Philosophical Vegan Forum

Wow! Thank you

What could be expensive is when you buy organic/ecological products because you care about the environment and/or all the animals that are being killed by pesticides/poison etc. Often, it costs 3 times more.

Everybody else already offered such great advice, I don't have much more to say.

Anon0045 wrote:What could be expensive is when you buy organic/ecological products because you care about the environment and/or all the animals that are being killed by pesticides/poison etc. Often, it costs 3 times more.

Because you care about the environment and have been misinformed, that is.

Organic products are not good for the environment.

Problems with Organic:

1. Fertilized with animal shit, which subsidizes animal agriculture
2. Covered in dangerous pesticides (often older, 'natural' pesticides that are more dangerous for humans and the environment than modern engineered pesticides that target pests more effectively)
3. Have MUCH lower yield than modern crops and modern methods. What's that mean? It means clear cutting forests and other natural environments to make more farms. When a crop has 1/10th the yield of another, you have to clear ten times as much land to produce the same amount of food.

If you care about animals' ecosystems and the environment, do your best to avoid organic, and eat GMO (which has better yield- less farmland, more forests and wild ecosystems).

And, of course, you do yourself a favor by saving huge amounts of money too.

brimstoneSalad wrote: Problems with Organic:

1. Fertilized with animal shit, which subsidizes animal agriculture
2. Covered in dangerous pesticides (often older, 'natural' pesticides that are more dangerous for humans and the environment than modern engineered pesticides that target pests more effectively)
3. Have MUCH lower yield than modern crops and modern methods. What's that mean? It means clear cutting forests and other natural environments to make more farms. When a crop has 1/10th the yield of another, you have to clear ten times as much land to produce the same amount of food.

If you care about animals' ecosystems and the environment, do your best to avoid organic, and eat GMO (which has better yield- less farmland, more forests and wild ecosystems).

And, of course, you do yourself a favor by saving huge amounts of money too.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense and very good to learn for my economy's sake. On the other hand, I'm not too happy about having killed more animals when I bought organic produce. I suppose organic farmers poison or in other ways kill animals as well, which would mean that about 10 times more deaths of animals that are in the way or eat what's grown for human consumption.

Supporting stock-free farmers does not seem like a good option either then, at least today when it requires more land to grow food, leading to forests cut down (unless they don't plan to expand). Perhaps it would be good long-term to support them in case more people went vegan, because we'd have more land available with less feed-lots around. Stock-free farmers are killing less animals after all; no mass slaughter, just allowing predators into the area, which is not very nice, but still better then killing everything in sight. If there are lands available, then stock-free farming is something I would prefer.

Anon0045 wrote: Supporting stock-free farmers does not seem like a good option either then, at least today when it requires more land to grow food, leading to forests cut down (unless they don't plan to expand).

Not sure what you mean. Not all stock free farms are organic. Agriculture is fairly specialized now, so likely most conventional farms don't raise many animals (often just for personal use).

brimstoneSalad wrote: Not sure what you mean. Not all stock free farms are organic. Agriculture is fairly specialized now, so likely most conventional farms don't raise many animals (often just for personal use).

Most conventional farms are not vegan friendly from what I've read. They use manure, by products from fish and from slaughterhouses. I couldn't find any information about non-organic stock-free farming practices. VeganAtheist has a video about a stock-free farm on his channel which is a vegan friendly version of an organic farm. I'm assuming they don't kill uninvited animals themselves, like regular farms do, or at least try to think about minimizing harm. In the bigger picture, it seems like it's not vegan friendly if we assume that more land than we have is required with increased demand that is. In any case, at some point, human population growth needs to stop, or any type of farming will lead to deforestation no matter how efficient it is. Optimally, we should all make an effort to reduce human population growth, start practicing organic stock-free agriculture methods, and use much of the land that now go to feed animals in feed-lots, but that's just wishful thinking.