When I read Jeremy Oehlert’s column entitled “Eating meat is murderous and wasteful” (March 8), I was hoping to find a documented, logical argument, but was left stranded with a trite vegetarian appeal that relied heavily on false assumptions and ignorance.

Allow me to address the environmental concerns of producing meat. It is true that excrement is produced by livestock. But farmers call it fertilizer, and, for most, it isn’t a problem. Manure is spread over fields to improve productivity, decrease the use of commercial fertilizer and improve soil quality. Recently, producers and government agencies have worked together to develop a manure management act that ensures manure is used in an appropriate manner.

Furthermore, let’s pretend that vegetarian fantasyland comes true and humans no longer eat meat. Let’s also assume the water livestock drink somehow has an impact on water in the United States. Will cows, hogs, sheep, chickens, goats and turkeys stop drinking? In the rational world, probably not, but anything is possible in Veggieland.

The United States and other world agricultural leaders produce enough food to feed the world. Unfortunately, the world isn’t quite ready to eat. Third World countries lack the financial resources to purchase food. In addition, they lack the transportation systems, refrigeration, and other infrastructure necessary to disperse food if they received it. World hunger is truly a tragedy, but the plea that stopping meat consumption would end it clearly lacks logical support.

Livestock producers are among our nation’s most devoted animal welfare activists. Their livelihoods and lives depend upon the animals they raise, and they provide them with the best lives possible. Livestock receive adequate food, shelter and health care. Production methods could be misconstrued as cruel, especially when presented in a one-sided light. Chicken beaks, for example, are often removed in large operations. This may seem cruel, but in fact it is done to prevent the chickens from pecking each other to a bloody and painful death. In the processing stage, livestock are killed quickly and humanely.

Saving the environment and feeding the world are noble goals. But discontinuing meat consumption will not aid in achieving them. No rational and educated person should have the audacity claim that eating meat is murderous and wasteful. That claim is no more accurate than the claim that all vegetarians are flamboyantly homosexual left-wing liberals. You are entitled to your beliefs as I am to mine, but, in the future, let’s be sure that our premises support our conclusions.

Blake Brockway

Senior

Agricultural Business and Economics