Discussions

During this pandemic its becoming clearer that our world needs to dramatically shift how we operate if we want to create a sustainable environment for the future generations.  
 
The aim of this thread is to highlight some important points that hopefully will make people at least think about their food choices and become more connected with their food.  
 
The National Geographic did a very thoughtful article on food sustainability and how we are going to feed 9 billion people. Here is the link for further reading:  
 
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/?fbclid=:IwAR2epwkZX-T8ykstSqqD9UoROGBubV52wbJUdWKEAdNCT8dyqNMqJ7G2F7o  
 
Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota put together the article. He lays out five key steps that if taken can double the earths food supply.  
 
The five steps are:  
 
1. Freeze agriculture's footprint, meaning no more clear cutting of rain forests or clearing land for new farms. Avoiding deforestation must be a top priority. Of particular interest to myself was the amount of land that we currently use as pastureland in comparison to cropland. Its dramatically more and most of the new land being clear cut in the Amazon is for more cattle, which is not sustainable.  
 
2. Grow more on farms we already have. They postulate we can increase yields by using high-tech, precision farming systems and incorporate organic farming practices to boost yields. Step two is all about increasing our growing efficiency  
 
3. Use resources more efficiently so we don't waste as much water and over use fertilizers and pesticides.  
 
4. Shift our diets to eat less or no meat. Currently only 55 percent of worlds crops are directly eaten by humans. 36 percent of grown crops are used to feed livestock and the rest is used to create bio fuels and industrial products. If we shifted our eating style to consume less meat or no meat we would free up a substantial amount of food across the world. They figure that in developing countries they are unlikely to give up eating meat. This is due to the fact that as they become more prosperous they will want to splurge on meats which they never really had access to before. However, in countries that already have heavy meat diets, giving up or reducing meat will be a start in the right direction.  
 
5. Reduce waste of food as currently 25 percent of worlds food calories and 50 percent of total food weight are lost or wasted before they can be consumed.  
 
The article from the National Geographic highlights some interesting and important points. My main focus for the remainder of the thread will be on step 4, shifting our diets.  
 
Why should we eat less meat? Our current system of factory farms has proven time over time that they are horrendous systems that destroy the environment, harm animals beyond belief and create the perfect storm for pathogens to thrive.  
 
Factory farming and mans desire to eat meat has been ground zero for many past pandemics such as SARS, swine flu (H1n1), Ebola from monkeys, West Nile fever from birds, HIV thought to have come from bush meat consumption in Africa, Rift Valley fever from livestock, MERS from camels and now COVID19 likely coming from Chinese wet markets.  
 
The common theme with all these outbreaks is the human interaction with animals for consumption and use. Regardless if its happening in the developing worlds wet markets , the bush in Africa or the factory farms in North America, the human desire to consume meat is causing the problems we have faced before, currently are facing and are likely to face well into the future so long as we continue to produce and consume meat the way we do.  
 
So what do i propose? I dont for a second expect the world to become vegan and stop completely eating meat. That is unrealistic at this point. However, I do believe that the following steps would be beneficial to to start with and hopefully could create some positive change.  
 
1. Reduce meat consumption to only a couple times a week.  
 
2. If you are going to eat meat get the meat from hunting or from a local farm.  
 
3. Don't buy meat from the supermarket.  
 
4. Don't eat at fast food restaurants and consume their animal products.  
 
5. Become a conscious eater and actually think about where your food has come from and support food producers that practice sustainability.  
 
6. Grow as much as you can on your own, buy from a grow coop or farm share, and support local farms.  
 
Our population is continuing to grow and demand for meat will continue to increase. We will eventually run out of space to raise these animals and the damage to our planet all for the sake of eating meat will be immense.  
 
I know this a controversial topic and is likely to receive some negative responses. My goal is not to anger anyone but to hopefully at least put the thought into your conscious mind that hey, maybe we should make better food choices.  
 
