AAaaaaargh! Is it immoral to eat meat and fish and do we care?

[Every Rose]

I'm not a science person (always wished I was but I have no aptitude for it and one particular teacher at school wasted no time in letting me know it).

But I do find things like this interesting and I've read something that might be interesting to the discussion.

It's in the National Geographic magazine this month and it's about grains and plants rather than animals.

In a nutshell the article is talking about the 'mistake' we made thousands of years ago when we started to cultivate annual plants for food rather than perennial plants.

At the time it seemed like a logical choice because the farmers selected the largest seeds from the healthiest plants to ensure a good crop the following year.

But these plants and the way we farm them have turned out to be a mistake. We have to plant and replant year after year, the way we plough fields etc is contributing to soil erosion at 10 to 100 times the rate of soil production and also contributing to pollution etc and it's actually a false economic to grow annual crops in more than just a financial way

The link is here and it really is an intesting read.

https://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/big-idea/perennial-grains-text

 

[PeanutBean]

I'd be curious about how the relative impact of this issue. Think I'll ask my botanist brother. He's worked on crops so might be in the know about whether or not it's as significant as implied.

 

[Natsku]

Hmm thats pretty interesting. I had read before about the problems of soil erosion and heavy use of fertilisers in growing crops but didn't know it was because we chose to grow annuals instead of perinneals.

 

[PeanutBean]

Personally I think it unlikely that the effects of annual crops will outweigh those of meat production. A lot of these issues are down to poor land management designed for short term gain and minimum cost without considering the future health of the land. We already have ways to get round these things but in some cases they are not chosen to be used. A fine example is the use of GM to provide disease and pest resistance. It's a whole other argument of course but has a very strong case for improving the way we grow crops, unlike organic which rather minimises production. The article only seemed to refer to wheat and corn which are hardly the only crops grown. In fact I think rice production is the greatest worldwide (it is surely the most consumed), so I don't know if there are different ways of producing rice...

I've have fb'd my brother to get his input. It's interesting!

 

[Sarahkka]

Very interesting stuff! Have to dash, but will come back to this discussion soon!

 

[Every Rose]

I'd be curious about how the relative impact of this issue. Think I'll ask my botanist brother. He's worked on crops so might be in the know about whether or not it's as significant as implied.

I'd like to know what he has to say. That's the trouble with reading articles, they give the side the writer wants to give and another perspective will be really good.

I don't know if the issue is as vital as the animal one but I hoped it would add a new view to the discussion as it really interested me.

 

[PeanutBean]

Unfortunately he is in Australia and not often enough on fb so don't hold your breath! He is working at a vineyard at present but was working on grasses prior to moving to Oz so probably has some clue about grains in general. He will reply for sure though. He loves a good science row and will probably try and have one with me even though all I did was link and ask for info. It's his special way. I'll update though when he sends me a bit rant!

 

[PeanutBean]

Here is my brother's response:

Soil erosion has been a huge environmental problem for a long time (at least 100 years) and yes it is as big a problem as the article implies and yes it is largely due to growing annual crops. However, times are changing and as the article notes, the increasing use of 'no-till' and the like are greatly reducing that effect. Using no-till, soil erosion is basically nil, certainly no worse than it would be with perennial crops.

The reasons it wasn't used in the past are various and I am no expert, but one of the biggest problems is disease. Tilling the soil and rotating crops will prevent many diseases and pests being a problem in agriculture. Another is adequate fertilisation, but no-till may reduce (not remove!) the fertilisation requirement, at least in part because your fertiliser isn't blowing away with your top soil.

No-till isn't the answer for everything though, it is very difficult with root vegetable crops for instance. Potato is the worlds 4th or 5th largest crop...

I forget if rice or wheat is the number one crop, possibly depends how you measure it (probably rice though). Rice paddies aren't always kept full of water, so aren't immune to soil erosion. Also they can use up a lot of water, which may be limited (e.g. Australian rice growing). Nothing is perfect.

I am sure there are many reasons why we use annual crops, speed of breeding being one, another will be that a much larger proportion of annual production ends up in the seed (usually the part we eat).

So it's a nice idea to try and breed perennial grains. However, I doubt that they will ever get yields to the point they are with wheat (see above), but who knows? Also, I doubt that without using genetic modification we would get anything useful in less than many decades.

He kindly pointed out to me that the article didn't mention meat consumption in response to my brief preamble that we were discussing the impact of it on the environment.

 

[Every Rose]

Thank you and your brother for that PeanutBean.

I should have said the article didn't mention meat production etc.

It was more that I was already aware of the environmental impact of eating anything to a small extent but that article made me realise there is far more to it than I ever realised.

And I like to share.

 

[PeanutBean]

No I read the article and there was no implication from me (or you) that it was about meat. My brother has his own special way of picking fights and errors is all.

 

[Every Rose]

No I read the article and there was no implication from me (or you) that it was about meat. My brother has his own special way of picking fights and errors is all.

Ah. So does mine.

 

[bky]

I work in agriculture science and apparently the top food crops are rice, wheat and beans/peas. Top crops overall are sugar cane, corn, wheat, rice and potato. Not sure on the discrepancy there, but I know a lot of corn goes to animal feed and similar, and the various corn and wheat starches are used in non-food applications.
NZ generally follows the 100 mile seasonal diet (though there are imported things the cost difference is huge), and I always tend to buy in season and local as it is. Except I love me some bananas! I know it's something I ought to feel slightly guilty about because of the way bananas are grown, but

I've heard that things like having pets produces quite a large carbon footprint as well. Like, a pet is worse for the environment than an SUV. I always find that an interesting bit to throw into this type of discussion.

Tilling does reduce disease, but so does appropriate crop rotation, and things like permaculture growing operations are even more efficient in terms of space and effective at preventing disease. Permaculture however, does not lend itself to mass farming methods necessary to maximize production, and thus feed lots of people cheaply.