Veganism

[The Grand Nudger]

This all leads me back to a wonderful counterpoint to ethical vegan arguments that I wanted to separate from any discussion about metaethics. The impoverished vegan producer of sustainable and humane meat products. Her land is marginal, as is often the case with lower economic classes. Her ability to buy off farm inputs is nonexistent. She is keenly interested in the wellbeing of the livestock under her care for both moral and economic reasons - as they are not easily replaced. Her free range chickens which are of a heritage breed are raised on open pasture and what small grains she can produce on her land by composting their waste and with whatever rain falls. She may additionally use this fertility for a small market garden producing high quality organic vegetables sold directly to consumers in her local area. She may keep a number of other livestock animals for purposes of tillage and cultivation. She could not afford distribution, and cannot produce enough product to entice an outside distributor. She sells eggs and, at around 5 years of age, ethically slaughters the spent hens and markets them as roasting chickens. They would not sell well against factory raised meat which is plumper, more tender, and lighter in flavor.

It seems as though she's evading every horn of the ethical vegan dilemma we'd been considering. Firstly, she does not actually eat meat. Secondly, the animals under her care are well treated, live full lives, and become products at end of life through humane means more because they cannot be let go to waste than because they taste good..which they don't. Finally, it would be patently absurd to see this as contributing to the ecological damage attributed to factory faarming or it's more factual and ultimate cause ff production and consumption. This is all a thought experiment, but there are people in this situation. Many people. They are often practical vegans or vegetarians even if they are not ethical vegans, as they couldn't afford to consume the products they produce. Most agricultural labor in the world and their families are malnourished or starving for these reasons listed.