Yes, farmers do go out and rescue cows (and sheep, and goats, and pigs, and chickens) from the wilderness all the time.

More so, they protect those animals "from the wilderness" every single day. For example, in the farm I stay, we had some ten goats eaten by wild dogs in the last five years. The first time seven goats were attacked when they were alone in their enclosure. Now there's a guardian dog with them. The second time, a goat and her two kids were in another part of the farm, where the dog couldn't guard them and the wild dogs dug under the fence and killed them.

I say "killed", not "ate" because they didn't eat them. They savaged them and let them dying with their guts spilled all over the place.

Btw, what happens if we stop breeding farm animals? What's the plan at that point? Are we going to euthanise them all, release them into the wild to be eaten alive, keep them until they're all extinct? What does it mean to not breed them anymore, in practice?

> Yes, farmers do go out and rescue cows (and sheep, and goats, and pigs, and chickens) from the wilderness all the time.

Really? How many of the 70 billion land animals per year slaughtered for food were rescued from the wilderness, as opposed to bred in captivity?

> Btw, what happens if we stop breeding farm animals? What's the plan at that point [for the ones alive]?

The ones currently alive will be eaten by omnivores. Because we're not going to all switch over to veganism over night. Ideally there would be less demand as people stop buying animal products, so fewer are bred over time and livestock numbers dwindle. All the farm animals currently alive are goners, unfortunately. I'm suggesting stopping the cycle for the future ones.

Btw I hear this argument all the time and it's really silly if you think about it honestly. "If we stop we'd have to euthanize all the farm animals. Better keep doing what we're doing, which is kill them anyway plus countless more each year forever."

> Really? How many of the 70 billion land animals per year slaughtered for food were rescued from the wilderness, as opposed to bred in captivity?

How should I know? There's no statistics about that kind of thing. And yet it happens all the time: that's why farm animals have bells around the neck so that when they wander off and fall into a ravine or get stuck on a tree (goats, for you) the farmer can find them.

But aren't you moving the goalposts? First you said "farmers aren't going out and rescuing cows from the wildernes". Now you're asking how many do.

I have to ask, other than the horror youtube videos of vegan propaganda, is there anything else you know about farming?

> Btw I hear this argument all the time and it's really silly if you think about it honestly.

So you mean to say I'm either silly, or dishonest? And that's not meant to shut me up and end conversation with a "win"?

Well I won't beat about the bush as you do. I think what you propose is demented. You're suggesting that, to avoid killing animals we should genocide them instead. As if extinction is a better option than living a healthy and happy life and dying at the end and in a better way than the animal would die anyway, except it's now humans killing the animal, which seems to be the only problem with the current status quo.

Hey, I know. Maybe we should genocide all the wild animals also, so that they stop killing each other in horrible ways and dying half-eaten by something.

Oh, wait, that's actually a thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering

It's a rhetorical question, I don't actually care what the number is because it's diminishingly small. Farmers breed their animals, they're not filling the ranks of their livestock by going out and rescuing wild animals. I'm not talking about livestock that wander off the farm.

And you're not silly. I said the argument is silly. We all can make silly arguments from time to time when we don't really think a line of reasoning through or consider what the other person is saying. It wasn't my intention to attack your intelligence or integrity, sorry to have created this unpleasant interaction.

We obviously disagree on how rewarding the "gift of life" is. I know I wouldn't want to be a farm animal, and would prefer not to exist in the first place rather than live their life. With all due respect, I think it's you who doesn't have a clear mental model of farming at scale. You paint farming like it's your uncle's happy farm down the road. That's not how most people are getting their food. That doesn't scale to 70 billion land animals per year.

> Well I won't beat about the bush as you do. I think what you propose is demented. You're suggesting that, to avoid killing animals we should genocide them instead.

They are already being "genocided" though. That's what happens when they slow down their milk or egg production, or reach slaughter weight. I'm suggesting we stop breeding them just to be killed. This results in less killing.

