Its funny I feel exactly the opposite about farming but I really liked the
sensitivity of your statement saying that you "live on a vegan diet". There are no such things as human vegans as the creator made us all omnivores, able to choose veggies, meat or both ( given there are no health compromises). I think the tug of values btwn conventional farming and Nature Boy, farming/gathering is a healthy thing. To go completely natural would never feed the world, to go completely factory would waste our resources. It seems we need both tugging back and forth to get it right.
Few people realize the risks farmers take on their own and the hours they put in to feed their families and the world. Furthermore in many areas farming is often the only link to family values, social ethics and religious struture.
If you sat down with a calculator and a planner and tallied the amount of food that the average person could produce, you'll need fuel, seed, Fert., water , much equipment and then the farmer may look more acceptable to you than before. It is just that their weak points that need help. Soil erosion, lack of crop rotation and Mis-use of pesticides all have contributed to the less than stellar reputation but great headways are being made in many of these areas including the mis-use of water resources.
Farmers don't take animals for granted at all. I've heard that for years. I grew up farming... Animals have very little concience, no love only pecking order, no soul except that which we personally assign them. We do take them for sustenance, continuance and for a living. Few folks I know would be willing to mis every parade, vacation, fishing and hunting vacations, mis Kids games, run a deficit budget their whole lives and die with injuries in every limb. Few I know would be willing to work the hours, 8 days a week, Walk knee deep in manure, deliver animals, repair equipment, Plow the snow for them, the church, the school and all their neighbors and still milk twice a day. They do these things with a skeleton crew their whole lives as well. It gets lonely, lots of forces working against them instead of with them.
We sure do agree about the benefits of fishing except I eat forty or fifty panfish a year. The connection with the wild is uncanny when in the middle of a stream or lake. What has happened to the Family Farm will begin happening to the fishing, hunting and camping world. Back to Nature folk will first find it sad then inhumane and these usually urban dwelling folk, well meaning as they might be, will begin with studies. Then come law suits that will cripple fishing and hunting agencies and put an end to these practices as we know them. Outdoorsmen and women will find it grim.
So when someone says something negative about our food supply I like to point out a few things. Maybe in time more of us will find ways to please all everyone in all things natural. I hate the word compromise. Perhaps progress works.
Wow, that was Maximum12ish.
hooker-of-men wrote:
So... I live on a vegan diet with the exception of harvesting a fish every couple years and occasionally eating venison harvested by my family. No dairy. No meat other than what we personally take, and limited quantities of that. I think about the ethics of fishing in relation to this a lot, especially because my dietary choices are in substantial ways motivated by problems with the way that we take animals for granted and with factory farming especially.
The best way I can articulate living with this seeming contradiction is that fly fishing is tremendously valuable [trigger warning: vague hippie content coming] for putting me in touch with and teaching me about the natural world. Whereas buying hunks of meat with a USDA stamp from the glowing fluorescent depression aisle alienates me from nature and any understanding of ecology, actually going out and learning about fish, waterways, bugs, animals, the woods, etc. makes me, I feel, a better, smarter, more careful person all around.
Could I do this without hooking fish? I guess... I could take up hookless fishing like those nerds that were trending awhile back or I could get into birding or something. That doesn't sound much fun, and I see no reason to do so. Given the big picture, the small amount of harm I inflict is not even nearly measurable in terms of the large amount of harm society does through nearly every aspect of how we feed, shelter, outfit, etc. ourselves. My guess is that many people who take fly fishing seriously are, on the whole, also invested in conservation, ecology, and just general mindfulness of nature in ways that result in a net positive impact on the environment compared to your average schmuck.
I wonder if your date does much to act on her passion for taking care of animals beyond lecturing people who fish (and, oh yeah, actually eating animals)?
