Just to make it clear, I am not advocating animal farming and do embrace vegan principles. I am also reasonably familiar with the concepts of veganism.
My question here is more about the fact that right now, in the world we have, it's not clear to me that stopping all animal farming would be a net benefit. Yes, of course vegan ethics proscribe the use of other animals etc. But until that is a law, it will continue to be the case that animals are farmed.
Abolitionists argue that because farming is categorically wrong, we should focus only on achieving abolition and not be distracted by welfarist type arguments. I tend to disagree with that because the path to an abolitionist world is long and windy and I think there are considerable negative impacts along the way.
In particular, I do think that some animal farming is probably best in the world we have right now even if by vegan measures it is immoral. So the answer to my question from where I stand is that animal farming might be always wrong in an ethical sense but for the moment in some contexts it may be a step along the way to encourage the right kind of farming. So no, I don't believe it is always wrong. In fact, I also think that we *could* have vegan farming.
I like nobody's point about justice, but in the world we have is justice done when we clear the land for crops or when we kill many animals to grow those crops? I am not convinced of that. When I look at the efforts of some farmers to restore their lands ecologically and to raise animals in an integrated fashion to improve the ecological function of their land, I am impressed. Far more so than by a field of chickpeas.
In regard to nobody's question, I am not sure I see the clear demarcation here. Vegans argue that transitioning away from animal farming might mean that many animals are killed because they are no longer productive, yet vegans argue this is OK because in the longer run, fewer animals will be alive to suffer and be exploited. So non-existence is preferable to a short and unpleasant life. The aim is to eliminate animal suffering. By extension, killing all life on the planet would alleviate all suffering. Where should we draw the line in that argument? Would we be just to cause a dairy farmer to close his farm and sell all his animals to slaughter? I am not defending any particular strategy, just interested in your thoughts on this.
