Are vegetables vegan? The man taking aim at animal products in organic farming

[Anonymous No.13425352]

Will Bonsall is a homesteader and 45-year vegan living in rural Maine with a message for Americans – your vegetables are “very un-vegan”.

Bonsall is an influential member of a small but growing group of vegan and organic – “veganic” – farmers, who want to revolutionize organic agriculture, which traditionally depends on animals byproducts such as cow manure.

“There’s a little bit of a disconnect, even hypocrisy, in vegans … We vegans like to put on our plates [vegetables] grown in methods that are very un-vegan,” Bonsall said.“Most organic agriculture is focused on moo poo,” said Bonsall. “Cow manure, animal manure, but also blood meal and bone meal,” he said.

A vegan diet excludes all products derived from animals, including meat, dairy, eggs and honey. Often, these products are avoided for health, environmental and ethical reasons.

Standard organic vegetable farming practices have used animal-derived products for centuries to boost soil fertility, such as cow manure, which farmers like Bonsall argue supports large-scale industrialized animal farming and, in his estimation, is unethical.

But the question of whether organic farming should necessarily exclude animals is hardly settled. Even proponents of veganic farming describe it as “controversial”.

The Rodale Institute helped develop the US Department of Agriculture standard for organic farming. Researchers there are pushing not for veganic methods, but for “regenerative organic certification”, which they hope can promote animal welfare, social justice and soil health.

“We’re at a point in time where our soils have been so degraded that it is actually becoming more and more difficult to grow crops in those degraded soils,” said Jessica Lang, research coordinator for the Rodale Institute. “This word – regenerative – is one that really needs to get into the vocabulary of the general population,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/24/vegetables-vegan-organic-agriculture-farming

[Anonymous No.13425356]

Bonsall’s is one of just 50 or so veganic farms in the United States, according to research by Professor Mona Seymour of Loyola Marymount University. Bonsall’s method of growing “perennial food crops with minimal fossil fuel and animal inputs”, is laid out in his book, an Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening.

In a myopic sense, industrial agriculture – which uses nitrogen-fixing synthetic chemical fertilisers – is vegan. They are not derived from animals and allow farms to grow vegetables that are bigger and more tightly packed together, and free from animal manure and byproducts.

“The next logical step from that is growing organically but without animal manure,” said Jenny Hall, a trustee of the Vegan Organic Network based in the UK, and co-author of Growing Green: Animal-Free Organic Techniques. Hall has been vegan for 25 years.

“Within the organic movement it’s still controversial,” she said. “But actually, the reality is all plants are the original source of energy. In any ecological system plants are the bottom of the food chain, so it’s really just following nature’s cycle,” said Hall.

Industrial animal agriculture is one of the most environmentally damaging activities humans do, and many believe vegetarian and especially vegan eating could radically decrease greenhouse gas output.

If the world adopted a vegan diet, a recent study in Science found, global farmland use would shrink by 75%, equivalent to the area of the US, European Union, China and Australia combined. Industrial animal agriculture is the second-largest contributor to human-made greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuels and is a leading cause of deforestation, water and air pollution and biodiversity loss.

Veganic farms remain small scale now, and less developed in the United States than in the European Union, where growers already have a certifying body, called “biocyclic vegan”.

[Anonymous No.13425363]

In the US, there is no certification, and veganic produce is harder to find, though not impossible if buying direct from farmers, Hall said.

“The next logical step from that is growing organically but without animal manure,” said Jenny Hall, a trustee of the Vegan Organic Network based in the UK, and co-author of Growing Green: Animal-Free Organic Techniques. Hall has been vegan for 25 years.

“Within the organic movement it’s still controversial,” she said. “But actually, the reality is all plants are the original source of energy. In any ecological system plants are the bottom of the food chain, so it’s really just following nature’s cycle,” said Hall.

Industrial animal agriculture is one of the most environmentally damaging activities humans do, and many believe vegetarian and especially vegan eating could radically decrease greenhouse gas output.

If the world adopted a vegan diet, a recent study in Science found, global farmland use would shrink by 75%, equivalent to the area of the US, European Union, China and Australia combined. Industrial animal agriculture is the second-largest contributor to human-made greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuels and is a leading cause of deforestation, water and air pollution and biodiversity loss.

Veganic farms remain small scale now, and less developed in the United States than in the European Union, where growers already have a certifying body, called “biocyclic vegan”. In the US, there is no certification, and veganic produce is harder to find, though not impossible if buying direct from farmers, Hall said.

[Anonymous No.13425389]

>>13425352
Some farms are using processed human sewage as manure now

[Anonymous No.13425434]

>>13425389
Bugs aren't vegan, either. I've had plenty of bags of spinach with bugs in them. If they buy processed food, that bug gets processed into it. They'd have to grow everything themselves in a completely sustainable way to maintain moral superiority.

[Anonymous No.13425985]

All vegans are based and redpilled.

[Anonymous No.13426018]

>>13425434
Definition of veganism by guy who coined the term is:
>A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude - as far as is possible and practicable - all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.
Note the words "as far as is possible and practicable". Also look up "nirvana fallacy" and "appeal to futility".

[Anonymous No.13426827]

bump

[Anonymous No.13426832]

Organic is carnist

[Anonymous No.13426851]

>>13425352
The real question is are vegans making sure their produce is 100% pesticide free?

[Anonymous No.13426860]

>>13425352
Why is this surprising? If a vegetable diet were all that were required to be "vegan" than the term wouldn't even exist and you would just call them vegetarians.