Our desire for convenience and cheap food is creating a perfect storm of destruction that future generations will have to deal with. Now is the time to be more responsible, please take the time and do some basic research on factory farming practices and the damage it is causing.  
 
https://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/factory-farming-and-the-environment/  
 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/04/factory-farming-destructive-wasteful-cruel-says-philip-lymbery-farmageddon-author  
 
https://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/  
 
Edited by Your Majesty, 2020-05-21 22:14:10

You have alluded to the biggest problem but have only addressed it indirectly in my opinion. Our population is getting out of control. Instead of finding ways to try and make up for an unsustainable population, we need to look at ways to identify a sustainable population and stick within it.

You hit the nail right on the head. Our desire for cheap and convenience foods has been creating problems for decades and has not really done smaller family farms any good either. The trouble is that politicians and the general public don’t care which is a great shame , so nothing will change, small producers will continue to give up leaving only the big cooperations to control the food industry.

Until there's a fundamental shift in our food culture, there will be no changes. We want food for the cheapest price possible - look at, historically, all the threads on just ebrandon about people complaining about the cost of food, or about crossing the line at Bottineau to get cheap US groceries (especially dairy), or shopping at Costco, etc. Never in history have we spent so little money proportional to our income on food, yet we want it cheaper.  
 
Until we're willing to pay the actual cost of food, factory farming and/or subsidies will no go away.  
 
Regarding your point #4 about reducing meat consumption, that may not be possible in some regions if we want to keep our "agricultural footprint" the same. There's currently lots of land that is used for agriculture that is good for grazing etc, but not good for crops. Southern AB and the Fisher Branch area of Manitoba come to mind. The only way to extract calories from that land is to allow animals to graze, then harvest the animals (or their milk). This is especially crucial in the developing world.

Don't worry, the "higher ups" ready have a plan. If you desire, google Bill Gates ted talk. He mentions if they do medicine "properly" the population will decrease LOL

are willing to use this pandemic to promote their way of living? I for one will never be a vegan.  
But you are right about too many people in this world, people need to stop birthing every year. Maybe countries need to limit the number of children per couple? Especially in places where there are numerous kids in one family and said family cannot afford to feed/clothe their kids, so why have one every year? Oh right, they get child tax credit cash.  
I'm disgusted when looking on Facebook and see posters and their jokes about having another 'child tax baby' and how they can't wait for the 20th and the un-necessary things they are using the money on.

Your Majesty. It is you again and you have a vegan agenda. You know absolutely nothing about farming and farming practices. We live in the Prairies were 90 million buffaloes used to roam when the first settlers arrived in North America. At the time of his arrival Christopher Columbus was not at all concerned about the amount of ruminant animals roaming the prairies. Today those buffaloes are no more and are being replaced by cows which are ruminants just like buffaloes and they play the same important role in the ecology as the buffaloes did.  
 
To be frank there are only three reasons why a person should be a vegan and I will not argue these free reasons:  
a) You do not like the taste of meat.  
b) you do not like the fact that animals are getting killed (humanely in Canada!) for human consumption  
c) Your god or your religion forbids you to eat meat.  
 
Saving the environment is NOT a valid reason for NOT putting meat on your plate.  
 
Let's put meat aside for now.  
 
Let's look at the crop production practises on the prairies.  
Every time the soil is being tilled it is a catastrophic event for the soil.  
When the soil is being tilled billions of soil organisms are dying!  
Topsoil consists of 60% Carbon and 40% Nitrogen and minerals.  
When you till the soil you expose the carbon to Oxygen ( O2) and oxidation is taking place big time. The carbon in the soil and Oxygen becomes CO2. This process is an invisible erosion of our soils!  
When tilled the CO2 coming from the soil is way more than the CO2 which the big farming equipment like tractors, combines etc. are spewing into the atmosphere!  
 
When the first pioneers arrived thanks to the buffaloes the prairie soils were fertile and captured a lot of carbon. Today many of those once fertile soils are only a means to keep the crops upright. The soils are being killed and the carbon mined by crop producers. Therefore the once fertile prairie landscape can only produce a crop if heavily fertilized. The fertilizers are bad for the soil organisms! It kills them. It lowers the Ph value of the soil! Furthermore the croplands on the prairies are being sprayed season after season with all kinds of poison. Insecticides! Weed poison! Fungicides! And what do you think all these poisons are doing to our environment? Millions of bees are being killed by the farmers every year is only one the unwanted affects of the poison being sprayed on our food.  
 