Alright, thank you for your honesty and for making an effort to have a sensible discussion.

Yes, farmers don't populate their herds with wild animals. I didn't understand then what you meant by "rescue". Without using the word "rescue" though, it is the case that humans did take in those animals and protected them and nurtured and cared for them, when they first domesticated them. Entire subspecies of animals are living in our care and with our support and don't have to survive on their own in the wild.

You're wrong that I don't understand the evil of factory farming. It's actually something that I have very strong opinions about: I believe it is an atrocity that harms both animals and humans, both physically, mentally and ethically, and that we will do well as modern societies to eliminate it. I don't believe it's possible to raise healthy and happy animals at such mad scales. And I'm pretty sure, though I've never worked in a factory farm (and I never would) that taking part in that industry stains one's soul forever, at least for those people who do have a conscience.

I guess I don't have to say that I believe small scale farming is a different matter. That should be obvious that I think so.

But I also think you're wrong to say that small scale farming is not how most people are getting their food. It absolutelyl is! I posted this link earlier, in another thread, as a reply to another comment you made:

> Five of every six farms in the world consist of less than two hectares, operate only around 12 percent of all agricultural land, and produce roughly 35 percent of the world's food, according to a study published in World Development.

https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1395127/icode/

Most farming and agriculture in the world _is_ small-scale farming. And while the food produced in such small scale farms is 35% of all food produced in the world, that's partly because 2/3s of the world eat much less food than the other third and it's also true that a third of all the food produced in the world is thrown out:

https://theconversation.com/we-throw-away-a-third-of-the-foo...

And I probably don't have to give you any links to convince you that certain people in the world eat way, way too much meat (as well as everything else!). This is particularly true for the people in the Americas and Western Europeans who eat about twice as much meat as the next people down the line. I believe this is a matter of production, rather than demand, that the Americans particlarly eat so much meat just because that's where most of the world's factory farms are located, and I'm pretty sure we could feed all those meat-lovers just fine without CAFOs if they could be convinced to at least halve their meat consumption. I believe so for the reasons I gave above: that most of the world already does fine without factory farms, most of the world eats a small fraction of the meat eaten in the Americas and because there is so much food waste that we could eliminate and that would help us feed everyone.

I think it should be obvious that some parts of the world consume many times more than they need and many times more than the environment and the economy even can sustain and that those people really need to slow down. But that's not true of everyone everywhere in the world. Perhaps we disagree then because we are looking at things from a different place in the world?

I'm glad we can find common ground about the evils of factory farming. You're right, my perspective comes from America where 99% of animals are factory farmed. I do take less issue with the small scale sort of farming you describe (although personally I still wouldn't consume it, because I think food can be healthy and delicious without it).

My worry is the trend is not going in the right direction. The world is eating more and more meat, the rest of the world adopting the Standard American Diet. This level of consumption can only continue by expanding factory farming. Especially as we add a couple of billion more people over the coming decades and they want to eat meat like the rich countries do. Most people just don't care where their food comes from (not all, I take it you are among the few who do care). So the way I see it, the only way out is for people to really change how they see food and whether we should be eating animals at all. Because they're not going to take the effort to figure out where and how their meat/dairy came to be every time they eat it.

I agree that the trend is in a worrying direction. It's certainly worrying me.

I think though it'd be much harder to convince most people to give up on meat and dairy than it would be to convince them to take responsibility for their food, where it comes from and how it's grown or raised. And I think it's the people who aren't vegans who have to have this discussion. I don't mean that as an attack on vegans, but I don't think that continuing to eat meat, even in a sustainable manner, is something that agrees with vegan ideals. So it's going to have to be meat eaters who change things. Or else things won't change.

I guess I agree that most people take their food for granted. I don't know how that changes. Maybe we need a popular movement of activism from meat eaters :) I guess that sounds like a joke but there's small things like that, like the Slow Food movement. They're just not very popular...

Thanks for the discussion.