r/DebateAVegan • u/razorbeamz non-vegan • 9d ago
Environment Say that humans completely stop farming animals. What happens to the animals that are already alive?
Let's imagine that tomorrow farming animals is banned and all farms, factory and free range, are permanently shut down.
What should happen to the animals that are already there and alive?
Should they simply be released into the wild where most of them will surely die, and many will cause environmental harm? Should they be kept in enclosed areas and taken care of until they die, and be prevented from reproducing?
EDIT: I am not using this as a way to argue that we should continue farming, by the way. I'm just legitimately curious what the vegan solution to this problem would be.
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u/No_Chart_8584 9d ago
This won't happen.
But if it did and everyone was suddenly vegan, there would be support and resources for previously farmed animals for the next 1-2 decades they had left. Because the world is vegan.
But the most important point is that non-vegans ask this here weekly and it's not going to happen.
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u/LakeAdventurous7161 vegan 9d ago
I second this. This would not happen immediately - it will be more a gradual change with less and less, finally no, farmed animals (if it ever would happen).
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u/razorbeamz non-vegan 9d ago
This won't happen.
Do you believe a hope for a vegan world is futile?
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u/RedLotusVenom vegan 9d ago
Supply and demand.
Demand goes down over time, so does supply. There would be no need to breed and slaughter 100 billion land animals every year if you and other nonvegans started to decrease demand by stopping your contributions.
Horses were bred by the hundred of millions before the car was invented. We stopped doing that to such a degree and the horse population decreased drastically between 1900 and 1950.
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u/ggsimsarah333 9d ago
It’s not that, it’s that the change will be gradual. As demand goes down, less animals will be bred.
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u/No_Chart_8584 9d ago
There's a distinction between a "vegan world" and "a world where everyone suddenly goes vegan overnight."
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u/dyslexic-ape 9d ago
"No big world wide changes happen overnight"
Does that quote make it sound like I think no big world changes will ever happen?
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u/kakihara123 9d ago
I believe that we will go extinct if we don't become vegan. The obvious problem is climate change, but also the mindset. Animal farming is based on the doctrine that we can do whatever we want with someone that is weaker, the same mentality the Nazis used.
In Germany, fascism is coming back and guess what, right wingers are very rarely vegan. We have the real possiblity of a second Holocaust here.
This mentality also fuels each and every war in the history of humanity. Couple that with drones and atomic bombs and we have the tools to end the world and the insane leaders that may just do it.
In its core, veganism is about respect of others and that will influence human to human interaction just as well.
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u/Electronic_Sample928 9d ago
You can hope all you like but it will never happen...
Ethics and morality pale into insignificance when put against increased shareholder value and human nature.
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u/Superb_Creme6394 9d ago
Why would we ever assume a massive shift in global economics and philosophy happens tomorrow?
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u/dyslexic-ape 9d ago
Because it gives us a catastrophe to speculate about and use as an excuse for our decision to continue exploiting animals.
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u/nineteenthly 9d ago
It wouldn't happen immediately but if it doesn't happen slowly at least, we will go extinct anyway.
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u/razorbeamz non-vegan 9d ago
If you believe in veganism, you surely must believe that one day that "tomorrow" will come where farming is banned.
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u/Gloomy-Error212 9d ago
Yes but gradually. Like transitioning from non renewable energy sources to renewable energy sources. It takes time which allows us to prepare.
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u/Superb_Creme6394 9d ago
Exactly. Imaging asking "oh yeah if you want to switch to solar energy how will I get to work tomorrow if my car and city busses run on fossil fuels?"
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u/Superb_Creme6394 9d ago
Any reasonable person would think the metaphorical tomorrow that vegans look towards would only come after years and years of reduction of consumption of animal products. Meaning the plans would be shaped by that fact. So it would probably be to care for the comparatively few remaining animals on the massive amounts land freed up from ending animal agriculture.
It wouldn't be a literal tomorrow where millions of animals suddenly need a place to stay immediately. Any hypothetical that posits that is made in bad faith. It's simply not how the world works. Vegans don't think that we will topple the world's governments and enact a ban on meat tomorrow.
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u/jackusD 9d ago edited 9d ago
There's no requirement as a vegan to believe that, I'm certainly not sure it will. In reality it'll be a gradual shift as more become vegan, but I very much doubt there's a future with no human exploration of animals.
If there were a sudden overnight change and everyone became vegan then we would have a duty to care for the remaining animals.
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u/roymondous vegan 9d ago
As others note in reality it won't happen this way. In reality it would be a gradual process given the breeding cycles and just less and less bred every cycle.
