Sustainable Vegan Agriculture

This page is a work in progress.

Animal farming poses a lot of problems in our modern world. It is responsible for about 15% of worldwide greenhouse gas emisions, with an important of that part being methane, a gas with a sorther lifetime than carbon dioxyde in the atmorphere but that's also considerably more potent as a greenhouse gas. Because the demand for animal products is so high, farmed animals aren't fed solely on agricultural waste but also on grains and soy grown specifically for livestock, which causes a large part of the world's farmland to be dedicated to animal agriculture, which in turn causes habitat loss for wild animals and prevents effective carbon sequestration due to these lands being denied the ability to grow into forests. Farmed animals are also fed the majority of antibiotics in the world, which is a threat to public health because it promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And of course it is very cruel, with every year billions of sentient animals being killed in a gory, painful slaughter at a fraction of the lifespan they could experience otherwise, generally after a short existence of incomfort, confinment and often mutilations.

To solve these problems, we can stop relying on livestock for our food system. That implies to know about the logistics of farming without animals nor animal inputs (like manure) and suggest a new farming and food system that's based on evidence to be sustainable and the least environmentally damaging possible.

Land plant agriculture

The role of trees in sustainable farming

There is evidence that trees in agricultural fields can help making agriculture more sustainable. Trees, thanks to their deep root networks, stabilize the soil, which combined with the fact they work as windbreak (which means they decrease wind speed), make it more resistant to erosion. Trees can also take nutrients hidden deep in the soil superficial crops can't access to. When their leaves fall from them, they can then be decomposed in the soil, making the nutrients available for other crops. Trees also have the benefit of being able to limit nitrogen runoff, which can be a problem for the environment around.

By planting trees that produce food, this can also be a way to increase the overall supply of fruits and nuts, the later in particular being an important sourse of healthy fat.

Crop rotation

While monocropping has its own economic advantages, like allowing farmers to use highly specialized equipment, it also comes with environmental disadvantages. Because different plants use nutrients in the soil at different rates, it can on the long run lead to a deficiency in certain key nutrients, forcing farmers to increase fertilizer use, which is a source of nutrient runoff which in turn cause their own sets of problems, especially algae bloom which can create zones hostile to lifeforms other than anaerobic microorganisms.

Crop rotation allows different crops to take nutrients from the soil at different rates, thus lowering the use of necessary fertilizers. It also works as a way to manage pests as it breaks their life cycle. In addition, different crops provide different benefits to the soil. For example leguminous plants can capture nitrogen from the air and make it available for other crops.

Cover crops

Cover crops are plants that are grown not for direct food production but to improve soil fertility. Because they're not meant to produce food directly, farmers can choose whatever plant combination they want for their specific benefits without having to worry about the logistics of harvesting them for food. These benefits can for example be nitrogen fixation for legumes, or plants that release compounds that inhibit weed growth through allelopathy. Cover crops can also be used to be more attractive to pests like insects that might otherwise eat crops destined to be harvested for human food, if the farmer grows them at the same time on different zones in their land.

Cover crops are also a way to make sure soils aren't bare. Compared to bare soil fallow, they lower erosion and make the soil more attractive to beneficial soil microfauna and bacteria.

After that cover crops have flourished, they then can be killed so they can afterwards decompose and release all their nutrients, making the soil more fertile for crops destined to human consumption.

Food system

Vitamin B12

Because the only vegan source of vitamin B12 is bacteria grown in a lab, it's important to make sure everyone would be able to get enough of it. It's reasonable to assume in a vegan world that a wide range of different foods would be fortified with it.