A hundred years ago before synthetic fertilizers our grandfathers had healthy vegetable gardens and they kept the soil healthy by working cow manure into the soil. So Your Majesty if you would like to get rid of Cows how are you going to keep your garden fertile?  
 
You keep on mentioning the Amazon and the trees being destroyed over there. You are out of your mind if you believe that eating less meat on the prairies will preserve the trees of the amazon. And do your homework next time. Most of the trees that are being removed from the amazon is for vegan food (crop production) and not for animal production!  
 
Also what on earth has the snake and bat market in China to do with meat production on the prairies! What a stupid idea you have to eat less meat in Brandon and save a bat in China! What happened to common sense now a days?  
 
Your majesty go ahead and fill your vegan stomach with all kinds of poison. I will enjoy the grass-fed beef humanely raised on my farm. And without you knowing it my cows are doing the work the bison did many moons ago by sequestering carbon into the soil. The bees and the insects are safe on my farm. I do not poison them. I do not have to spray in weed killers on my land because the weeds are playing an important role in the ecology on my farm. When there is a bare spot in the soil, the weeds are there to cover the bare soil and prepare it and make it fertile so that the grass can grow there and the weed seeds will stay dormant until they are needed again.  
 
To the grain farmers out there. There is a better way just google regenerative farming.

This argument is a slippery slope. It implies that we should be able to dictate who, when, where, why, and how many children one should be able to have. Looking at the facts, all populations of animals experience periods of population growth and population shrinkage. Population shrinks (often) due to predation, but most commonly from disease or natural disaster (such as famine). Through industrial revolution (factories->:mass production), agricultural revolution (innovations in machinery and farming technique), and developments in healthcare, the human population has reached the unprecedented number of 7.8 billion.  
 
Now, the biggest problem with your argument is basically an ethical one. There is one famous example of a country that has enacted such policy, a one-child policy, and that is China. There are many lasting impacts to the one-child policy, but most famously people turn to the disproportionate abortion of female fetuses and abandonment of female babies as an example. Of course, there are more impacts to consider, but there are many books, documentaries, and articles talking about these events that could go more in depth than I could right now. I am simply providing an example.  
 
It is also important to note WHERE population growth is happening. It is widely known that places we would consider to be developed countries have incredibly low birth rates. Most of these places experience population growth not from births, but from immigration. In countries like Canada there is access to sex education, as well has health services like access to birth control and safe abortion, which all allow for family planning and thus reduced births. The places where most birth occurs, what we would consider to be developing countries, most commonly lack access to these kinds of services. That being said, it isn't the only reason that people in these places could choose to have many children, but it is an important factor. In reality, the only """"reliable"""" way one could control the population is through forced sterilization or forced abortions. Isn't that just rainbows and butterflies!  
 
Of course, this doesn't even really touch on OP's points about food. In reality there is more than enough food production to take care of everyone of this earth. The biggest problem stems from monoculture and unequal distribution. That, however, is a whole new can of worms.  
 
Edited by Millenial, 2020-05-22 09:34:03

Its unfortunate your going on the defense right away, as I feel you have not read the article I posted or done any actual research into this topic. The point of the thread was to highlight how destructive FACTORY FARMING practices are to the environment, our health and animals health. There is a direct link between pathogen outbreaks and factory farming. Hence why this seems like a very valid time to bring up this subject. We are battling yet again another pathogen outbreak, this time from bats apparently in Chinas wet markets. It was not too long ago we were dealing with Swine flu and H1N1 outbreaks which have been linked to factory farming operations:  
 
"Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses," said Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production, and a long-time critic of the so-called "contained animal feeding operations."  
 
https://www.wired.com/2009/05/swineflufarm/  
 
I am not pushing a vegan agenda on anyone, I respect your choice to eat meat, I just want people to make better choices with their meat selection and eat less of it. I feel like you didn't actually read the thread as in it I recommend supporting local farms, getting your meat from local farms, not eating fast food and generally stop supporting factory farming operations.  
 
