Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
What we now have is a cultural landscape created by the interplay of terrain, wild-
life and human use over the centuries. Would it be a disaster if, following the sad loss
of many flocks [from foot and mouth disease] farmers decided not to restock? The
ecosystems, eaten out of existence by the sheep, would slowly extend their refuges in
the gills and crags to take over more land. It is customary to attack such embryonic
woodland as 'scrub', but it is nonetheless rich in birds and insects and is high forest
in the making. No one can predict with certainty what the landscape of a vegetarian
or vegan Britain would look like. Perhaps we will never know. However, it seems cer-
tain that such a landscape would have more room for wildlife, not less, and that doom
laden scenarios of cabbage monocultures bereft of animal life are plainly nonsensic-
al.
4
There is force in this argument, and I was touched by the writer's note of sad resigna-
tion: 'perhaps we will never know'. Farmers who complacently assert that they are 'guard-
ians of the countryside' should pay attention, for all they are really guarding is their own
narrow vision of what the countryside ought to be.
But Appleby's passage is unusual, and I have been unable to find any vegan literature
that takes this further. However much vegans and animal rights activists might care for the
welfare of domestic animals, they devote surprisingly little attention to the habits and habit-
at of wild ones. Could it be that people who feel uncomfortable about eating meat don't like
to take too close a look at wild animals because they don't like what they see? Whatever
the reason, no one has painted a detailed picture of what a vegan landscape would look like
or how a vegan society would relate to wilderness.
5
That is what I attempted when I embarked upon this chapter, to imagine what our agri-
culture and society might be like if we pursued a vegan ethic. Since I am an enthusiastic
(though modest) meat-eater, vegan readers might object that I am hardly the best person to
paint an unbiased picture, and I would agree. The scenario I envisage here of a world where
humans find themselves increasingly separated from nature is an exaggerated one, and one
that I find disturbing; I don't dispute that there could be other more benign ways of organ-
izing a vegan agricultural economy. However, I subsequently found that a number of com-
mentators had already taken a similar theme a good deal further than I had and developed
vegan or semi-vegan visions of a future society that most of us would regard as madcap, or
science fiction. I sincerely hope that they are; but there is some value in elucidating them
here if they illustrate, in magnified form, consequences that might arise if an industrialized
society drastically reduced meat consumption, particularly if it did so through the gradual
spread of a vegan ethic.
The Fence