But for the sake of the hypothetical. Say the world went vegan overnight.
Looking at the animals that are already alive, take Brazil. About 200m cows (largest, followed by India). USA around 80-90m for comparison. About 750 million pigs globally. China the largest by far (450m pigs). Brazil 40-50m for comparison. And 20-30B chickens globally. China again the top at 4.5B and USA next at 1.5B.
The numbers show that in most cases it is not a question of all animals everywhere all at once. It is a question of what that specific country specialised in. Brazil would have a cow problem. China would be the "worst" affected with a big pig problem and chicken problem but not cows. The USA would have the chicken problem but less.so for others.
The solution is going to be much more specific han one geberal thing.
There are many possibilities for the hypotheticals Given the animals are virtually all female and in many cases where there are males they are castrated, breeding can be (relatively) easy to stop given how big a problem it initially looks.
So basically the USA has to figure out how to provide better sanctuary for 1.5B chickens for about 5-10 years, for example. China for a lot of pigs for about 15-20 years.
It would be imperfect (given the situation) but many possibilities for community sanctuaries where kids can learn and play. Schools could have a group of chickens to take care of.
When you take out the diseased and truly broken individuals (many chickens don't survive the conditions of factory farms to reach the slaughterhouse), the final number to take care of would be much lower.
Now how do we feed them all? We already are. Nothing else really has to change. We just don't send them to slaughter.
How do we pay for that? We already are. Most farming subsidies are for farming animals. The funding basically exists already. And would be temporary for the lifespan of those animals.
Now this is all hypothetical cos the world won't go vegan overnight. But there are many win win solutions. I don't see a problem (like land use or water use or whatever) that would not come from the existing spending to farm these animals (inc the subsidies and such). And we have a net gain by eating plant based given that requires less cropland and frees up all that land currently used. 3/4 of farmland is used for farming animals. 2/3s of wildlife wiped out to create pastures out of forest and habitat. Lessened climate change if this happens. Improved community health.
What problems do you see with that where the resources aren't available or that you want to debate? Cos the numbers suggest even in this crazy hypothetical (if well managed) it would be a clear win.
To repeat... this is not the vegan solution. This situation won't happen. The reasonable thing and vegan solution given the real world is we all go gradually vegan and gradually stop breeding cycles of those farmed animals. It's a supply and demand issue in that setting. Instead of breeding 1 million chickens, a country would breed 900k. And then less and so on until zero.
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
Does the answer to this question have any bearing on your decision to be vegan or not?
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u/razorbeamz non-vegan 9d ago
No.
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
You are just wasting everyone's time, including your own.
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u/icarodx vegan 9d ago
So people can stop spreading misinformation and using it as a stupid argument against veganism.
It's better to provide a good answer than to dismiss it.
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
I get what you are saying, but having the answers is different from indulging a red herring.
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u/tsruc vegan 9d ago
Surely they should just live out the rest of their lives being cared for. Why is it up to vegans to provide the solution?
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u/nineteenthly 9d ago
In a sense it is up to us because we would then constitute a large portion of the population, so it would be vegans doing it in the end.
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u/tsruc vegan 9d ago
I disagree. A vegan is an individual that follows a philosophy which seeks to exclude all forms of exploitation and cruelty to animals. If farming animals is banned and permanently shut down, as OP states, that doesn’t automatically make everyone a vegan. That’s like saying slave owners became abolitionists following the emancipation proclamation.
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u/nineteenthly 9d ago
The situation is unlikely to arise unless a lot of people have become vegan, unless something else happens to make animal farming immediately impractical. The actual situation of a sudden ban on animal farming occurring when most people are not vegan already is unrealistic. It constitutes a thought experiment more than a possible scenario. The proposition "farming animals is banned and permanently shut down" entails a very different consensus than currently exists, at least in the West.
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u/tsruc vegan 9d ago
Obviously it is unlikely to happen. This is a hypothetical situation… are you incapable of engaging with it?
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u/nineteenthly 9d ago
I don't think it's worth considering what would happen to animals in a situation which is never going to come to pass. I don't see the value of doing that. It's worth examining why it wouldn't happen but not considering what would happen if it did.
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u/Zukka-931 9d ago
The plan is to go almost entirely vegan, albeit gradually. Are you thinking about anything other than vegan options?
Never mind, then—don't worry about it.
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u/razorbeamz non-vegan 9d ago
Why is it up to vegans to provide the solution?
Because vegans are providing the goal, so you should also provide plans for how to deal with the immediate problems caused by the goal.
