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Page added on September 6, 2015
I eat, therefore I kill
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| Icelandic horses |
We are all what we think of as “individuals” in actuality living communities. Here in Iceland we have permaculture course participants from this country and Germany, the USA, Denmark, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, France, Norway, Sweden, Indonesia, Bulgaria and Costa Rica. Each of us is cross-fertilizing all the others with our microbiome — the spores and microbes we carry from our bioregions and freely pass by contact between skin, air, fluids and various surfaces we touch. Each of us leaves as a new microbiome, slightly altered from and more diverse than the one with which we arrived.
We also pick up and incorporate new microbes from the environment of the place. We may be ingesting bits and pieces that have already passed through the body of an old Viking, or his horse, before being interred in the soil for a time, later to find its way into our food and water and now leaving with us to become part of the soil somewhere else. Ultimately, we all come from stardust and are just continuously recycling.
Permaculture’s father, Bill Mollison, liked to tease vegetarians about their dietary choices because he thought each of the arguments for going lower on the food chain to be a bit suspect. “I didn’t spend several million years clawing my way to the top just to eat tofu,” he once told us over lunch. We looked down at our tofu, awkwardly.
At the time we were attending a permaculture convergence in Perth, Western Australia, and the kitchen staff had been told to expect mostly meat-eaters. Unfortunately there were three times more vegetarians amongst the permies attending, meaning long lines for the vegie option and meal servers experiencing a bit of crisis from lack of foresight.
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| Iceland: Grasslands thinly cover fields of broken lava; vast areas are suitable for grazing animals only. |
Robyn Francis, who was one of Bill’s earliest students and helped compile The Permaculture Designer’s Manual in the early 1980s, breaks down some of the common ethical arguments. “Meat is just concentrated chlorophyll on a calcium stick,” she says, borrowing a pithy one-off realization from a former student.
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| Rotational grazing by pigs breaks up the sod and deepens the soil profile, making it cultivatable for vegetables and grains. |
The hackneyed vegan line about not eating things with eyes or that try to run away may be humorous but as we know from studies of sensory mechanisms and “emotions” in plants, those have feelings too, know fear, seek to preserve their lives, and would rather not be your dinner if offered the choice. Moreover, they each have a microbiome made of lots of tiny animals with eyes that try to get away.
Robyn puts up a slide from a study of Australian grain farming that shows how many living things — reptiles, birds, ferrets, field mice — are slaughtered each year per hectare of grain being harvested by combines. In the study area of New South Wales, grain harvesters kill 25 times more animals per hectare than comparable pastures of cows destined for slaughter. Put another way, the eyeball ratio of things that try to get away is approximately 25:1 to the vegan side of the ledger. In another slide, she explains that owning a sheepdog consumes the equivalent resource costs of owning an S.U.V.. Don’t even get us started on house cats.
Let’s face it. If you are alive you only remain so by killing something else. This is how nutrients cycle between rock, soil, plants, decaying matter, insects, bacteria, fungi and animals. It is a group process, each of us taking a role at some time as predator or prey. We might not like to eat worms but in the end they are more than happy to eat us.
There is, in practice, no such thing as autonomy. Practically, there is only a distinction between responsible and irresponsible dependencies.”
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| Published on Facebook on August 27, this image has 12,000 likes and 2877 shares, so fa |
Consider the larger issue of global food supply. Humans now number 7 billion and will continue to expand; energy, food and water supply permitting. A third of Earth’s land mass is suitable for agriculture but only about a third of that is actually farmable for grains, vegetables, fruits or the kinds of things that vegans eat. The other two thirds can’t grow vegies and may not have enough water for tree crops but can, with careful stewardship and stocking rates, sustain edible animals. Indeed, if you listen to the mob rotational grassland discussion begun by Alan Savory, you might believe that only large herds of grazing animals, bunched and moving, are capable of ecologically restoring those kinds of damaged lands, re-sequestering the carbon they once held, and restoring the hydrological and climate cycles to pre-Anthropocene — the water and soil regime once built and maintained by buffalos, mammoths, tigers and wolves.
