To feed an animal grass, it still has heavy implications on the environment, for example a family of 5 (if not more) can live off of 1/2 acre, but 1 cow needs 2.5 acres to sustain itself on grass. More on grass fed cows — http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/04/08/grass-fed-beef-packs-a-punch-to-environment/ and for an article on local animal agricultural food on the environment http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f upcoming film on animal agriculture and implications http://cowspiracy.com/updates/ animal agriculture and wildlife http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/03/21/291495523/how-your-love-of-burgers-may-be-helping-to-drive-wildlife-extinct?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=npr&utm_campaign=nprnews&utm_content=032120
This particular excuse was that the person ate Local cheese:
Doesn’t matter. Either way the babies have to be separated from the moms– there is no other way because that milk was made for the offspring, but we have decided that it belongs to us instead. And because pregnancy is needed before producing milk, the adults need to have babies every 1-2 years. All the new babies typically don’t have place on the farm and will be sent away for slaughter once they are big enough. The older animals are also sent away for slaughter — after a few years and their production decreases. Talk to your farmer, they will also be able to tell you the same thing. It seems innocent but it’s actually fueling the enslavement of animals and the mass killing of them. As well as the reduction of wild species since most farmers protect their animals from wild animals in some way.. even many government programs round up wild horses (for example in Nevada) to make room for more animal agricultural farms, they also hire gun men to round up coyotes, wolves and other top predators to shoot (which is currently happening on a very wide scale here in Utah and Idaho). In addition to the reduction of wild habitat, as raising animals for food and secretions takes much more pristine space than it does to grow plant foods for humans to eat. It takes about 20lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. If the world were able to cut out animal protein as staples, we would free up a lot of land. Many ‘local’ agricultural producers still have to get their grain and their grass from somewhere, this takes masses of acreages of land, while if we were to get our nutrients directly from the ground, we would be much more efficient in our land use and we wouldn’t be fueling the dwindling of rainforests and natural areas as heavily. It’s no innocent affair. It may seem like it is as you indulge in these being’s secretions… but the negative reverberations created from all animal agriculture is vast, no matter the type.
Check out this article on how Local agriculture is much worse for the environment than sticking to plants:http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25795-going-vegetarian-halves-co2-emissions-from-your-food.html#.U7hQmo1dU5Q
Check out the tag: Local, organic, sustainable and humane for more rebuttals on this topic– https://veganrebuttals.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/but-what-about-sustainable-local-organic-and-humane-animal-products/
Vegan Rebuttals 