There are numerous scientists, researchers, academics and others who are providing valuable information that points to our destructive practices on this planet contributing to the damage to the environment. The destruction of the rain forest does effect us here in Brandon. Unfortunately we don't live in a bubble and when we lose the worlds lungs, guess what happens to us here in Brandon!?  
 
The majority of the rain forest destruction is not to grow food for vegans LOL! Please do your homework and see that its for a variety of things from wood used in construction, power, cattle grazing, growing crops and other industries. The POINT of the article was that we as a human species should not be clearing more lands to grow crops or graze animals. The researcher stated that we have enough land already cleared and instead need to utilize modern farming practices to optimize and make our yields more efficient. The researchers point to the fact that if we continue to destroy the rainforest and other environments (they discuss the prairies) we will cause damage that impacts everyone GLOBALLY. So, yes this is a global problem and we need rethink how we are doing business on this planet.  
 
Sure maybe it wont impact your life now, but it will impact your grandchildren and their grandchildren. We have a duty to leave the world in a better condition for the next generation. Its the self centered me, me attitude that has gotten us into this mess.  
 
The first world nations need to lead by example so as the rest of the world modernizes they follow our lead. We need to make changes and ridding the world of factory farming and going back to small local farms for meat and people eating less of it will absolutely have a positive impact on the environment and our food supply.  
 
Edited by Your Majesty, 2020-05-22 10:03:30

Has been shown in many studies that grazing beef cattle on native prairie pasture is the most efficient and sustainable way to utilize that land whilst promoting flora and fauna. On our small farm livestock production goes together with our grain to create an efficient farming system more akin to the way that more people used to farm. We do not want or need subsidy . I have farmed under such a regime , it distorts the marketplace and encourages inefficiency.  
 
Edited by Farmergeorge, 2020-05-22 10:04:37

There certainly is an ethical component to what I am saying and that is precisely why few speak about it. Humans are consumers and we are quickly outgrowing our host. Simple as that.  
 
When a plane with 10 passengers and 8 parachutes is about to crash, it is an ethical and uncomfortable discussion as to who gets a parachute. Ethical and uncomfortable but necessary.

The comment made about grain that is fed to livestock could be used for human consumption. It is called "FEED" grain because it is not suitable quality for making human food.  
 
What do your wise ones you are quoting suggest that the farmer do with that grain if you do away with the livestock industry?

What really saddened me is when Mr Socks pushed through the legalization of pot, there were dozens of green houses around metro Vancouver that immediately stopped growing food like peppers and switched to marijuana.  
 
Now many of those same growers have either closed due to bankruptcy or are slowly switching back to food.  
 
The whole legalization (while I am not against it) was very poorly done and has negatively effected our food chain. Hopefully it will be repaired soon.

You really want to improve public health, reduce our environmental footprint and become more sustainable then it would help to increase the teaching of home economics in schools. There is about 3 generations of people now who don’t really know where their food comes from. Teach people to reduce their dependency on processed foods, prepare their own meals, reduce sugar, salt and alcohol consumption and encourage those that are able to grow and produce a portion of their own food.

Your absolutely correct, those things will have a positive impact on our society as a whole. We need to also get out of the mindset of having unlimited access of certain products at the lowest cost. We are conditioned in North America with an expectation that certain foods will always be a certain price. Because of our desire to have cheap meats we have centralized lots of the meat processing facilities which in turn is a source of major problems as seen with previous pathogen outbreaks. These facilities cause enormous damage to the environment, are breeding grounds for numerous pathogens and are challenging working environments for workers.  
 
We need to get back to small scale operations, however with that comes an increase in food costs which at this time is not really what people want.  
 
This is of course a very complex problem that will require a shift in our current mindset and the introduction of complex solutions that happen over many years. We need to at least start making incremental changes for the betterment of future generations.

