To the Editor (Valley News, April 10, 2013):
Chuck Wooster ("Upper Valley Is an Animal Landscape," April 7) observes, "Most of the agricultural land in the Upper Valley is upland pasture, too steep for cultivating for crops." Yet he also tells us that the sheep he doesn't slaughter "spend all winter devouring ... one luscious bale of hay after another."
In other words, animal agriculture in the Upper Valley depends on a tremendous amount of plant cultivation. As Wooster notes about the grain used for larger-scale animal agriculture, the land that grows hay can be used for crops "that could more efficiently be fed directly to humans."
Feedlots and deforestation demonstrate the stark reality of all animal agriculture as wasteful, cruel, and unnecessary.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism, Vermont
