Presenting Veganic Agriculture
I recently delivered my first presentation on veganic agriculture since we embarked on this research project. The presentation was at the University of Vermont (UVM) in an Agricultural Policy and Ethics course. The students' backgrounds ranged from strict vegans to aspiring dairy farmers. As a vegan and a farmer, I felt it was important to first highlight the potential similarities in motivations/intentions/goals between a veganic farm and a farm using animals/animal byproducts in production. Then, I discussed potential differences in impacts/means to their goals between the two farming approaches. The remainder of the presentation was focused on the following:
(1) Emphasizing the inherent interconnectedness of various agricultural approaches that are often presented as isolated and competing entities (e.g., conventional, sustainable/organic, beyond organic, regenerative, etc.).
(2) Exploring a handful of systemic issues in US agriculture, with focus on their relation to policy and influential stakeholders (e.g., organic production systems often surviving on the margins of conventional agriculture (i.e., animal byproducts); foodborne illness outbreaks related to infected animals (i.e., E. Coli).
(3) Providing an introduction to veganic agriculture and addressing how the veganic framework can potentially avoid and/or remediate the challenges discussed in (1) and (2).
Most of the questions asked by students were about the limitations of non-human farm animals and veganic agriculture. For example, if retired and/or rescued farm animals are kept on-site, how far does one need to go to exclude animal-derived nutrients from contributing to crop production? Additionally, there was some discussion as to where veganic farming fits in context to other “alternative agricultural” approaches, such as permaculture.
These ethical and conceptual complexities are challenging to navigate solely through a review of existing literature and I am grateful for the opportunity to work directly with veganic farmers to explore these questions in-depth. Participating veganic farmers have been completing our online survey (Part 1 of our study) and I will be beginning interviews with farmers on the East Coast next week (Part 2 of our study).
Lastly, some news from outside of Vermont: a Biocyclic Vegan Standard (based in Germany) has been admitted into the IFOAM Organics International family of standards. Learn more here: http://www.biocyclic-vegan.org/
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