Yet another student research project - are you planning on shifting towards producing less meat or dairy?

[JP1]

I’m trying to be fair to the OP but just finished watching the news

Headlines

Forest fires in California and Turkey

Interviews with folks moaning about the rules and costs of PCR tests before they fly on their essential holidays

How does this square ?

 

[Macsky]

Who is funding your research?

 

[Jones wales]

What supporting documents and references do you have to support your vitamin B12 claim?

 

[Mathilde]

As someone farming near Winchester you are welcome to come round the farm and I will show you how and why I am producing more meat and livestock.

Please don’t rear up at people who disagree with you though, it’s not a good look. We don’t have to help you out with your dissertation you know.

Thank you for your honest comment and for your kind invitation. I'm going to have to pass on visiting you purely because I am a bit too broke to travel out of Devon at the moment, and have very full days working in the daytime and putting together my assignment evenings and weekends, and tending to my household around those things (ok, I know, farmers seem to work 20 hours a day so call me a lightweight!). Saying that, if I get to venture some more into the agri-food system once I've handed this in, I'd love to take you up on your offer. One of the reasons these antagonisms are frustrating as soon as meat is mentioned is there are people on both sides of the debate, me included, who do genuinely want to engage with the other side of the argument and understand what their rationale is, to improve the understanding our conclusions are based on.

As for my response to Topground's comments, please see that it wasn't a disagreement in principle, it came across as very rude to me and I wouldn't stand for it if this had been someone attacking someone who favours farming animals en masse on a plant-based food lovers/farmers' forum. You may notice that other people have commented in less virulent terms to express their belief that eating and farming meat is reasonable and desirable, and I have no, er, beef towards them, because no one else decided to phrase their views in such aggressive ways. And again, surely you can understand that it's upsetting for someone (who doesn't actually care about your project, who you are or what your motivations or knowledge might be) to come at you and question your integrity. I haven't said, or thought, that any of the people who've responded (I haven't caught up with the whole thread yet but so far everyone thinks animal products should be here to stay, regardless of whether there are objective shifts afoot, as far as I can tell) were being paid by KFC to go on a crusade against anyone uttering the words "meat reduction"
Lastly, please know I genuinely appreciate anyone who has made an honest effort of expressing constructive points, I know you don't have to help me, and in some sense - this is going to sound very harsh, I'm sorry, but it's the mirror image of your comment - I don't have to care about the pressure farmers are under (that sounds horrible though, and as I've said before, I am going out of my way to care, because what good is our society if we're all just in it for ourselves), I don't have to care too much about climate change (hell, I'm in Devon, I'm pretty sure it'll keep raining and stuff will keep growing here for a while here even if the climate breaks down, so I could live a selfish life and just let it happen, probably - again just saying that makes me cringe haha), I don't have to put myself in tons of debt to study so I can try and help make things better in some way... I just want to make music and watch movies, if I'm honest. I'm just a young-ish person trying to understand what's really going on in the world and where I might be able to help. I'm not claiming to have solutions, I'm not claiming to know the truth, etc., I'm just trying to learn from people who have more of a stake and more expertise than I do in the subject matter, and that's why I'm here. I was really shy about posting here precisely because I thought someone would take offense at the area I'm examining (I don't know how someone can take offense at a field of study per se, to be honest, but it did happen).

That was a very long answer but again, thank you so much for extending a helping hand while also telling me your honest thoughts. It means a lot.

 

[Macsky]

PS: I'm not sure the "people of colour and young women lack judgment" remark is a particularly edifying contribution either. I would love to read the peer-reviewed research to that effect that no doubt informs your expert opinion, however, that sounds profound and rational.

PS: I'm not sure the "people of colour and young women lack judgment" remark is a particularly edifying contribution either. I would love to read the peer-reviewed research to that effect that no doubt informs your expert opinion, however, that sounds profound and rational.

You’ve just dragged racism into this out of nowhere! What does the colour of Lewis Hamilton’s skin have to do with anything?

 

[Mathilde]

Hi @Mathilde. I run an organic farm producing beef, lamb and vegetables. I note that you’re in Devon and would be quite happy to show you around and explain why we do what we do. We run a fully integrated system where livestock are essential to the farm and the wider environment. I’m sure you’re sufficiently open minded to make the most of such an invitation.