Here is a point of contention we take with that argument, and we welcome discussion. By extension, we can say that if arable land is at a premium, then good land with ample water should be devoted to grains, vegetables, fruits and the kinds of things that vegans eat. Far more people can be fed adequate and high quality proteins, carbohydrates and fats from that land if we eat lower down the food chain because by passing crops through animals we lose nutritional returns by large factors, anywhere from ten to one in the case of poultry to forty to one in the case of cattle. By the logic Robyn used, we should be growing domestic animals exclusively on the marginal lands that cannot support anything else. This eliminates Joel Salatin’s farm in Virginia and many of the high yield animal operations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. No more Kobe beef or German Sauerbraten.
The argument for eating farmed animals assumes we cannot feed the world if we removed commercial animal agriculture and concentrated on plants. We can — on just the portion of prime farmland that has good growing seasons and plenty of water. An acre of organic, no-till, biochar-augmented, nitrogen-fixing, non-GMO soybeans not processed into animal feed or plastics can supply high quality protein equal to forty or more acres of cattle. Eliminate animal agriculture on the best farmland and you won’t need to use the other 60% of Earths arable land for food animals.
Producing food for human populations in dry climates or with poor soils by importing it from better land in better climates is a dicey proposition, given that the globalization paradigm is now on life support and built on Ponzi debt that is really a theft from our children. The world is being forced by the inexorability of the physics of fossil energy to relocalize, and quickly. To continue tracking the consumerist exponential curve — of water use, soil loss, oil depletion, fishery extinctions, population, and pollution — is sheer folly. Beyond lies an Olduvai Cliff.
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| Roasted Icelandic Horse. Horse was the traditional meat of German Sauerbraten. |
In a localized world, absent catastrophically induced decline, we imagine that human population will gradually attrit to something approximating the steady state balance between supply and demand that indigenous peoples mastered. That was the old normal before the last Ice Age, and it will likely go that way again in the Age of Consequence.
Humans in local societies may choose to balance their diets in whatever ways are most efficacious for their climate and customs. Those habits will become, or return, traditions. Some may be vegan, many likely not.
11 Comments on "I eat, therefore I kill"
Makati1 on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 7:17 am
We will eat what we can find. Even cannibalism is not ruled out as it is usually the meat of last resort. Soylent Green anyone?
I prefer permaculture methods to ‘long pork’ and a more morally sound consumption. Turn the seven plus billion of us into a world of permiculturists and we could feed ourselves while providing cover for a lot of the animals, birds, fish and plants still surviving our locust like consumption. But, we are not likely to do so in numbers that matter.
Davy on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 7:43 am
This is a great article for those of you who think being vegetarian is the answer to our coming food insecurity. Some will comment if we quit eating meat we could feed another 3BIl. Our board Asiaphile comments this absurdity occasionally. I laugh when I hear that. Some poster fail to understand what it takes to have a global food system. They have little clue about a garden or a 1000 acre grain farm is. They know little about pastoral animal husbandry.
We are heading off the cliff because of food, fuel, and climate. There is a necessary place for vegetables, grains, and animal husbandry. This place is within a nutrient cycle with human labor, animal labor, animal biomass, plant biomass, and the sun. Humans, animals, plants and the sun in a nutrient cycle producing biomass and recycling nutrients. It is commonly called permaculture. It is a localized life working with nature not against her.
Permaculture is a tough life and one should have no illusions about it. We have thrown away many of the skills we passed on for multiple generations for a fossil fuel culture of progress and development. This is an oil joyride that will end within 10 years. We are going to have to depopulate the large urban cities. This will be a bottleneck of epic proportions with a rebalance of population to around 1BIL or less in 30 years and a consumption rebalance to the 18th century. The Stone Age is completely possible as is extinction.
In the meantime if we hairless apes had a functioning brain we would be moving back to the land immediately as best we could for our species survival. We would adapt to our environment per its best biomass producing potential. This is why some commenters here on the board are basically food illiterate. You don’t grow crops on land that should be grazed with animals. Large populations like Asia cannot make it with or without meat. Grains for global consumption must be transported and produced with fossil fuels. The only future is local, seasonal, and permaculture.