Again you miss the point.

What you say is so true. We are, by and large, very disconnected from our food chain and understanding what goes into food.  
 
We try to buy local (about 95% of our meat we eat is grown locally and bought either directly from the farm or from the butcher who sources local), and we tend to buy whole animals (or in the case of a steer or pig, we buy 1/2 at a time). We try hard not to waste and to respect the animal by consuming as much as possible, right down to using the bones up for soups etc.  
 
Since we've started doing that, and I have a better grasp of how much of any part of animal is on an animal, it actually makes me a little sad seeing the mega packages of chicken breasts, or pork tenderloin, or those sorts of cuts in the supermarket. How many animals are in that package? What was their life like?  
 
The waste part always intrigues me too. We don't buy a lot of processed food, but instead I cook from scratch on the most part. I try hard to use up all our bits and bobs. We compost like crazy, because we try to keep a permaculture system as much as possible on our urban lot (we grow lots of food in the summer). We also throw out very little garbage relative to our family size (we are 2 adults and 5 children).  
 
Lots of people in my neighbourhood put out overfull garbage bins week after week, and for a long time I had a hard time understanding how. But my husband and I realized one day after a rare meal at McDonald's we brought home for the kids that it a lot must be food packaging. We have a fairly small garbage can in the kitchen by design, It's roughly 22L - anything bigger than that stinks before we fill it up. That single meal pretty much filled up the can. Normally, it takes us 4-5 days to fill it.  
 
Most of our garbage, as it turns out, is plastic packaging. The bag the apples came in. The bag the noodles came in. That sort of stuff. We only realized that when the kids had a plastic bag drive at school last year which collected all that sort of stuff - then it took me nearly 10 days to fill our can!

As much as I agree, one hugeness point has not even been mentioned:  
 
We currently could grow enough food to feed every person on the planet. But the biggest problem is getting it to the people who need it before it spoils.  
Transportation and speed are the big barriers (apart from the politics that affect it).

You are right although the problems are largely lack of political will. Through education and good husbandry more food can be produced on a smaller scale local to many of the people that need it therefore reducing the need for so much transportation. There is a place for commercial agriculture as well.

JM how many factory farms are there in Brandon and area that you know of?  
 
Also here in the prairies we do not cut trees to graze our cows. We live on the prairies like!  
 
Sure what happens in the Amazon will effect my grand children BUT eating more or less meat here in Brandon will not change a thing about what is happening over there.  
 
What affects you today on the prairies is the weedicides, pesticides, insecticides and fungicides sprayed on the prairie croplands as I am typing.  
 
What I am doing for my children and grandchildren is using my animals as a tool to sequester carbon in the soil and it is forever until someone would till the soil.  
 
Your Vegan diet is doing nothing for the environment! It is just a choice you have made and I am fine with your choice. On what grounds are you advising people to consume less meat?

JM tell me exactly what you will accomplish by advising people to eat less meat?

Your totally missing the point of my discussion and instead are focusing on my vegan lifestyle (perhaps your a closet vegan!!). My point as stated numerous times is to bring awareness to the fact that factory farms are harmful to the environment, people and animals. They are breeding grounds for pathogens that time over time have caused pandemics and illness among the human population. This is all because we want cheap accessible meat. Instead we should be looking to support local farms that are decentralized and practice more sustainable measures.  
 
When folks buy meat from the local supermarket they are supporting the large corporate factory farm operations and push the small local farms out of the picture.  
 
Globally we need to make changes to how we operate which is another main point of my discussion. This is not about veganism or Brandon, MB. Its about everyone making better choices and demanding quality products from producers who practice sustainable measures. The global population is increasing and regardless of what others have suggested with trying to curb the growth, we need to realize that the growth of the global population will bring with it an increased demand for meat. We will eventually run out of space to feed all the people on this planet. We need to start thinking about how we are going to turn this industry into a more sustainable industry. I don't get why that is so hard for you to understand? Do you really think we can just keep operating the way we are now forever? There is a reason leading experts are working on solutions to this problem now.  
 
