Veganuary. It’s back. And being a vegan for January is bigger than ever.
As one of the fastest-growing social movements among the globe’s more privileged, veganism has garnered an increasing number of followers for environmental reasons. This is both bonkers and logical. Logical because in a time of crisis, we crave absolutes and clear answers; we shy away from nuance and complexity. Bonkers because veganism is by definition reductionist, fundamentalist and unbending, which is an odd tool to use in relation to nature.
Mainstream media selects a thin sliver to focus on, and so the narrative with going vegan for “green” reasons is something like “beef ... methane ... CO2 ... rainforests. A bad story. Veganism is the polar opposite, so veganism is a good story.” Huh? Where did the stuff in between go? Leaping from “industrial meat production is a problem” to “go vegan” is a lot like finding out that your favourite sneaker brand uses sweat shop labour, and deciding that the sensible solution is to stop wearing shoes altogether.
To ‘go vegan’ is a lot like finding out that your favourite sneaker brand uses sweat shop labour, and deciding that the sensible solution is to stop wearing shoes altogether.
Studies on global land use show quite clearly the best use of the planet’s resources, and different biomes, is to farm both animals and crops. That’s not surprising: about 70% of global agricultural land isn’t fit for crops, but is perfect for grazing livestock. Why not eat less meat or better raised meat?
The differences in various greenhouse gas emissions, in land and water use, in biodiversity loss — all are so massively different from animal to animal, and context to context, that from a “green” perspective, to eschew animals on principal and include plants on principal, is lunacy.
Why is animal-free the best picture? A properly free-range egg is responsible for less than half the emissions and a fraction of the soil destruction that’s part of most fossil-fuel based crop farming. How about farmed mussels, arguably the most sustainable seafood on the planet, requiring less input and space than almost any land-based agriculture? Is even a moderate amount of venison affecting the rainforests more than a daily cup of conventionally grown coffee? You’ll know the answer to that question if you’ve done even surface reading on the topic.
Environmental veganism is premised on the weird notion of a global solution. But just because the problem is a global one, that doesn’t mean the solutions are the same. Agriculture and food security are more complex and context specific than we like to imagine. What constitutes an environmentally friendly, sustainable food on grasslands is most probably livestock. On really fertile land with great rainfall, production of particular vegetables or fruit will be far more efficient than in other parts of the globe. In many biomes and contexts, mixed-use farming, where, for example, chickens, eggs and various crops all support one another — crop waste fed to the animals, animals fertilising land — is the most efficient and regenerative food production imaginable.
If we’re going to go around drawing lines, are we drawing them in the right place? Perhaps we should rather be fundamentalist about water use: should we leave out almonds because they can use as much water per kilogram as feedlot beef? Should we be going on a low-methane diet? That will mean eating a lot less rice.
We’ve lost the shades of grey. And that generally spells trouble. If our choices were indeed about the environment, there’d be shades of grey aplenty, because that’s how nature and ecology work. Lots of complexity. But our food choices don’t reflect that. Like sinners looking for salvation, like the terminally ill lurching towards the faith-healer, our decisions seem to be about something else entirely.
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