Hey there Muddyroads, haha, do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your comment about open-mindedness? Don't worry, it made me smile, not take offense, because yes, actually, I think humans are all naturally pretty narrow-minded by default and we owe it to ourselves and each other to try and stretch that willingness to think differently and change our views when presented with solid evidence (which sadly is all too hard in our polarised world). I would love to come and visit you, I'll message you in private. That's a really kind offer and honestly, I've been smashing my head against my desk trying to make sense of competing claims about the role of livestock in farming for a fair few months now (so if my brain function is altered, as someone suggested, that'll be why, not the diet haha). It'd be great to get your first-hand expertise. Thank you so much!

 

[puppet]

Hey there, yes, well, I tend to be wary of figures claimed by big business and aired by the media too, to be fair, so I understand your frustration. I haven't found any paper I found 100% reliable on "the truth" about GHG emissions, land and water use of different products in different environments and models etc, so while it seems to me to be likely (purely doing the math) that livestock farming has a non-insignificantly higher footprint than cell-based models might, I do not make any claims as to the truth of the matter, if it's any consolation to you. In fact I try not to watch the BBC or TV in general as I prefer not to think I know about a particular topic when I'm likely just getting distorted soundbites of the facts...
It's just a bit of a recipe for disaster when you mix very complex interdisciplinary science with ideologies and commercial, cultural and political interests (in a disjointed public governance system to boot). And in case that isn't clear, that's not a criticism at "meat advocates", it's just human nature doing its thing across the entire ideological spectrum, in my view.

So here is a fact from the vegan movement. It takes 600 gallons of water to make a beefburger but only 6 gallons for a plant-based one.
My cattle grow by 5 burgers daily so therefore need 3000 gallons daily. I have 100 cattle so 300,000 gallons a day on my farm, the daily consumption of 15,000 people.
A Big Mac takes 1000 gallons.
A litre of milk takes 1000 litres of water, ie 25,000 litres or 6000 gallons daily per cow. My neighbour has 1000 cows so 6m gallons daily!! No wonder the reservoirs have dried up and we have hose-pipe bans.

 

[___\0/___]

Is this you? (apologies if it's not). #cancelanimalag would put me off submitting any info to you.

 

[Mathilde]

@Mathilde Your response to my original post suggests to me that you are determined to be offended. This is evidenced by your poor understanding of my reference to Goebbels in demonstrating how propaganda influences the population at large. I have made no reference to ‘people of colour’ Hamilton has a black father and a white mother, how he identifies is irrelevant to his poor diet. It is also a fact that young women are more likely to adopt fad diets and to suffer health problems as a result.
I have concluded that your dissertation will be a reflection of your views rather than an objective analysis of any contribution from members of this forum and as a consequence I suspect few will bother to respond.
Good luck anyway, you probably have a bright future as a graduate working for the BBC or as a DEFRA policy maker.

