Quote Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant View Post
But then, some of those lives would be happy. There are at least some farms in the world that don't mistreat animals, as we can probably all agree on. So there is a chance that some of those animals could have a happy life - would you deny them that chance?
I have no problem with that. I'm just talking about factory farms.

Quote Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant View Post
Do you think more animals could be saved from mistreatment if all the vegetarians in the world started eating meat BUT only bought it from sources that they knew practiced "humane" treatment of animals?
I do. The increased demand would increase production which would lower cost which would make it more accessible to more people.

The flip side though is that free range takes space. Chickens and goats can be integrated very well into a small scale farm though. You would essentially be looking at dismantling the entire agro-industrial complex and replacing it with local farms. I'm for that for all sorts of reasons not related to humane treatment of other animals. I do recognize that it could be dismissed as hippie drivel though.