Blog: A Few Thoughts on Vegetarianism, Agriculture and Ecology

In response to the Hi-Line articles on vegetarianism, I would like to offer a few considerations. Realize this is only a glimpse into the vast, interconnected question of diet. Each comment deserves its own essay.

I was a vegetarian for over three years. And, to one degree or another, I believed I was acting on the rights of animals and the environment. I have only recently realized the naivety of these assumptions. The question of diet is not so much a consideration of whether or not one eats meat, but rather, a consideration of the whole food economy. It means asking how and where any of our food is raised.

Animal ethics motivates many people to become vegetarians. But agriculture can threaten the capacity of not only animals, but also plants and grasses to thrive in their own habitats.

When settlers converted the tall grass prairies of Iowa to crop fields, they were destroying the homes of numerous animals. Maybe this would not have been such a problem if we had not destroyed nearly all the of the tall grass prairie. (In Iowa, less than one tenth of one percent now remains).

Note that between the 1840s and early 1900s (before the widespread industrialization of agriculture) the following animals fled the state due to a loss of habitat: bison, elk, black bears, wolves, whooping cranes, mountain lions, sand hill cranes, trumpeter swans, and more. Through reintroduction, some animals – such as bison – have returned. Still, the rapidity of ecological change in the late-19^th century deserves the consideration of every Iowan. We have inherited the problems of this transformation in more ways than one.

A specific example: Intensive agriculture led to a diminishing of predators in Iowa, which in turn has led to an overpopulation of deer. Deer overpopulation leads to over-grazing and defoliation of plant life, which in turn impacts soil health and the capacity for other animals to survive. These observations suggest the integral role responsible hunting can play in restoring ecological health. 

Another example of overpopulation, which reflects the excessiveness of our meat industry, is the confinement animal feeding operations (or CAFOs). The majority of row crop farming in Iowa feeds livestock in CAFOs. While our biology is undoubtedly geared towards the consumption of meat, there is no denying that our excessive meat industry, amply represented by CAFOs, harms the health of humans, animals, and the environment. Nothing with legs is intended by nature to be confined to a cage for all hours of a day.

If everyone stopped eating meat, however, it would not magically feed or save the world. It is important to remember we live in an industrialized society. While industrialization has existed for no more than a sliver of human experience, it significantly alters how and where we get our food.

If we cut back on our consumption of meat, larger quantities of grain would be available to feed people. But the problem is not quantity but access.  (Note: there has been a surplus in grain production since the 1920s).

Our food economy is entangled in the powerful influences of transnational corporations and government subsidies. And to send grain overseas, or even to another region of the country, requires excessive energy expenditures that are not sustainable in the long run. And we will not be able to grow any grains if we keep sending our soil downstream.

Whether we eat meat or raise vegetables, we are impacting a part of nature. So the question comes down to responsibility; how to cause as little harm as possible. We, too, are a part of nature.

Wendell Berry writes, “In the moral (ecological) sense, you cannot know what until you have learned where.”

The ecology of the place where we live should serve as the guide to what we do and how we live. When it comes to how we obtain our food, there are no formulas we can universally apply. Einstein and other physicists may not be the best consultants. Perhaps we should act on the advice of the English poet Alexander Pope and “Consult the genius of place.”

A place-based diet. Thinking globally, but acting locally.  

To my knowledge, one of the best pursuits of this line of thought is the work of Wes Jackson and the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. For over thirty years now, the researchers at the Land Institute have explored how to farm like a prairie.

This means perennials rather than annuals, polyculture rather than monoculture, natural controls of insects, pathogens, and weeds rather than pesticides and herbicides, and an ecological system that sponsors its own nitrogen rather than using chemical fertilizer.

This is a vision of agriculture powered not by fossil fuels and machinery, but the sun. Farming with nature rather than against it.

But our current food economy, whether it pertains to livestock, vegetables, or restaurants, is mostly defined by excess and waste. The idea, for example, behind an all-you-can-eat buffet with a hundred or more items is not only an insult to human intelligence, but also the earth.

I believe one of the most important questions for us today is how to nourish ourselves without destroying the natural or ecological realms we inhabit. Thinking ecologically does not simply mean considering what is best for humans, but what is best for the whole. It means, as Aldo Leopold put it, “Thinking like a mountain.”  

And for the people in this land between two rivers: thinking like a prairie. 

(Note: As mentioned, this is only a glimpse. Much of what I have written deserves a more detailed response. If anyone has any questions or insights or would just like to continue this discussion, please e-mail me. I am more than willing to offer the little I know, including what books and writers offer the most illuminating looks into food industry, agriculture, and ecology.  benjamin.prostine@gmail.com)