Hey Topground, well, I just don't think saying something a Nazi leader said was right can be expected as a normal response to a call for contributions to a student assignment, I can't believe how uncontroversial your view on the matter has been on this thread, but I appreciate that perhaps you meant something by it that the choice of reference suggests. I'm not determined to be offended, good grief, I love a good heated debate. But it has to be in good faith and your comments, especially each aspect put together, seemed like pure bad faith and trolling to me. You see, from my perspective, yes, women often go on all kinds of diets and end up with eating disorders and deficiencies, but it's not a trend I have observed among my veggie and vegan friends, nor something I've seen seriously suggested by research. And while I get the sense that many people seem "wary of the vegan agenda", so to speak, I would dispute the notion that big money is behind the plant-based movement and pulling its strings. Yes, many large food companies are jumping on that band wagon because they see a growing market, and increasingly they make a show of caring about the things at least some of us herbivores care about, like the planet, animal welfare, etc., but that's a recent development, and as I've mentioned earlier in this thread, I am not a fan of big business having a chokehold on our food system. I want to see farmers and communities have more agency, work together more closely, and stop having everything dictated to them by the shareholders of big companies, who will equally happily sell them plant-based or animal-based diabetes- (or any number of other health problem-) inducing foods, whatever makes money. I see a lot of plant-based people AND animal-eating people around me who neither have nor seek much nutritional literacy (and I get it, who has time to educate themselves enough about that stuff?), but equally I know plenty of veggie/vegans who absolutely thrive on a plant-based diet, because they eat a balanced diet. I spend more of my household income on our food (getting a veg box from mostly UK farms for instance - probably not perfect but I do my best) than most of my friends because I believe cheap food is at the expense of someone on the food chain, and/or nature, so I try to make a conscious effort of aligning my actions with my views. And many of the plant-based people I know have made the choice to eat that way because they can't reconcile animal sentience with their exploitation, so they choose not to support it, but you see, that's where I find your approach abrasive, you equate something that's just a thoughtful, ethically driven and not illogical choice to a fad diet, and that's not fair. A fad diet is something people do to look cool or lose weight. And sure in the past few years plant-based diets have become trendy (because brands have identified this was a market they could profit from if it expanded) and associated with "superfood culture", so there are no doubt people who have gone plant-based for these superficial reasons, but I suspect you know better - that to a lot of people, it's an ethos driven by values like compassion and non-violence, which surely can't be that offensive to people who choose to eat animals. I think part of my issue with the kinds of framing you use is that my whole generation is in crisis when it comes to the way they feed themselves and engage with the world - our choices are driven by what's advertised to us on social media and what the supermarket has put in the most visible spots of each aisle and sells at the cheapest prices. Many people my age and younger never see how food gets made, never learn about nutrients and physiology, etc. (which wasn't so much a problem when people ate whatever their environment could supply with more nature-friendly, less factory-like agricultural models than the ones which currently dominate our food system). So it's a complex picture, and it's not fair to just say "people who think differently on this issue are ignorant/malicious" - there'll always be malicious people everywhere, and we are all largely ignorant, but the fact that you pointed to these suggests that that's the norm in people going plant-based, and that, reciprocally, that isn't such an issue with meat eaters, whereas I'm sure you've encountered plenty of people who eat animal products and are struggling with their health. And then to top it all off you suggested someone was funding me to craft a sinister narrative - surely you can see how that would not go down well with most people... As I said to someone else earlier, my response wasn't to say, hey, I bet you're the head of marketing for KFC trying to brainwash or bully me. My response was, you're not engaging with me in good faith and it's a waste of your time and mine.
Finally, the whole point for me in choosing this project is to get to understand the subject matter better. It would be a lot of effort to go through to do a 6-month school assignment just to misrepresent people's views based on a post they put up on a forum in the eyes of the person marking my assignment, don't you think? It's sad how we've created a world for ourselves where we're all so distrustful of each other's intentions that we can't have friendly conversations, but we readily allow corporations to sell us things we don't need by tracking our every move and targeting their marketing to us - or by influencing policy with profit-driven narratives. And then we're surprised when the only sources of "information" we all hear seem corrupted.
Ha, I am far too idealistic and working-class at heart to "make it" in such circles, and that's all right by me. I'm probably quite the opposite of the manipulative and vapid person you see me as, if anything - an eternal optimist but constant worrier. I wish we could focus on the things that unite us rather than our stunted understanding of each other's differing views, but the Internet isn't too helpful as a medium for that either.

 

[Mathilde]

Who is funding your research?

Macksy, I've already answered this question. It's a degree assignment, not a funded PhD or a commissioned report I'm writing! Right now I'm funded by the student loan company, until I've slowly repaid all my uni fees in full many years from now. Then I'll have technically funded myself. Happy? The person on the other side of the argument you're making out isn't always evil, you know.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We can't really "produce less" as we already shifted away from livestock production being the mainstay of the business - the numbers don't really add up to anything we can base a future on.
(And alot of the required inputs are similarly "un- futureproof")

It's had the huge advantage that we can now run a much higher stocking rate, and manage the animals in a way that improves the land in the quickest possible way - but we still need the producers (profitable ones) in order to have the animals we need to do this.

 

[Mathilde]

It would be interesting to know the carbon footprint of the essential oils/ vitamins replacements that naturally occur in meat.

