arcane potato (she/they)

(She/Her/They/Them)

If your vegan anarchist grandma and vegan anarchist dad were the same person.

I’m an engineer who cosplays as a vegan farmer. I live in un-ceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory.

  • 78 Posts
  • 148 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: April 12th, 2024

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  • Friend, please be mindful of rule 5:

    1. Do not use trademarked brands

    Use generic names. We’re cooking with tvp not whatever business brands it and we’re not trying to turn comrades into billboards. No plant-based vegan-pandering capitalist crap like Impossible, Beyond, Dairy-company owned “vegan” cheese.

    Folks should also be aware that the company conducted taste tests with animal flesh as part of developing the product.














  • I think most farms use synthetic fertilizers but every organic farm I have worked on and every organic farmer I know uses some variation of the above as their primary soil amendments along with plant compost and worm byproducts.

    You didn’t mention your location but for example the USDA definition of organic required that ‘most’ synthetic fertilizers are not used. I’m not questioning your experience, I’m just stating that by nature of being a farmer seeking certification as organic they choose to exclude most synthetics for reasons of certification - not necessarily because it’s less expensive or ‘better’.

    https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means

    Produce can be called organic if it’s certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. Prohibited substances include most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

    Please be aware that this is a vegan gardening community. You’ve provided an answer to to OP based on your experience, which is fine but please understand that promotion of the use of animal bodies in gardening is not welcome.


  • 100% a way to squeeze more profit out of all the murdering.

    spoiler

    https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/archive/fish-waste-can-be-used-as-a-sustainable-organic-fertilizer/1265404

    Tina Hull specializes in making small farms profitable and is a recognized authority in organic fertilizer, according to the following article in the Commodity Futures Trader. And while the fish processing industry is looking for ways of utilizing the inedible waste from their plants for ever higher purposes, some material may be best suited for the production of agricultural fertilizer- liquid, fish emulsion organic fertilizer.

    Once again, we need to repeat that organic growers need not worry that fish emulsion fertilizer is depleting our oceans of the important Menhaden fish or other fish that people need for food. Fish emulsion if primarily made from fish waste of the established animal feed and fish oil industries, which would have been dumped in landfills if not used.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X20303913

    Fish industries generate a substantial amount of FW (fish waste). Depending on the level of processing or type of fish, 30–70% of the original fish is FW.

    The amount of FW available in Norway for production of fertilizers may facilitate the establishment of an industrial product that can replace the currently common use of dried poultry manure from conventional farming in organic farming.

    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3614052/

    Efficient utilization of by-products has direct impact on the economy and environmental pollution of the country. Non-utilization or under utilization of by-products not only lead to loss of potential revenues but also lead to the added and increasing cost of disposal of these products

    Waste products from the poultry processing and egg production industries must be efficiently dealt with as the growth of these industries depends largely on waste management.

    The United States Dept. of Agriculture Economic Research Service has found that 11.4% of the gross income from beef is from the by-products. The figure for pork is 7.5%.

    Meat and bone meal (MBM) was widely recommended and used in animal nutrition as a protein source in place of proteinaceous feeds because of its content of available essential amino acids, minerals and vitamin B12. MBM and related rendered protein commodities have potential for use in applications other than animal feed, including use as a fuel or a phosphorus fertilizer


  • I don’t believe you are correct in stating that animal products are cheaper, or that commercial agriculture prefers it:

    https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2023/april/despite-challenges-research-shows-opportunity-to-increase-use-of-manure-as-fertilizer

    Issues with the product:

    Despite these attributes, there are economic and environmental challenges to expanding the use of manure as a fertilizer. With a low nutrient value-to-mass ratio, manure is more costly to transport, store, and apply than chemical fertilizers. In addition, livestock production tends to be geographically concentrated in the United States, and, in certain regions, animal production generates more manure-supplied nutrients than are needed by nearby cropland. That means farmers often must transport manure longer distances to match its nutrient value with crop needs. Specifically, the nitrogen and phosphorus levels in manure often do not match the nutrient needs of crops, so farmers still must use chemical fertilizers to supplement nutrients from manure. Also, applying enough manure to meet a crop’s needs for one nutrient has the potential to create an environmental hazard from the unused nutrients left on the soil. Excess manure nutrients can leave the fields via run-off and degrade water quality, or they can enter the air.

    Manure is not widely used:

    A recent study by USDA, Economic Research Service identified opportunities for increasing the use of manure as a fertilizer. In 2020, farmers applied manure to less than 8 percent of the 237.7 million acres planted to seven major U.S. field crops.

    Manure use is dependant on local industry:

    Manure is expensive to transport, and local animal production largely determines the type of manure applied to regional crops. For example, because most hogs are produced in the Midwest, hog manure is applied predominately to corn and soybeans. Most chickens are raised in the Southeastern United States, so most animal waste applied to crops grown primarily in the South, such as cotton and peanuts, originates from poultry farms.