Bison and Poly Farm

Letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:

Bison as an alternative

Regarding “Record methane levels add to climate worries” (Page 1, July 15): It’s true that cows fed on corn belch up large amounts of methane, but cows raised entirely on grass don’t produce nearly as much. 

The American bison is an even better alternative; it produces no methane and doesn’t destroy the grasslands it grazes on, but improves them.

Its wool can be spun, its hide makes better leather than cattle. Veganism is not a fact-based movement but an ideology, and as such it conveniently ignores the fact that without manure from farm animals, an all plant-based diet is actually worse for the environment.

Such a world would require even greater fossil fuel-based fertilizer and pesticide use, and more plantation-style monoculture, thus more pressure on both the bees we need to fertilize them as well as the wild-animal populations displaced to grow crops. More food would be flown huge distances to the consumer, releasing more carbon dioxide.

No wool or leather means more unbiodegradeable clothing in landfills. The real solution is a smaller population, abandoning industrial agriculture, and eating less meat, more fruits and vegetables, all grown the symbiotic, Polyface Farm’s way.

Wiley Jackson

San Francisco