We will hopefully have a transition period of hybrid fossil fuel agriculture and permaculture. I doubt BAU will allow mass permaculture in time. By the time a crisis comes it will be too late for billions. I guess it is too late anyway for billions. The key point to food is the key point to all locations and that is there is an optimum biomass type and potential post fossil fuels. That is likely similar to what was there pre fossil fuels. Unfortunately with climate change and ecological destruction must will be change and lost. Ocean dependent cultures will be living with a dead ocean in many locations. We may be able to eat some jellyfish as an alternative.
Folks here that preach vegetarian lifestyles are BAUtopians. Vegetarianism is another ism made possible by BAU. It is a food choice and it is not seasonal and realistic per post fossil fuels. Vegetables will be a vital part of the food mix but not the sole ingredient. Vegans enjoy your BAU lifestyle. With the coming bottleneck I would recommend being able to eat anything including clay pies on occasion. Google Haiti for more information on clay pies.
I am in goat and cattle animal husbandry. I live in the Missouri Ozarks which is not suitable for row crops. I do management intensive grazing which is a permaculture farming. I have a garden, bees, and soon chickens. I have wildlife and plants to forage. Think about what you have and don’t be under the illusion you can be a meat eater of a vegetarian. You will have to eat whatever you are lucky to find soon. If you are in a place with population overshoot far in excess of any sustainability of any kind you may need to learn how to cook and enjoy the flesh of hairless apes.
Fat Lady on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 7:50 am
“In a localized world, absent catastrophically induced decline, we imagine that human population will gradually attrit to something approximating the steady state balance between supply and demand that indigenous peoples mastered. That was the old normal before the last Ice Age, and it will likely go that way again in the Age of Consequence.” More likely humans will so have poisoned the earth in such a manner to render it inhospitable for anything larger than a cockroach.
paulo1 on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 7:57 am
Excellent comment, Davy.
My ex turned vegetarian. It was a nightmare for the entire family as two of every main course had to be cooked. I now look at her lifestyle and see just how much more she consumes than our family in her supposedly more planet friendly approach. Imported peppers and other veggies in the winter vrs. salmon caught off my dock is just one example, let alone our full freezers of garden production well fertiled by chicken manure and salmon carcasses.
When people are hungry they will eat anything. It makes sense to utilize local food production and even more sense to grow as much of your own food as possible.
onlooker on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 9:32 am
Fantastic detailed analysis of the food situation. How complex it is and how based on current population and with climate change along with the demise of fossil fuels we cannot hope to even come close to feed the number of people we currently have. That is a given. What is possible is a biomass of humans less numerous and much more in touch with the land and their locality in terms of what food can be harvested, grown or husbaned. In being realistic we can hopefully create a reasonably stable power down though taking into account widespread death and grief.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 12:57 pm
The most nutritiously dense material on the planet is the muscles of mammals.
penury on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 3:13 pm
But I thought the population was going to top 11 billion shortly. Eat hardy, And if he leaves eat whatever. But when you jump for joy you will find shes gone also.
Makati1 on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 8:11 pm
onlooker, I usually agree with you, but on this point, I do not. “…we cannot hope to even come close to feed the number of people we currently have…”
Do you know:
That the food just wasted in the US alone would feed the 100 million Filipinos that I live around?
That 2/3 of Americas are over weight and 1/3 are obese?
That everyone COULD grow enough food on 1/10 acre each to survive quite well? (1/10 Acre is 4,000 square feet.)
The US has 656,000 square miles of cultivated land. [CIA World Factbook] 656,000 sq.mi. X 640 acres/sq.m. X 10 (1/10 acres) = 4,198,400,000 people just in the US alone. Even at one acre per person that is 420 million.
World wide cultivated land is approximately 11 times that. At 1/10 acre/person, that is ~40 billion people possible. And some land could be made arable with thought and labor. Permaculture anyone? Not to mention the areas where more than one crop/year is possible.