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u/Comfortable-Salt-299 9d ago
It wouldn't happen overnight. They would give farms i.e 3 years to stop so they can prepare to stop.
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u/Synthopiunundrum veganarchist 9d ago
the world is killing hundreds of millions of land animals daily... Surely, we would sneeze or blink and suddenly this imaginary problem would be dealt with with from spasms and muscle memory
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u/Lumpy-Restaurant-694 9d ago
Vegan is not just not eating meat.
Beacon is also an ethical perspective that we should not exploit animals.
A truly vegan society would also invest in animal welfare and animal care.
Though we don't just slaughter it if society is vegan they wouldn't mind spending any amount of money to probably take care of the animals.
We could start selectively breeding the animals to be more independent.
We could sell them as a type of pet.
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
Because otherwise you're just pure complainers without constructive intent.
also, this sub is called "debate a vegan"
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u/tsruc vegan 9d ago
Insane take. Why should vegans be responsible for solving a problem created by an industry they don't even participate in? Highlighting exploitation and pointing out unethical practices isn't "complaining," it's criticism. If someone objects to something on moral grounds, that doesn't make them responsible for managing every consequence of ending it.
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u/Zukka-931 9d ago
But you know, it’s an "ethical" solution—so why does it face such backlash? Ideally, it’s something that should be accepted by everyone.
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
Why should vegans be responsible for solving a problem created by an industry they don't even participate in?
Weird take : you make a lot of noise to identify a problem, and then you walk away and say please don't bother me with this again an fix it yourself
I didn't say vegans are solely "responsible" by the way (first responsibility obviously lies with the industry)...but just identifying a problem without thinking about or offering a solution for it, is questionable behavior.
especially since - unless you're full off it - you care about the suffering of animals.
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u/tsruc vegan 9d ago
I literally provided an answer, “they should live out the rest of their lives being cared for”, so I’m not sure what else you want from me? Do you care to address the rest of my point? Or are you just here to complain about vegans?
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
you made a suggestion, then you asked a question.
I answered your question
then you became all upset and offended
is there any relevant "point" of you that I didn't already answer? feel free to point it out and I'll do my best.
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u/tsruc vegan 9d ago
How exactly am I upset and offended? Perhaps you’re just projecting lol you can just scroll up and reread what I commented if you weren’t able to grasp the entirety of my point the first time.
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
How exactly am I upset and offended?
you thought my take was 'insane'
you took issue with the word complainers and had to correct it to critics (big difference to you)
you immediately jumped to 'responsibility' (you want none) and your high 'ethics/morals'
then, in classic reddit fashion, you misinterpret my post and you got passive aggressive
1+1 = 2
keep digging
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u/Teratophiles vegan 9d ago edited 8d ago
I think for starters we should make it clear that, whatever scenario anyone can come up with, none of it can be worse than the current situation, even if for arguments sake we simply kill all the animals we're farming, that's still leagues better than the current system where we're continuously killing trillions of non-human animals every year.
Realistically speaking, the world isn't going to go vegan overnight, it will be a gradual change, which means a gradual change in supple and demand, so it's not as we're suddenly like ah crap, we've got hundreds of billions of animals what do we do, more so we'd be left with maybe millions as supply and demand slowly lower, in which case, if the world truly went vegan we'd spend our money to turn the farms into sanctuaries for the animals where they live until they die of old age.
And yes, they should be prevented from reproducing, because to allow them to reproduce would be very cruel. Cows produce so much milk now that if they don't get milked they will be in constant pain and die, sheep grow so much wool that if we don't exploit them they will overheat and die, chickens lay so many eggs it literally kills them, so many of these monsters we're created cannot live a normal life without slowly, and cruelly, dying, so the best thing to do would be to stop them from reproducing.
If you do want a world where overnight everyone goes vegan then yes, some will unfortunately have to be killed because there is quite literally not enough land on earth to have them all live a happy life with plenty of space, however like I said, this is still better than continuing the current system of oppression, at last these individuals would actually be free, even if some would have to be put down because the alternative is them still living in tiny cages and suffering because there's literally not enough room to not do so.
Releasing them into the wild isn't a option, both for the reasons I mentioned e.g. they will slowly kill themselves without being exploited and for ecological reasons, nature would be devastated releasing billions into it.