I wonder how long it will take for health implications of some of these meat alternatives to appear. We have so little understanding of how modern processed foods interact with our bodies but they are probably closely related to the increase in diabetes, auto-immune disorders, obesity, mental health problems, etc

All valid points. The problem is always the same - whether we want the outcome to be "eat more meat" or "eat less meat", those of us that don't agree with the results will be skeptical as to their reliability given the interests at stake. If everyone was happy and able to eat whole foods (with or without meat) I suspect things would be a lot easier...

 

[Mathilde]

@Mathilde Any evidence to support this story about B12 being added to meat or is this yet more vegan propaganda lies which, if repeated often enough become fact, (See Goebbels reference above)

There is still a lot more lobbying money on the side of animal products than "vegan propaganda", so I think you're overstating the power of said "propaganda". Also, I would really like a reliable source to corroborate what you are saying, because my understanding of how B12 naturally occur doesn't suggest people eating cheap meat produced on concentrate fodder would necessarily contain this compound as it would occur if you were to consume the animal in a more natural feeding context.

 

[Mathilde]

We can't really "produce less" as we already shifted away from livestock production being the mainstay of the business - the numbers don't really add up to anything we can base a future on.
(And alot of the required inputs are similarly "un- futureproof")

It's had the huge advantage that we can now run a much higher stocking rate, and manage the animals in a way that improves the land in the quickest possible way - but we still need the producers (profitable ones) in order to have the animals we need to do this.

Thanks for your comment, it's interesting to hear about the constraints and possibilities you're working with.

 

[Vader]

Hello!

To perpetuate the cliché of students coming to ask for your views on various aspects of your work, I would love to hear your views if the question in my title resonates with you. I've been advised by the moderation team to post about my project in this section.

I'm a student at the University of Winchester writing my final dissertation.

Based on the increasing recommendations from health and climate scientists, the National Food Strategy, and the like, according to which England needs to produce and consume fewer animal products (less and better, regenerative models, more focus on plant-based options, etc.), my project explores the practical implications of this idea for farmers, and the opportunities through which policy instruments can help producers. I'm also basing this project on reports indicating that animal product alternatives are set to disrupt animal agriculture much more abruptly than most people think—including me until recently!

I'm only focusing on England because it's easier to keep a narrow focus than fit the differences of the already complex farming sector over all 4 states, but if anyone from outside England wants to share their views, I'd welcome that too as I'm sure it would still be relevant.

Despite the "decreasing the production of animal products" theme of my research, I know people are usually deeply attached to what they do, and I fully respect that; my objective isn't to tell people who are happy producing animal products they shouldn't keep farming animals (I can't emphasise that enough!)—but with all the pressures I mentioned above, it seems likely to me that some farmers might, in the near future, change their business models by emphasising crops, keeping lower stocking densities, diversifying by planting trees for carbon capture, etc., either to stay profitable, be eligible for ELM payments or for other business or personal reasons.

What my project asks is, how can English policy offer to farmers who want to reduce their volume of production of animal products a just transition amidst all these challenges and changes? Would such producers say they would mostly need ELM support, diversification grants, measures to improve value chain fairness and trade protection, advice, and/or any number of other possible useful tools?

I'm interviewing researchers and people who work on the policy side, but obviously what I am most interested in is what farmers interested in shifting away from animal-heavy production models have to say. There's plenty of research and policy declarations on this general theme, but not a lot of concern for how that would all work for farmers, and I'm really hoping I can put together some useful conclusions as to what would be helpful to them.
I'd therefore be super happy if anyone on TFF who might find this topic interesting would share their insights with me. I'm conducting online interviews this month; if anyone wanted to participate but would prefer just to answer a couple of questions by email to save time, for instance, that would be fine too.

If you have any questions or would like to consult the information sheet I've prepared for participants to find out more, please message me (or email me directly - [email protected]).

Thanks so much for reading!

Mathilde, from Devon

Would be nice to get a student who wants to support uk agriculture and help prove its not causing climate chsnge.

You do understand the methane cycle?
Understand that pasture is massive carbon sink ?

But then again, if you did try and show the truth, you would probably fail your degree as you would be going against the agenda..

 

[Macsky]

Macksy, I've already answered this question. It's a degree assignment, not a funded PhD or a commissioned report I'm writing! Right now I'm funded by the student loan company, until I've slowly repaid all my uni fees in full many years from now. Then I'll have technically funded myself. Happy? The person on the other side of the argument you're making out isn't always evil, you know.