But, it means that the world has to go back to ~95% farmers for this to be possible. Not going to happen until…
BC on Sun, 6th Sep 2015 10:26 pm
I’ve spent a decade with permaculture in the PacNW, which I advocate where optimal, but it ain’t happenin’ at any scale that I can discern anywhere on the planet.
And now US marketing, advertising, and cultural diffusion globally has convinced 1.3B Chinese and their hundreds of millions of Asian neighbors that they can develop petro-chemical-based industrial agriculture to grow food for swine, cattle, poultry, and aquaculture to feed the Asian masses increasing animal flesh per capita.
Hopeless beyond hopelessness.
Davy on Mon, 7th Sep 2015 5:41 am
Yea BC, just like other promising lifeboat plans and solutions. Scale of time and space is the issue with a population in overshoot. Scale is the problem but also systematic inertia. The status quo and the powers to be are not going to promote it. The current system is geared to globalist principals of markets, monocultures, and profit. Everything about the status quo is oil based in some way shape or form.
The permaculture we see is mostly hobby. This was not true pre-fossil fuels. Permaculture was the evolution of human agriculture over thousands of years. The ability to use pre-fossil fuel technology with even earlier advancements in breeding and nutrient cycle management advanced agriculture to a pinnacle. Today’s agriculture is a devolution. That is clear from the damage done and the low quality of the resulting product in taste, nutrients, and efficiency. Yes permaculture is more efficient it just cannot produce the volumes per acre and man hour but it utilizes free solar energy not finite stored solar.
Fossil fuel agriculture came about and with it a mass exodus from what had been honed into something very efficient and resilient. We will have to get back there somehow but not before a rebalance of population and consumption. Not before fossil fuels deplete to a point of being economically ineffectual. The descent will surely be a hybrid affair of fossil agriculture technology and the old permaculture ways. It will not scale so population will have to drop more than otherwise. Our inaction will result in many more premature deaths.
The sad truth is even if we wanted to go permaculture it would be highly disruptive. Markets for food would be disrupted. These markets are huge and end up at your grocer. Land as a basis of the modern financial system would be disrupted. The kind of transition needed would be beyond the scope of our system at least in the status quo. Cities would need to be depopulated to a significant extent. An agricultural education system ramped up because few people have a clue about agriculture. Animals breed and herds grown. Pre-fossil fuel implements produced in mass. This would be enough to destroy the status quo and this is part of the reason it doesn not happen. The act of doing right will end the status quo.
This is beyond the scope of a system already under stress from disequilibrium of limits of growth, declining marginal returns, and population overshoot. We have a few doing it. I am doing it. Those of us that are doing it are the equivalent to the monasteries of the dark ages. We can pass on skills, technology, and knowledge that can be used post collapse if we are not nixed by mad max or influenza.
People do not realize how quickly modern stores of knowledge could be lost. Currently any one of you could go permaculture. Everything is out there as it seems so many other activities modern life can make possible. Yet, once knowledge is lost in a decay of a collapsing civilization these technologies, knowledge, and skills will be lost quick. How much of today’s knowledge is on a disk? Lots! What good is a disk without electricity? Not!
Permaculture is our only hope to reduce the pain, suffering, and death. Modern agriculture will swiftly decline. How quick and how hard is debatable but the descent is not. It is based on finite resources and a complex system based on finite resources. Food is the backbone of civilization without it complexity fails. Food is the real form of energy. Oil is just an energy carrier. We take oil and make food that our bodies use.
If you are capable choose a higher level of activity in regards to what matters to society. Turn your back on the condo in the Sunbelt playing golf. Do something of higher purpose and value. Everyone should be gardening. Our children should be taught the basics. I have a book from 1910 that is a text book for basics of agriculture. It was an actual school subject back then. This is unheard of now! That folks is social hubris on a massive scale. It must come back or we will face consequences for our hubris and negligence. Those of us in positions of leadership are negligent in allowing the status quo because many will die because of our stupidity.
Kenz300 on Wed, 9th Sep 2015 8:58 am
Too many people and too few resources…….
Maybe population growth is the problem….
Endless population growth is not sustainable.