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u/nineteenthly 9d ago
In reality, what's likely to happen is that the demand for animal products would gradually decline, meaning that there would be fewer and fewer individuals in each generation of chicken, sheep etc, rather than it cutting off suddenly in one go. The other thing is that a vegan world is a non-capitalist one too, in which such individuals could be cared for without regard for profit or loss, so the animals in question, to my mind, would continue to be cared for. I don't know all the details, but the models of husbandry involved could be similar to such situations as the rewilding efforts with bison in Kent, the Chillingham herd, the treatment of cows in India and at Bhaktivedanta Manor and the presence of Bos taurus individuals on biodynamic farms. Rescue centres exist and I would expect something on a larger scale to be introduced or expanded.
One thing to bear in mind is that ruminants and others could continue to wander around arable farms providing manure and contributing minerals to the soil through their corpses without that having to be a direct source of profit or exploitation, although care would have to be taken to grow sufficient food crops for humans when they end up getting eaten by game birds etc.
Realistically though, the farm animal population is likely to taper, and without artificial insemination this would happen quite rapidly.
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u/OG-Brian 9d ago
This question has been discussed hundreds of times in this sub.
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u/razorbeamz non-vegan 9d ago
Can you link some of those discussions? I tried to search before I posted but you know how bad Reddit search can be.
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u/OG-Brian 9d ago
I can't link all of them without a major time investment, because the words used are not always the same. But a search of only this sub for the text strings
what would happen to the livestock animals if humans stopped farming themturned up more than 17 thousand results:There would definitely be coincidental but unrelated hits, but the first posts I saw have titles such as What would happen to livestock? and If the meat industry ended completely tomorrow, what would be the plan for all of the animals? There could be thousands which are basically this question.
I try at least a little bit to avoid adding to repetitive cruft on the internet, by always searching before posting.
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u/No_Chart_8584 9d ago
Even though reddit search sucks, non-vegans ask this here constantly so I have confidence you can find the hundreds of previous conversations asking "Hey, if this this thing that definitely won't happen does happen, what would happen?"
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u/tcgunner90 9d ago
This is such a childish hypothetical that highlights the naivety of the content here.
It’s the equivalent of asking “if a genie deleted every bullet on earth, what would we do with the guns?”
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u/Fearless_Wasabi_7727 9d ago
Jesus Christ not this shit again.
Say humans could come up with original questions, what would happen to this sub?
Who knows. It won't happen so there's really no point thinking about it.
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u/icarodx vegan 9d ago
This is a fictitious problem as that's not how changes are made in society. Especially bans on large industries.
If companies get years to adapt and comply to changes in legislation, why do you think there would be an outright ban on food of all things.
It's completely unrealistic and you worry about this because of fear mongering.
If the world accelerates a transition towards veganism it would very likely be over decades. It would involve putting a tax on it to make it expensive and a less competitive option over time as production of animal products is slowly phasing out and plant-based alternatives ramp up.
In short: people would buy less and animals farmers would slowly breed less and less as they transition to something else.
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u/Ghost_guy0 9d ago
The change would not be instant, it would be gradual and we would gradually stop breeding animals
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u/retatrutider Ostrovegan 9d ago
In any “overnight ban” scenario, which is pure fantasy, disposition of existing animals would be part of the legislation that effected the ban.
So we would do with them whatever we, as a society, had agreed to do with them. Presumably something benevolent, since this hypothetical society is empathetic enough to ban animal agriculture.
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u/No_Chart_8584 9d ago
Yes. In the completely hypothetical situation where there are billions of animals being killed and exploited each year and a government decided to ban that, there would also be support for caring for these animals for the rest of their lives.
It's fascinating to me how non-vegans focus on the logistics of that shift instead of focusing on what can be done here and now.
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u/Reasonable_Ad5592 9d ago
Realistically, when a law is published prohibiting a certain practice, they only come into effect after a certain given time, for example, Brazil recently banned foie gras and keep in mind it took six years of investigations led by Animal Equality on farms and slaughterhouses, but the ban will actually come into effect by the end of November.
"Bill 90/2020 prohibits all foods obtained through the force-feeding of animals – a practice known as gavage, most commonly associated with foie gras production. The ban will come into effect 180 days after the law is published."
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u/Reasonable_Ad5592 9d ago
I found this video on instagram where this guy has a regenerative farm where he feeds chickens and other animals with food waste https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dc8s4nOOGj-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
as far as I know those animals aren't rescued from factory farms, they are actually bought, but it's is nice to see people finding purpose in animals' lives that is not in expense of their lives. having that said, I'm aware that a lot of rescued farm animals face several health and physical problems due to the fact that they are bred to grow so much, so I don't how the logistics of it all would be.
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u/howareyouhaha 9d ago
Your first potential answer is an absolute no.