Or racist.

 

[topground]

There is still a lot more lobbying money on the side of animal products than "vegan propaganda", so I think you're overstating the power of said "propaganda". Also, I would really like a reliable source to corroborate what you are saying, because my understanding of how B12 naturally occur doesn't suggest people eating cheap meat produced on concentrate fodder would necessarily contain this compound as it would occur if you were to consume the animal in a more natural feeding context.

@Mathilde More vegan lies then. You have clearly been taken in by those lies and are a convert to the vegan cult.
Good luck with that and with coping with the long term health effects of a diet your digestive system has not evolved to cope with. You will have neither the teeth or sufficient stomachs to function as a true herbivore unless you are cute enough to have sourced the array of artificial supplements otherwise found in meat and dairy.
Who manufactures those supplements and the plant based ‘meat and dairy’ alternatives? Unilever and their multinational mates whose only concern is market share and shareholder dividends.
I fear that those impressionable folk who have become disciples of the vegan cult will come to regret it long term. A GP friend of mine is seeing cases of iron deficiency and inability to conceive and she anticipates a rise in cases of osteoporosis as those disciples age.
You have chosen to bend and twist what I wrote in my original post to suit your own agenda to suggest I am an’ist’ of various types. I won’t lose any sleep over that but it does tell me that you are on the militant zealot end of the vegan eating disorder religion. I will regard anything you write accordingly.and I suspect other readers of this thread will have come to a similar conclusion.

 

[Lowland1]

The more vegetables people eat the better but then I do grow them. However I did think the Original Post asked a fair question.

 

[The Ruminant]

Hello!

To perpetuate the cliché of students coming to ask for your views on various aspects of your work, I would love to hear your views if the question in my title resonates with you. I've been advised by the moderation team to post about my project in this section.

I'm a student at the University of Winchester writing my final dissertation.

Based on the increasing recommendations from health and climate scientists, the National Food Strategy, and the like, according to which England needs to produce and consume fewer animal products (less and better, regenerative models, more focus on plant-based options, etc.), my project explores the practical implications of this idea for farmers, and the opportunities through which policy instruments can help producers. I'm also basing this project on reports indicating that animal product alternatives are set to disrupt animal agriculture much more abruptly than most people think—including me until recently!

I'm only focusing on England because it's easier to keep a narrow focus than fit the differences of the already complex farming sector over all 4 states, but if anyone from outside England wants to share their views, I'd welcome that too as I'm sure it would still be relevant.

Despite the "decreasing the production of animal products" theme of my research, I know people are usually deeply attached to what they do, and I fully respect that; my objective isn't to tell people who are happy producing animal products they shouldn't keep farming animals (I can't emphasise that enough!)—but with all the pressures I mentioned above, it seems likely to me that some farmers might, in the near future, change their business models by emphasising crops, keeping lower stocking densities, diversifying by planting trees for carbon capture, etc., either to stay profitable, be eligible for ELM payments or for other business or personal reasons.

What my project asks is, how can English policy offer to farmers who want to reduce their volume of production of animal products a just transition amidst all these challenges and changes? Would such producers say they would mostly need ELM support, diversification grants, measures to improve value chain fairness and trade protection, advice, and/or any number of other possible useful tools?

I'm interviewing researchers and people who work on the policy side, but obviously what I am most interested in is what farmers interested in shifting away from animal-heavy production models have to say. There's plenty of research and policy declarations on this general theme, but not a lot of concern for how that would all work for farmers, and I'm really hoping I can put together some useful conclusions as to what would be helpful to them.
I'd therefore be super happy if anyone on TFF who might find this topic interesting would share their insights with me. I'm conducting online interviews this month; if anyone wanted to participate but would prefer just to answer a couple of questions by email to save time, for instance, that would be fine too.

If you have any questions or would like to consult the information sheet I've prepared for participants to find out more, please message me (or email me directly - [email protected]).

Thanks so much for reading!

Mathilde, from Devon

Hi Mathilde
Unfortunately the propaganda against ruminant meat was started by the fossil fuel companies (better to attack than to defend your own very dubious position) and enthusiastically embraced by the fact-lite media.

I wrote the following contribution for a book that is due out shortly which, I feel, sums up the falsehoods quite well:

The ‘elephant in the room’, when discussing ruminant livestock and carbon sequestration, is the effect of their emissions, particularly methane, on the climate. The issue came to the forefront of the debate when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published methodology showing the heating effect -known as the ‘Global Warming Potential’ (GWP) - for various ‘greenhouse gases’.

The initial calculations attempted to show the impact over a one hundred year period of each gas (the figure being referred to as GWP100). Recently, serious questions have been raised over the original calculations behind these figures as they take no account of, for example, the degradation of methane to carbon dioxide in just over a decade. Making the assumption that the gas persists for 100 years seriously over-estimates its effect on the climate.

Scientists are now working on a new metric, referred to as GWP* which adjusts for this degradation. However, even GWP* appears to have a major flaw in that it still only focuses on the emissions side of the equation. Ruminants are part of the carbon cycle: For every atom of carbon they emit, whether it’s as methane from enteric fermentation, or as carbon dioxide from respiration, an atom of carbon has been removed from the atmosphere by the photosynthesising plant, prior to being eaten. None of the GWP calculations account for the global cooling effect of removing this carbon from the atmosphere.

Until this is addressed, figures on emissions from ruminants should be taken with a pinch of salt and should not be allowed to mask the invaluable work grazing animals can do in sequestering carbon into our soils.”

 

[JP1]

Thank you for your honest comment and for your kind invitation. I'm going to have to pass on visiting you purely because I am a bit too broke to travel out of Devon at the moment, and have very full days working in the daytime and putting together my assignment evenings and weekends, and tending to my household around those things (ok, I know, farmers seem to work 20 hours a day so call me a lightweight!). Saying that, if I get to venture some more into the agri-food system once I've handed this in, I'd love to take you up on your offer. One of the reasons these antagonisms are frustrating as soon as meat is mentioned is there are people on both sides of the debate, me included, who do genuinely want to engage with the other side of the argument and understand what their rationale is, to improve the understanding our conclusions are based on.

As for my response to Topground's comments, please see that it wasn't a disagreement in principle, it came across as very rude to me and I wouldn't stand for it if this had been someone attacking someone who favours farming animals en masse on a plant-based food lovers/farmers' forum. You may notice that other people have commented in less virulent terms to express their belief that eating and farming meat is reasonable and desirable, and I have no, er, beef towards them, because no one else decided to phrase their views in such aggressive ways. And again, surely you can understand that it's upsetting for someone (who doesn't actually care about your project, who you are or what your motivations or knowledge might be) to come at you and question your integrity. I haven't said, or thought, that any of the people who've responded (I haven't caught up with the whole thread yet but so far everyone thinks animal products should be here to stay, regardless of whether there are objective shifts afoot, as far as I can tell) were being paid by KFC to go on a crusade against anyone uttering the words "meat reduction"
Lastly, please know I genuinely appreciate anyone who has made an honest effort of expressing constructive points, I know you don't have to help me, and in some sense - this is going to sound very harsh, I'm sorry, but it's the mirror image of your comment - I don't have to care about the pressure farmers are under (that sounds horrible though, and as I've said before, I am going out of my way to care, because what good is our society if we're all just in it for ourselves), I don't have to care too much about climate change (hell, I'm in Devon, I'm pretty sure it'll keep raining and stuff will keep growing here for a while here even if the climate breaks down, so I could live a selfish life and just let it happen, probably - again just saying that makes me cringe haha), I don't have to put myself in tons of debt to study so I can try and help make things better in some way... I just want to make music and watch movies, if I'm honest. I'm just a young-ish person trying to understand what's really going on in the world and where I might be able to help. I'm not claiming to have solutions, I'm not claiming to know the truth, etc., I'm just trying to learn from people who have more of a stake and more expertise than I do in the subject matter, and that's why I'm here. I was really shy about posting here precisely because I thought someone would take offense at the area I'm examining (I don't know how someone can take offense at a field of study per se, to be honest, but it did happen).

That was a very long answer but again, thank you so much for extending a helping hand while also telling me your honest thoughts. It means a lot.

How can you honestly comment and report without seeing real livestock farming and after several invitations ?

I gave a pretty full response and have not as yet heard back from you either on the forum or by PM