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Comment by riprowan | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the question.

Can you help me understand why the idea that raising animals cannot be sustainable, when clearly grazing animals can live perfectly well on their own with no care whatsoever from humans (as they have for millennia) on areas of land that are not suitable for farming?

I think the direct answer to your question is that clearly carnivorism is environmentally sustainable, as it has been practiced by millions of various species for hundreds of millions of years.

Maybe your greater question is, "is a constantly growing human population sustainable?" which is outside the scope of this discussion.

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Name two examples of sustainable ranching. In the USA.

If it's hypothetically possible, surely someone somewhere is doing it.

What I like to call an existence proof.

Try the one made famous through "The Omnivores Dilemma":

http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

But apart from that, just read the comment you replied to. Human history as well as nature itself are the examples. There used to be millions of grazing animals (probably even an understatement).

Ranching. Not farming.

Hope beyond hope, I attempted the Socratic method on riprowan, willing him to attempt a quick google before his concern trolling.

Top hit:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/projects/sustainable-ranching-i...

There. Was that so hard?

Buried lead: Once you learn anything about current ranching practices, you realize its at least as bad as current farming practices. Totally unsustainable.

Edit: Hey! Looks like riprowan found google!

> Ranching. Not farming.

Not two things. One thing. Polyface is a farm and a ranch. How can you do sustainable farming without animals?

You were the one asking for examples, so you should have used Google yourself. I thought about replying with a LMGTFY link, but I don't like being a dick.

You say you were trying to get me to think? That works both ways.

> Once you learn anything about current ranching practices, you realize its at least as bad as current farming practices. Totally unsustainable.

"Current" practices. Interesting modifier. I thought we were talking about ranching generally.

Please define what the "current" farming and ranching practices are in the USA. Please be sure that your definition includes the practices of everyone currently ranching or farming in the country. Obviously nobody can provide this definition. So let's drop the "current" modifier.

You challenge the idea that ranching - even in the abstract - can be "sustainable." To me the question is absurd, because animals and carnivores exist sustainably in nature.

The question is, what are the practices that will allow animals to continue to exist in nature, with humans as one of their predators?

Also, what sort of environmental impact will exist if farm animals go away? Where will all the animal manure come from to grow sustainable produce? Sustainable farming requires animals. Imagine if all the US heartland was sustainably fertilized. That's a lot of manure, man. There used to be a couple million (sustainable) bison that provided that manure. Humans sustainably ate them for tens of thousands of years. Then came fences and the end of bison herds. To replace them, it'll take a few million head of cattle.

Nobody here was arguing that "current" ranching practices (whatever that broad term means) are "sustainable." I am simply pointing out that there exist millions of acres of ranchable but not farmable land in the USA which can obviously support edible grazing animals sustainably without competing even with even one acre of arable land; and that sustainable farming requires grazing animals. If you question these obvious facts, then I suppose we're done here.

---

Oh, also. It's "buried lede."

"buried lede"

Gah. Thanks.

Okay, I no longer know what we're arguing about. Topic drift.

OP [Chris Newman] says comparing "organic" to "conventional" farming is apples to oranges and that a particular critic [a commenter on his blog?] is omitting too much from his argument, that conventional isn't sustainable either.

We somehow got to...

"Raising cattle on these lands does not necessarily consume any water, food, or arable land that would be productively used otherwise."

I know of no example of that being the case. I'll re-search when I circle back to this issue (that advocacy stuff I mentioned). The "sustainable" ranches I've looked at are less impactful, but still not sustainable. Also, you omitted "impact on other species and ecosystems" from your definition.

The closest I can think of are the sheep left to their own to over winter in New Zealand and brought in for slaughter. The valleys keep them contained.

I've seen serious proposals for switching to bison, because they do less harm than cattle (bite off food rather than pull up), but I haven't followed up. But even then bison will destroy riparian and wetlands habitat. Maybe use drones? Or pay for more cowboys? Or get comfortable with more predators also on the range? I dunno.

In a separate comment:

"I agree with you on most of your points including that grass-fed beef is not sustainable at the current rate of consumption, but that does not mean that it isn't sustainable at a lower rate of consumption / higher price."

Okay.

I wrote about vat grown meat and ranching becoming a niche source of protein.

"Even if all of this comes to pass, why will the resulting ranching industry be unsustainable?"

Well. We might be close in opinion here.

I ask myself "What would sustainable look like?" (As productive as What is art? What is morality?)

Sustainable means:

#1 Given best available science, what accounting system measures everything important, no externalities?

#2 What is the fair market price for resources and services consumed and accrued?

I honestly don't know how to get from where we are to something sustainable. In sum, all of our activity is exceeding the current carrying capacity of our earth. And we lie to ourselves about how much stuff costs.

"...what are the practices that will allow animals to continue to exist in nature, with humans as one of their predators?"

Husbandry or hunting? No matter...

Nature's gone. It's now garden earth, where we actively manage the whole thing, intentionally or not.

Aside:

Else where you mention the necessity of manure for farming. Huh.

You assume some level of sustainable ranching is possible. Whereas I assume farming without manure is possible (and desirable).

It even goes past that.

Try doing sustainable farming without animals. It can't be done. Animals are a requirement for sustainable farming.

Sure, here's the first two that I looked up:

http://juharanch.com/

http://www.yellowstonegrassfedbeef.com/node/100

QED. I'm sure if you bother to research this you'll find many others.

If you stop and think about your question more deeply I think you'll unask it.

Organic produce farming requires manure. Something like 1/4 of the land mass of the USA requires grazing animals to maintain an ecological balance.

That manure and those animals are requirements, not luxuries.

Sustainable produce farming requires sustainable animal farming, because nature is inherently symbiotic.

Ok. I'm being a dick. I should calm down. I apologize.

I should have replied "Sustainable ranching is harder than you'd think." I might remove my comments this afternoon, after you've and had a chance to see this apology.

I've worked with ranchers to conserve wildlife, especially apex predators. Indeed, I predict ranching will become a niche source of protein as vat-grown meat comes online (20 years) and taxpayers decide to stop subsidizing it (10 years?). The draughts, draining aquifers, and scourge of wildfires will also make ranching less viable. But I can't guess the timeline of climate change on ranching.

If you've met any (independent) ranchers, you'd see they know their world is coming apart.

> Ok. I'm being a dick. I should calm down. I apologize.

Apologies always accepted here. No problem.

> I predict ranching will become a niche source of protein as vat-grown meat comes online (20 years) and taxpayers decide to stop subsidizing it (10 years?).

Even if all of this comes to pass, why will the resulting ranching industry be unsustainable?

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