Plant Based Food Economics

One reason we eat animal protein is that the plant food industry is much more labor intensive during harvesting and there is a lower profit margin on plant based food. As a result, plant based food producing industry tends to be more collective or "communist" or "socialist". Animal based food industry is less labor intensive and harvesting can be accomplished by fewer people. This fits the commercial, or capitalist, form of social organization much better.

Additionally, plant based food must be harvested on specific dates of the calendar and this requires a large group of people.  Traditionally this harvesting has frequently been done collectively by the entire community.  Today, this harvesting is frequently done by teams of migrant workers.   Animal based food is not as calendar dependent and can be harvested (slaughtered) at any time.  This leads to a more distributed "assembly line" type of processing for animal based food that can be controlled more easily.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer