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Rudy Canoza Rudy Canoza is offline
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Default The myth of food production "efficiency" in the "ar" debate

On Mar 3, 4:00 pm, Buxqi > wrote:
> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> > livestock.

>
> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> footprint than a meat based one.


Not necessarily. But that isn't really their argument about
efficiency. They're talking about resource use, not environmental
degradation.


> > In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> > there must be agreement on what the end product is
> > whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> > you're looking at the production of consumer
> > electronics, for example, then the output is
> > televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> > Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> > sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> > discontinue the production of television sets, because
> > they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> > and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> > cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> > be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> > television set is going to cost several hundred
> > dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> > not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> > can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> > monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)

>
> Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
> to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
> that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
> they are comparable.


But not the same. Value to the consumer is what matters. There is no
Diet Czar in any civilized society making macro-level decisions on how
to feed a population at the least cost - nor should there be. People
demand goods and services according to their own preference functions,
and the invisible hand directs resources to the satisfaction of that
demand.


> > What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> > "inefficiency"?

>
> There is no misuse.


There is.

> The meaning of efficiency depends
> on context. They are not using the definition employed
> by economists. That's all


They aren't using any valid meaning at all. No one looks at overall
resource usage in that way.

> > They're clearly saying that the end
> > product whose efficiency of production we want to
> > consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> > calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> > don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> > substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> > we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> > restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> > without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> > efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> > only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> > obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> > use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> > than others.

>
> Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
> foods is not so widely available.


Not the issue.


> > But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> > some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> > and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> > relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> > looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> > higher priced because they use more resources to
> > produce.

>
> Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
> actual costs of production since we do not live in a
> completely free market with perfect information.


They're a very good approximation, not "merely" one. Raspberries cost
more than apples because they're more expensive to produce: they
require more resources.

> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> > production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> > absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> > nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> > there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> > one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.

>
> > If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> > into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> > would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> > one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> > garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> > to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> > so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> > going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> > You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> > don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> > and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> > (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> > advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> > produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.

>
> > The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> > to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> > then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> > resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> > view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> > radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> > of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> > view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> > devices.

>
> > The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> > that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> > making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> > of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> > one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> > "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> > "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> > meat production falls to the ground.

>
> > I hope this helps.

>
> Not at all.


Sure it does.

> You have pointed out that many people prefer
> non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
> meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
> always make the least resource-intensive choice either
> with food or anything else.


That second one proves that "vegans" aren't following their own
prescription; not even close.

>
> However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
> going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint


That's false.


> and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
> argument.


No, that is not at all what they mean.