Synthetic meat

[The Grand Nudger]

False dichotomy.  Compost is a thing. Green manure is a thing. Things that many farms use successfully.
You have a lot of false dichotomies in your argument, actually.

Compost and green manures are things, sure.....but that doesn't make them alternatives to manure.  They simply aren't.  They're all part of the whole sustainable package.  ASre you sure you understand what a false dichotomy is?  

Ceasing to eat dead animals does not mean we would stop needing any farm animals.  You paint it as one or the other.

Actually, you've just repeated my own statements to that effect, precisely, Aroura.  I also think that we will continue to need farm animals, and even meat animals, so no..I don't paint it as one or the other, and I'm not sure why you think I did?

False dichotomy #2:
Dairy cows and goats, and chicken laying eggs do not require killing to get food from them, and their shit can still be used as fertilizer! We don't need the number of existing food animals to provide fertilizer to other farms.  Literally tons of it is never used.  We could reduce our farm animal population by 3/4 (just to dairy and eggs) and still have plenty of animal based fertilizer to feed humanity.  Particularly since a lot less food would be going back onto animals that are raised only for meat.

There isn't even a dichotomy here..false or otherwise.  You don't eat cattle feed.  We'll need more than just a quarter of our intensive operations (which would still be substantial) for fertility...I can say that with confidence because the full 100 percent of the worlds livestock production is currently incapable of providing the fertility required, the fertility is provided by exploitation of oil and without systemic change we would be incapable of producing sufficient food in it's absence.  

False dichotomy #3:
Even if humans stop eating the dead dairy animals and egg laying chickens who die of old age, the other options do not only include "throwing their carcasses in a ditch".  Humans have pets that require meat. Or humans can continue to use the smaller number of dead animals as additional food, without raising expressly for that purpose.

I mentioned that we could feed them to our dogs.......lol.  I wonder why it's good for Fido but not for Fred, though.  The latter is how I use my livestock.  They're primarily water pumps and fertility.  That some get eaten is an effect of them growing up and getting too big for their enclosure, poisoning themselves, the plants, the water..unless I manage their numbers.  That's pretty much the model of every single sustainable livestock enterprise in this country.   That you think I present a dichotomy here, or that I am even opposed to this borders on a profound mystery.

Summary:
We don't need to use animal products (even oil, which is an animal product) to farm.

Oh boy, painting oil as an animal product, now that's some dirty shit.   Not reaching, not at all, lol.

But we still can, at a much reduced rate, and still have all the animal products we require.
I realize that you are highly invested in this way of thinking because it is your lively hood.  I also realize from previous experience that you will just strawman me, or more likely, not even address these points directly (again), but I wanted to put it in here for other people to read.

My livelihood is plants, sunshine. This conflict of interest you've dreamt up for me is as non-existent as the dichotomies presented above.  Eat more plants. And no, we can't, we dont have all the animal products we require right now..somebody is hungry somewhere...but it makes good ad copy for activists...which is something I appreciate -as- an activist even if I don't agree.