Vegans need to make friends, not enemies, with animal farmers
Whatabout animal farmers?
Throughout the media, vegans and animal farmers are framed as mortal enemies. This is frequently strengthened by hostile actions within both the farming and vegan community. Polarising the debate is rarely helpful to achieving progressive long-term social and political change. Vegans must realise that animal farmers are key to our future.
Animal farming has been part of human culture for around 15,000 years. Yet, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we must essentially abandon animal agriculture in order to have a planet that can sustain our human and non-human populations without major suffering and destruction. Eliminating a practise that has been around for thousands of years will not be easy. Vegans must make friends with animal farmers and the animal agriculture industry, in order to achieve the changes we all greatly need.
The meat and dairy industry is responsible for over 5.4 million US, 0.5 million Australian and 100,000 UK jobs. Vegans must carefully consider how we persuade and support these individuals to change their way of life for the benefit of all. Those that work in animal farming and the meat industry will be key to our futures.
Animal farmers have laboured on wide areas of our planet for many generations. They have a considerable amount of useful and practical skills, with a knowledge of our land above and beyond most others. While transitioning to a vegan future, we must support farmers and be careful to utilise these skills, not lose them.
In theory, we do not need animal agriculture as we currently grow enough crops to feed around 130% of the world’s population; yet many people still go hungry. Reasons for this shortfall include food waste, overconsumption and poor distribution systems, however, feeding human edible crops to animals is the major driving factor. In a vegan world only around 6% of the agricultural land that is used for animals (or animal feed) would need to be converted to grow plants for human consumption.
The livelihoods of animal farmers are largely reliant on government subsidies. A wide-scale reform of these subsidies would allow us to support farmers to transition away from the use of animals, and instead carry out more environmental friendly land management practises, and where appropriate, plant agriculture. Farmers could be financially supported to turn their land to other uses such as renewable energy generation, ecotourism, education, species reintroductions and nature conservation.
The most important reform however, would be to pay animal farmers to rewild their land. Climate change is the biggest threat to long-term human health and the health of all species. One factor that is often overlooked when we consider mitigating climate change, is the importance of land.
Agriculture currently accounts for around half of the planet’s habitable land. A global movement to veganism would lead to 75% of this land no longer being required for agriculture. If we were to rewild this huge area of land, returning it to forest and scrubland, we could offset almost a decade’s worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
As the food industry shifts from animal products to plant-based foods, those working in other aspects of the meat, dairy and egg industry such as processing, packing and manufacturing, should be prioritised for work within emerging businesses and industries. These individuals posses many transferable skills that will be essential for a successful transition to a vegan economy.
A further reason that vegans must win over the animal farming industry is due to their major lobbying power. Agriculture has become monopolised by huge businesses, with a strong influence over global politics and economies. In the USA agricultural companies are estimated to have spent around $100 million lobbying politicians in 2019. While across the EU and UK, lobby groups and those with vested interests in agribusiness are commonly making the decisions that count.
Environmental and social welfare groups will never have the economic or political clout when compared to big agribusiness. In order to make the widespread political, social and economic changes that vegans are calling for, we must get everyone on our side. This includes animal farmers and those that work in the meat, dairy and egg industries. By showing these sectors that there is a way forward that benefits themselves as well as the wider population, the planet and animals, we may have a chance of achieving our aims.