These animals that are farmed are not wild animals. They never existed in the wild. They are human creations.
It's really eye-opening once people discover that.
I'm vegan and I would imagine that the animals would be exploited/slaughtered until none remain... the way it stops is if the animals stop being bred. Then eventually (but more quickly than you'd think), there wouldn't be any more farmed animals.
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u/panteradrax 9d ago
Couldn't a lot of them go "feral?" Don't pigs sometimes? How far are most of them removed? I genuinely don't know the history but I'd think some of them could go back to it?
I mean definitely still no to that point, still harmful for so many reasons, but just pondering
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u/razorbeamz non-vegan 9d ago
All wild pigs in North America are descendants of pigs that were intentionally released to go feral by colonizers who wanted a reliable food source to hunt.
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u/howareyouhaha 9d ago
Like, would they be able to live? I would imagine many of them would. But it would be awful.
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u/Novel-Mission-1920 9d ago
Living in nature in general means living in quite awful conditions most of the time. That's nothing new. All wild creatures constantly struggle between life and death, deal with starvation, infections, predators, bacteria, parasites, awful weather, extreme cold, extreme heat, accidents etc. Animals often live short and rough lives, that's how living in the wild is. Of course, there are some nice moments too, but much of it is a struggle, and you never get a day off in the wild. Fear is a constant motivator.
Pigs are very adaptive and smart creatures, also omnivores, so they eat both vegetation and they hunt, many of them could evolve back into their wild selves after some time, given that they were released into the right environments in the right numbers.
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u/howareyouhaha 9d ago
It would be awful for any environment and local wildlife they were released to.
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u/Thinamo25 9d ago
If the world decided on a vegan future, this won't happen in a day, and would probably be phased out. For example make breeding illegal instead of the killing. Kill the last generation of and stop after that. Maybe cows that live outside could survive freely, but no chicken or duck would make it far. They are all genetic abominations, grow way to fast to walk etc. So I would be fine to "kill them of" for a last time and then stop the practice for good
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u/Thecoldflame vegan 9d ago edited 9d ago
to bite the bullet- in many cases the appropriate solution is euthaniasa, given this quite fantastical hypothetical actually occurring
logistically it's not practical to create provisions to care for the immense quantity of animals currently in factory farm conditions to an acceptable quality of life. animals who are already 'free range' or under acceptable conditions would just be cared for until death without being bred.
the moral cost of such a transition would be utterly dwarfed by any kind of utilitarian analysis of the consequences no matter how it was handled, regardless.
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u/DetailAdventurous688 9d ago
you probably wouldn't ban farming, but breeding first. then the problem solves itself.
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
Why are you narrowing this down to farm animals ?
What about pets?
First they came for our farm animals...then they came for ...
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
Vegans aren't coming for your companion animals.
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
some do, some don't...but after the farm animals are gone, they'll need a new cause
pets "suffer" under the hands of humans as well
what's so moral/ethical about owning pets anyway?
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
If you aren't vegan, criticizing someone for caring for an animal while actively paying people to abuse animals is cognitively dissonant.
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago
If you're a vegan, criticizing someone for eating meat while having pets is cognitively dissonant.
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
I don't think it is. Why do you think that?
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u/Dimpnavangeel 9d ago edited 9d ago
Because keeping a domesticated pet is still a form of human dominion, confinement, and ownership over an animal, mirroring the speciesism vegans accuse meat-eaters of practicing.
Because many petowners exploit their pets under the name of "care"
Because owning pets - especially dogs or cats that consume meat-based commercial pet foods - directly or indirectly supports the meat and slaughter industry that vegans protest against.
Because saying pets can be put on a vegan diet as well goes against the prevailing veterinarian science and is vegans experimenting with the health of animals
Because saying that you only want to "minimize suffering as much as possible" or saying that you'll only "rescue animals from the shelter" doesn't really adress the above and is a morally inconsistent copout
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u/Creditfigaro vegan 9d ago
We can continue, but your best outcome is tu quoque fallacy, you are still acting immorally and should be vegan even if you win this argument.
How is keeping an animal under my care different than caring for a baby or elderly person? It's not.
My animals (cats and dogs) are all in plant based diets. Feeding animals properly formulated plant based diets isn't experimentation. The little evidence we do have shows that they are superior to meat based kibble.
If anything, feeding animals standard meat-based kinble is knowingly giving them harm promoting food.
Now that you have complete arguments against it, please concede you are wrong.
You accusing me of a false tu quoque: your actions are horrifically immoral.
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