#mylittlepony - #Do the negative consequences of animal agriculture exist in Equestria?

Do the negative consequences of animal agriculture exist in Equestria?

I watched the documentary Cowspiracy last night and have recently watching videos discussing other aspects of the subject and that had me wondering.

We assume there's no meat industry in Equestria partly because the ponies are obviously herbivores, but also because those cattle are extremely sentient, and at least for some I'm sure factory farming is one of those ugly human things we like to imagine doesn't exist in Equestria.

But . . . We do see eggs and dairy consumption. And while we see Applejack's farm, we also see large industrialized cities like Manehattan, which usually imply industrial scale mass production behind them.

So, does large scale deforestation exist in Equestria? Or factory farms?

In our world, after chickens are artificially inseminated, male chicks and thrown into a grinder while the females are slaughtered when they stop laying eggs at 18-20 months (their natural life span is 5 years), while male dairy calves are sold as veal while the females are taken away immediately so the cows can be impregnated once a year (and milked bloody) until their bodies give out at five years old (a quarter of their natural life span) and their turned to meat. Cattle farming for both meat and dairy is also responsible for as little as 60 to 70% of Amazon deforestation on the low end up to 91 percent.

Now there are mutliple fair reasons to consider Equestria would be different. The fact that cattle are sapient means they can strike deals, so they could be agreeing to give away a percentage of the milk in exchange for the protection and care of a ranch, kinda like taxes. The chickens on Applejack's farm certainly aren't mass produced so it's not hard to imagine . . . actually, I don't think we've seen any roosters on AJ's farm.

It is possible they're just given to Fluttershy and ponies like her. Fluttershy does seem to exist in a world where you can just live in a cottage and care for animals, possibly as a government worker, and between Winter Wrap Up and the running of the leaves, Equestria does seem more focused on caring for nature.

As for deforestation, despite the existence of big cities and some modern technology, including hospitals, whether or not the ponies would be or are having a big population explosion is a discussion topic on its own.

We also don't actually know how the many bakery products we see our made. For all we know, Equestria could heavily mix in the use of plant-based milk varieties with cow's milk as a supplement so that animal farming doesn't have to strain to industrial scale production. Eggs can also be supplemented by plant-based substitutes.

I'm not sure harvesting milk and eggs is inherently inhumane, especially if the cattle can talk and make deals (the chickens, well actually Fluttershy can communicate with them. I wonder how chicken insemination goes on AJ's farm.). Though cities like Manehattan does make me wonder what kind of large scale factories and industrialization might be behind the scenes, not just in the food industry.

Submitted May 31, 2018 at 03:42PM by Crocoshark
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