We are a society that over consumes many products and meat is one of them. We don't need to eat meat three times a day, but we choose to because its a WANT not a NEED. That greed of wanting something is driving demand higher which is creating a problem globally.  
 
Experts from all walks of life suggest we consume less meat and learn to utilize the current farm lands we have to optimize our yields.  
 
I get that this is a controversial subject however we need to think beyond our regional lines. Folks here can make an impact with their wallets. Buy from local producers instead of the big box stores, support a local crop share program etc. Money talks and if more people shop locally the big corporations will be forced to change.  
 
Thats great your taking care of your farm in a sustainable way and I commend you for that. However the majority of the people are not YOU. They buy cheap meat from the supermarket and eat fast food and demand low prices on everything. They over consume unhealthy products which pushes the demand for these junk products even higher. Most people have lost touch with where their food comes from and have zero relationship with it.  
 
We need to have these discussions so people can then go out and make informed decisions for themselves. I would challenge you to research this topic further with a open mind and allow yourself to feel a bit uncomfortable. Like i said earlier its a complex problem that will require complex and challenging solutions that happen over many years.

How can you state we need to have open discussions so people can make informed choices while completely brushing off the notion that the population is exploding past the point of sustainability. If we are to have honest discussion, shouldn't we consider all variables? Is your POV that population growth just is what it is so no point discussing it?

Your correct we need to consider all variables, not wanting to stray to far from the main focus of the thread I do acknowledge that population growth is an issue that needs to be addressed. Whats interesting though about population growth is that as a society becomes more advanced and wealthy their fertility levels drop off. Globally fertility levels have been slowly dropping at by 2100 global population will have peaked and have a growth of less than 1%.  
 
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/  
 
So part of the solution may just be to help bring people out of poverty, provide better education and access to medical services. By improving the global populations way of life and providing better opportunities in life people will have less children thus halting our exploding global population. So, we will need to have a sustainable food system in place to feed all those billions of people!

Just some more information pertaining to how as an countries HDI or GDP increases the fertility rate drops....  
 
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/december/link-fertility-income  
 
And a paper talking about this in better detail than i can explain...  
 
From the paper:  
 
There is an inverse association between income per adult and fertility among countries, and  
across households this inverse association is also often observed. Many studies find fertility is  
lower among better educated women and is often higher among women whose families own  
more land and assets. What do we know about the social consequences of events and policies  
that change fertility, if they are independent of parent preferences for children or the economic  
conditions which account for much of the variation in parent lifetime fertility? These effects of  
exogenous fertility change on the health and welfare of children can are assessed from Kenyan  
household survey data by analysis of the consequences of twins, and the effect of avoiding  
unanticipated fertility appears to have a larger beneficial effect on the body mass index or health  
status of children in the family than would be expected due to variation in fertility which is  
accounted for by parent education and household land.  
 
http://www.econ.yale.edu/~pschultz/cdp925.pdf  
 
The paper is about Kenyan families but highlights a key point about how as women receive better education and income rises they have less children. There is also a large push by the WHO, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations to help educate women in Asian and Africa countries on the use of contraceptives and proper family planning.  
 
Edited by Your Majesty, 2020-05-22 23:48:53

Sometimes I think there are to many people doing to many studies. Just recently our municipality passed a burning bylaw. Decided to find the origin of the idea, originated with the federal government as a green initiative. Some interesting things have happened related to agriculture because of a federal law that is being enforced by provincial and municipal governments.  
What does all this have to do with food production and sustainability.  
Ideas that are being promoted for reduced straw production, which sometimes is burned are, get farmers to use less nitrogen, bale all residual straw, get farmers to work straw into the soil.  
I read things like this and just shake my head.  
People who are not involved in agriculture solve problems by creating more problems, one group will promote an idea that opposes studies done by another group which is directly related to agriculture whesas the other group is driven by environmental issues.  
On factory farms, what is the greatest threat, factory farms or mega cities, both are detrimental to sustainability.  
As for the health of people, it’s not so much as to what you eat that causes problems, but the lifestyle of the individual.  
Sarcasm on, don’t worry folks government knows what best for all of us, and they will do studies to forward their agenda.

