John Deere Publications released an article earlier this year praising "Meat Straight From the Farm" - describing a slaughter facility. Raising animals for food requires massive amounts of land, food, energy, and water. The byproducts of animal agriculture pollute our air and waterways. The United Nations states that urgent and unprecedented changes – including a shift to a plant-based diet – is vital to limit the catastrophic damage that will be caused by climate change. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of ocean dead zones, species extinction, and habitat destruction – and by some estimates, it creates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the world’s transportation systems combined. A study in the journal Nature found that greenhouse-gas emissions from animal agriculture would be reduced by half if the world turned to a mainly plant-based diet. Every person who goes vegan can shrink their carbon footprint by up to 73% and save up to 200 animals per year.
Also on the John Deere website, the company's products are proudly marketed to the dairy industry. Rainforests, prairies, and wetlands are systematically destroyed and converted to farmland in order to grow the enormous amount of crops needed to feed cows. A typical cow used for milk produces 120 pounds of waste each day—and when this manure is used as fertilizer, it can contaminate streams and lakes, destroy whole ecosystems, poison food products, and pollute the atmosphere with ammonia and methane.
With this knowledge, there is absolutely no way John Deere can be supported - it's time to cultivating plant-based practices!
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