Necessary/unnecessary, when it comes to food matkets, is a problematic way of thinking. It's ultimately preference, not necessity driven and our food culture is very complex.
Completely necessity driven (calories, nutrients and such)... the food market could be much tinier than it is today. We'd be getting our animal proteins from insects, our fresh vegetables from a small collection of locally efficient species, etc.
Dairy is a long tradition in a lot of places, and an important (culturally, but also nutritionally in-context) food. So is beef. So are spices. Increasingly, things like almond milk and avocados, for newer cultural movements.
Sure, dairy is not necessary. Neither are avocados. People like them though.
In any case, long history and tradition of cattle. The "matrix" problem is mostly a problem of agricultural policy, corporat farming and technology.
I live in Ireland. We have a big dairy industry. Cows eat mostly grass and live mostly in fields. Antibiotics are for sick cows. The medium sized farmers are still strong and I feel fine about the ethics of dairy, at least from an animal welfare perspective.
There a newer reasons for change. It might be a good idea to plant forest, instead of grassy fields and to be concerned about atmospheric methane. That said, if we are to reforest, we might use the forest to farm pigs the old fashioned way. Pigs are factory farmed, and animal welfare is a problem.
And it couldn't be any other way, its economics. If one farmer starts feeding the animals with cheaper food and have better milk yielding cows, he would have a competitive advantage over other farmers, and start taking over a larger part of the market.
As, I and you link say... pork (and poultry) is a different story. Dairy, beef & lamb are farmed differently here. There is nuance.
This is a disingenuous way of making an argument. Existence of factory farming isn't in dispute. It exists. ...as does regular farming! How can you possibly argue that decent farming (eg dairy) doesn't exist. Decent farming exists. Widely. Profitably. I'm looking out my window at decently raised cows right now.
If you think farming is wrong in principle, that's fine. We can debate this. Arguing that farming is inevitably dominated by bad factory farming practices is nonsense.
Depends on what you call decent. I mean for the cow it might have more space to walk around and eat grass.
Still, it will have their child taken at birth, shot, plugged into a milk machine daily, etc.
Farming if left to the natural economic forces in the market will lead to factory farming, unless regulated which is usually not the case. It's on the rise in Europe for example.
It's about supply and demand, and about producing the cheapest product at the highest margin, spending the least amount of money. People at the supermarket will often just choose the cheapest option.
Also, there is the need to feed a lot of people, and with animal products its hard to do that with traditional methods especially given the current levels of meat consumption.
>Depends on what you call decent. I mean for the cow it might have more space to walk around and eat grass.
Basically, yes. I can see how opinions would differ, that human exploitation makes it wrong. I do see farming involving raising animals for milk & meat as decent if done decently. It's a big question, and imo, fundamental in that it doesn't have deeper reasons.
Singer (you mentioned above) is famously utilitarian (in the bentham sense). So he does go one deeper. Right & wrong = pleasure and pain. For cows specifically, the question gets too weird to do the utilitarian math... for me.
In some senses, cows wouldn't have exist separately from farming, and for the most part won't. They did in the aurochs sense, but auroch are extinct and were probably pretty different. Would the world be better without cows...
Anyway, a lot of this relates to where I live. Visit Ireland, you will encounter cows. Decent farming is more than viable. I'm not even sure feedlots is what you would get in an unregulated market. All agg markets are subsidized & regulated, so who knows. It's even possible to do pork and poultry well, though here it generally isn't.
I also think as knowledge spreads surrounding broader ecosystems and micro-nutrient balance in the food we grow (animal and plant) and how they are needed together and work better together, the perception will eventually change.
Unfortunately overcoming years of marketing and influence peddling in the government is hard to overcome. Look how long it took to overcome the disinformation on fats and dietary cholesterol, and it still persists to this day. People are still afraid to eat too much salt, fat, cholesterol.
At the same time, look at how many people think it's fine to consume over 100g of sugars a day (mostly refined). It's kind of nuts when you think about it.
I agree, there are lots of responsible and ecosystem driven farms practices out there, it's just hard to convince a lot of people about the value. Aside: I did love the most recent South Park episode, Cartman's apology on processed (vegan) foods was hilarious.
Almost everything you listed in your opening post is all but completely absent here in cattle production, including soy, corn, hormones, antibiotics, and I could bet cows here don't descend from the same bulls either.
So yes, your little vegan rant is a thing of the US.
> And it couldn't be any other way, its economics. If one farmer starts feeding the animals with cheaper food and have better milk yielding cows, he would have a competitive advantage over other farmers, and start taking over a larger part of the market.
I don't think this is really true. people tend to associate "ethical" products with higher quality and are willing to pay more for them if they can afford it. this is the whole business model for stores like whole foods. of course whole foods sometimes misleads customers regarding how "ethical" the sourcing really is, but that's more a problem of marketing/advertising.
I think the truth is, most people don't care. They just go to the supermarket and throw in their shopping cart the cheapest option, and that's about it.
Its too much work and unrealistic to think people will be that aware, read labels, compare options, etc. It needs to come from the law.
> I think the truth is, most people don't care. They just go to the supermarket and throw in their shopping cart the cheapest option, and that's about it.
sure, all I'm saying is both can be true. most people can not care and just by the cheapest stuff and you can have upmarket suppliers for whole foods and farmer's market.
obviously this is not a solution for all the animals. that probably does have to be some sort of law. good luck to any politician who campaigns on pricing poor people out of meat.
Of course it can. You just regulate the market and don't allow it to operate completely freely because it's well understood that if you do do so everyone will quickly converge on the lowest common denominator.
Completely necessity driven (calories, nutrients and such)... the food market could be much tinier than it is today. We'd be getting our animal proteins from insects, our fresh vegetables from a small collection of locally efficient species, etc.
Dairy is a long tradition in a lot of places, and an important (culturally, but also nutritionally in-context) food. So is beef. So are spices. Increasingly, things like almond milk and avocados, for newer cultural movements.
Sure, dairy is not necessary. Neither are avocados. People like them though.
In any case, long history and tradition of cattle. The "matrix" problem is mostly a problem of agricultural policy, corporat farming and technology.
I live in Ireland. We have a big dairy industry. Cows eat mostly grass and live mostly in fields. Antibiotics are for sick cows. The medium sized farmers are still strong and I feel fine about the ethics of dairy, at least from an animal welfare perspective.
There a newer reasons for change. It might be a good idea to plant forest, instead of grassy fields and to be concerned about atmospheric methane. That said, if we are to reforest, we might use the forest to farm pigs the old fashioned way. Pigs are factory farmed, and animal welfare is a problem.