And every year I grow varieties to produce more straw needed for my cattle or to incorporate and build my soil. When will they learn that some of us actually know how to take care of our land because we’ve been doing this for generations and we intend to look after it.

eat meat, eat less meat, don't buy meat in supermarkets only buy from local producer. Can't afford local producer, tough. We know what's best for you and the whole world.  
People have and will continue to eat what they can afford, end of. Our family has been doing that for years.  
I do plant a veggie garden, what I am able to now due to advancing age and fractures but one thing I love about growing tomatoes is that I can treat my friends to their exceptional taste.  
We all would be better off living our lives and stop trying to dictate what other people should do with theirs.

Like the OP points out, it's not really the point of the discussion. We don't have a say over other people's reproductive choices - if we can't tell a woman she can't have an abortion, we also can't tell her not to have children. It cuts both ways. Population growth is not occurring in rich, developed countries, but in poor, underdeveloped ones. We simply declare, "You must have less children!" without addressing the systemic reasons why they have lots of children.  
 
Like the OP points out, in the developing world, education of women and girls is key to reducing fertility. The more education a girl receives, the later she marries and the less children she is likely to have. She will also usually be more economically prosperous and it provides benefits to her community.  
 
So that needs to be the focus right now. The end goal - to reduce population growth and stablize it. Maybe even reduce the global population over time, although we would have do to that without economic collapse (because our current models are build on constant growth, even of the population).  
 
But alas, that is a different discussion.

Population control...as was already said that diseases cut the population. So why is society trying so hard to stop this virus? Advanced countries prop up the weak & vulnerable...people who would have died from ____ anyway. It makes for a weakened & burdened population. It isn't pretty or pleasant, but that's how life works. If you look at the animal world, it balances out eventually when those die. Everyone dies at some point. Our society wants everyone to live, even if it is artificially supported. Birth control is doing things backwards and causes more issues. A strong population is not propped up medically/artificially, and eats truly healthy food (not maufactured "foods" which i:nclude improperly prepared soy & chemical/additive laden foods. Read those ingredient lists on everything you buy. It amazes me what people are willing to eat in the name of "healthy" whether vegan or not. It is not food!  
 
Also, if citing Kenya, it is a societial issue. It is not family planning that is the problem. First, children die often at all ages. People want children. It is their right to reproduce. It is basic to being. Also, and I believe that this is the bigger issue there, if you look at their men, many are very loose, raping women. Do they care about population control? It is a huge problem there, so I understand. I think this is where a lot of their problem lies.  
 
China's problems with this have already been addressed. Some advanced countries in Europe pay for people to have children, and are obviously doing very well.  
 
Farming... One other thing that has not been mentioned is the most obvious factory farms and the ones who cry loudest about farm practices, which are...cities! They take up the best and most fertile farm land. We lose too many acres to cities every day. The people that live there have no awareness of the life & death cycle that farmers deal with every day. This city land becomes unproductive & pollution causing on land, in water, in the air, noise, & with light. The land is wasted, sometimes contaminated in the name of a city...forever. That is a huge problem.  
 
This said, I am far from a supporter of livestock yards and many practices of conventional farming, including all those greenhouses & solar panels covering valuable farmland in the Netherlands in the name of food production & "green" living. Have you seen those Nat. Geo. pictures? That is a type of modern conventional farming too. It is not good, as they want to tell us.  
 
I think it would be best for all if we could go back to sustainable ways of farming, supporting the little guy who is farming holistically and supporting those who want to start.  
 
Do you want to make a difference instead of complaining? Plant a garden. Keep a little livestock if you can. Learn about life & death. Don't give up because it is work. Keep going. Learn about what true sustainability is. Start small & grow it wisely. Change happens with you. One site that I found years ago is thegrownetwork.com. If you want to learn grow your own food, it is a good place to start.  
 
Edited by Flutterby, 2020-05-23 09:17:57