegan@lemmy.ml
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[-] XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

That's actually not true. We do have food scarcity. Just not yet in most of the world. You see, our current food production models, especially meat production but also plant food production, are highly unsustainable. It is very likely we will enter into a global famine that wipes out most of the human population sometime in the next couple centuries. It could be much sooner, could be near the end of that, but it will happen if we continue as we are now. That is because the way we farm currently uses far too much non-renewable water sources (aquifers for example), fertilizer that comes from non renewable sources (derived from fossil fuels), and land that is having its soil drained of nutrients. Veganism alone does not fix these problems. It can make them easier to solve in many cases because we waste less resources on cattle, but cattle is also only so wasteful because of HOW we use it. Back in medieval times cattle was a way to turn useless land (grazing land not suitable for crops) into calories. They'd have a small herd and let it free range. This was a boon of calories not a drain. And meat was rare to consume as a living cow makes milk and is much more valuable than a dead cow. Same with chickens and eggs. Even pigs produced useful manure for fertilizing. So while they did slaughter and eat them it wasn't the sole purpose of raising those animals. And the animals made their lives possible through their byproducts.

I would say that the goal of any vegan should be to find a way for us to live in harmony with animals and the environment. Because we aren't just talking about farm animals, and humans don't just harm animals for food. Our farming practices destroy their natural habitats as well. Even if we ate only plants if we do not find a more sustainable way to farm animals will continue to suffer.

[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago

You're saying that if we did not rely on fossil fuels and non-renewable water sources, we would not be able to grow enough food to feed the humans, let alone their livestock?

[-] XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago

Not using the current methods of farming atleast.

[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Methods that, of course, were specifically selected, developed, and intensified to exploit those cheap but unsustainable available means. Do you want to make a claim about the sustainable agricultural capacity of the Earth? It sounds as though you are at least suggesting it could be insufficient to support currently living humans.

[-] XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago

It does not matter how much the sustainable agriculture can support, nor do we know the answer to that question, because we will not have the simple luxury to change over. These unsustainable systems will not slowly degrade. They will reach a point of collapse. Not only does this mean we will not have TIME to switch over to sustainable agriculture, but the very unsustainable methods themselves reduce the sustainable capacity of the planet. Each day as ecological damage progresses the carrying capacity of the Earth diminishes. It's not some miraculous cure to switch to sustainable methods. The planet will need decades, if not centuries, to recover from the damage we have done to it already.

On top of this the most sustainable form of agriculture is food forestry as it mimics a natural ecosystem, but food forests cannot simply be grown in a season. They must be cultivated for generations to reach their full potential. That is what the Native Americans did. I have walked the remnants of those very food forests myself and they still have food in them today after centuries of neglect. After their caretakers were wiped out or displaced.

We have essentially locked ourselves in to an unsustainable system. It would take a huge amount of time and a huge amount of effort to begin to right the course and even then it may not be enough to prevent a global famine. This isn't a question with an easy answer.

this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2026
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