It’s a common viewpoint among vegans that systems that depend on animal exploitation should be abolished. On the other hand, systems that contain animal exploitation should be improved.
I’ll give two examples with human animals so it can be clear:
Slavery? Should be abolished.
People getting ran over and killed by cars? We should improve that.
The ones I always come back to are pollinator-dependent crops such as fruits and tree nuts. Wild and feral pollinators are not abundant enough to sustain the level of production we presently demand in these crops. Presumably, if more people were to become vegan then we would demand them even more.
From what I know, vegans oppose the transportation of pollinators for pollinating these crops. Yet it seems most vegans eat plenty of them (apples, peaches, plums, almonds, avocados, etc).
You definitely could bring the wild pollinators back. I do that with my own garden in my backyard. But that means you’d have to remove parts of the orchard to provide a habitat for the pollinators, lowering the density of the trees. Lower density => lower production => smaller crop => more expensive almonds (or peaches etc).
If we want everyone to be vegan that’s gonna mean mostly giving up the luxury products that many vegans currently enjoy and switching to staples (beans, squash, corn, root veggies).
Do those crops depend on transportation of pollinators? To me it seems like they don’t.
By your own admission, there are natural pollinators. We can also manually pollinate them, which reinforces my point that systems that *contain* exploitation should be improved.
Manually pollinating thousands of almond trees is definitely possible. But then you should expect almonds to be in the same price range as vanilla pods, another manually pollinated crop.
Can you give some real world examples of systems that contain animal exploitation that vegans would want to see improved? I’m not sure I completely follow that point.
It’s a common viewpoint among vegans that systems that depend on animal exploitation should be abolished. On the other hand, systems that contain animal exploitation should be improved.
I’ll give two examples with human animals so it can be clear: Slavery? Should be abolished. People getting ran over and killed by cars? We should improve that.
The ones I always come back to are pollinator-dependent crops such as fruits and tree nuts. Wild and feral pollinators are not abundant enough to sustain the level of production we presently demand in these crops. Presumably, if more people were to become vegan then we would demand them even more.
From what I know, vegans oppose the transportation of pollinators for pollinating these crops. Yet it seems most vegans eat plenty of them (apples, peaches, plums, almonds, avocados, etc).
and why might that bee??? 🔪🪿
You definitely could bring the wild pollinators back. I do that with my own garden in my backyard. But that means you’d have to remove parts of the orchard to provide a habitat for the pollinators, lowering the density of the trees. Lower density => lower production => smaller crop => more expensive almonds (or peaches etc).
If we want everyone to be vegan that’s gonna mean mostly giving up the luxury products that many vegans currently enjoy and switching to staples (beans, squash, corn, root veggies).
Oh honey, I have no idea
Do those crops depend on transportation of pollinators? To me it seems like they don’t.
By your own admission, there are natural pollinators. We can also manually pollinate them, which reinforces my point that
systems that *contain* exploitation should be improved.Manually pollinating thousands of almond trees is definitely possible. But then you should expect almonds to be in the same price range as vanilla pods, another manually pollinated crop.
Can you give some real world examples of systems that contain animal exploitation that vegans would want to see improved? I’m not sure I completely follow that point.
Animal manure as fertilizer in farming. We can use fertilizers that don’t depend on animals to be made.