Rupert wrote:
>>>I think you'll find "factory-farming" usually refers to the intensive
>>>rearing of animals. Have you got a justification for calling
>>>mono-culture crop production "factory-farming"?
>>
>>Don't like people turning your pet pjoratives back on you eh?
>
> Well, "factory-farming" is a simple descriptive term.

No, it's simplistic and emotive. See my previous post to you.

> It doesn't matter
> very much what it actually refers to,

Because it's so emotive; that's it's only value.

> I was just surprised that he
> thought this was a correct application of the word.

It is.

> Anyway, I intended (correctly or otherwise) to use the word to refer to
> intensive rearing of animals. Furthermore this clearly involves a lot
> more suffering than what he was referring to.

What's more likely to cause the most suffering:
1. Internal bleeding from poisoning (pesticides, herbicides)
2. Being run over by a tractor
3. Being crushed by a plow
4. Being sliced and diced by various tractor implements
5. Drowning (from irrigation)
6. Suffocation (which happens to aquatic life when rice fields are drained)
7. Being burned alive (straw is often burned after harvest)

You object to animals being killed when they'll be eaten. You probably
don't mind that many more animals rot in fields after being killed by
the means listed above or are left vulnerable to predation because their
cover (plant crops) has been removed at harvest.

The difference between the two kinds of animal death is this: a steer
killed for meals has enough meat for thousands of meals while thousands
of animals die just to produce your grains and legumes and produce. So
on the one hand, someone will eat a fraction of an animal while you
contribute to thousands of animal deaths with each meal. Oh yeah, you
also smugly pat yourself on the back for not eating any of them.

>>>Anyway, it's all very well to abuse me for supporting these practices,
>>>but you don't offer any serious alternative to doing so. If you had a
>>>serious proposal for my further reducing the contribution I make to
>>>animal suffering then I would consider it.
>>
>>Stop supporting commercial agriculture, it kills countless billions
>>of animals. Anyway, it's you who proposed that killing animals is
>>to be avoided, why should we now determine for you how you
>>are going to live up to it? Do your own homework.
>
> I'm sorry,

You should be, you wanton animal killer.