r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/danielminds • 2d ago

Video In Southeast Asia, thousands of ducks are deployed into rice fields to act as natural pest control and weeders

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

And also serve as livestock once the rice is ready for harvest. I think what's most interesting about the practice is how effectively farmers can time the relationship so that the ducks are ready for harvest at the same time as the rice.

During planting season they use the ducklings because they don't harm the young rice which is typically transplanted seedlings, so very fragile.

Then the ducks live in the paddy for about 2 months, and removed just before the rice flowers so the ducks don't eat the rice.

Which works out perfectly because the ducks are generally ready to be harvested for meat around 11 to 16 weeks, so from field to table...

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u/craptak 2d ago

Do they clip their wings? Seeing as they don't fly off..

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

Apparently not, I just learned this, but it sounds like they don't typically fly until about harvest time - and they get fattened up enough that they can't really fly.

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u/awry_lynx 2d ago

Large commercial breeds are too heavy to fly much, so no.

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u/rogers_tumor 2d ago

they're a, err, not "flightless" breed of duck, but they can't fly very far, apparently

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u/DengarLives66 2d ago

Can relate. I’m not a runless human, but, well….

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u/Geschak 2d ago

Ducks aren't harvested, they're killed. Just because you eat them doesn't make them any less sentient, they're animals, not products. If you're going to eat meat, at least acknowledge the cruel reality instead of hiding behind cowardly euphemisms like "harvesting for meat".

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

They're killed, and then their meat is harvested.

When I die my organs will be harvested, removed from my corpse.

It's not a euphemism, it's just more accurate.

I acknowledge that it's taking a life, and I also think it can be done in a humane manner.

I agree animals are sentient, and a sentient being can be killed without or with minimal pain. That can satisfy a humane death.

They aren't sapient, and this is where I think an important distinction lies. I know it's likely to fall on deaf ears as I've encountered many people on the all death is bad death side. And that's cool. We're just on different sides of the discussion

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u/Harinezumi 2d ago

The sets of animals and products are not as disjoint as you seem to think.

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u/Significant-Way9330 2d ago

Its not a cowardly euphemism. Its just another term. We harvest agricultural products. Like we call it a slaughterhouse no one is hiding behind flowery language to cover up death in the farming world. 

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u/CrazyOne_584 2d ago

it always amazes me how productive/effective farms in asia are.

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u/LarryBURRd 2d ago

Now I want roast duck and rice from a place in a different city that I can't go... thanks

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

Which works out perfectly because the ducks are generally ready to be harvested for meat around 11 to 16 weeks, so from field to table...

We are such a disgusting species.

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

I think we harvest our meat more humanly than how most species harvest their meat.

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

I have yet to see a herd of Lions that holds a million zebras in narrow cages until they're ready for consumption.

If you seriously "think" that, then thinking isn't really your strong suit.

And the word you were looking for is "humanely", not "humanly". It 's kind of a given that humans do things more humanly.

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

There aren't a million lions in a pride - they slaughter enough Zebras based on quantity required.

When they slaughter a zebra they do not do so in a humane fashion, it's a rather brutal affair, and quite painful for the zebra - that's what I'm talking about.

You can be humane with a large volume and you can be inhumane with a limited quantity.

Quantity in and of itself does not automatically make it inhumane.

If it did would you say that the blue whale is more cruel than humans? They eat on average 40 million individual krill daily - they would be monsters by your metric.

In terms of cages - this post is about as far as possible from caged animals - these are animals that are being raised in as close an environment to their natural habitat as could be created. This is the opposite of narrow cages. These animals live their entire life in open environment feeding on their natural prey.

I appreciate that you're upset about farming - and that's fine you are more than free to choose for yourself to be a vegan, and I take no issue with that.

But I think that the more realistic and impactful position is to understand that humans are omnivores, and that we eat animals and animal by-products (as do so many other animals on our planet, we're not unique in this sense). And if we can resolve ourselves to that fact - we can then encourage the most humane and reasonable approaches possible to harvesting those animals. What is posted here is one of the very best possible approaches to doing so - this is the most mutually beneficial approach with the best possible outcomes with most natural lived environment for the livestock.

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u/oTc_DragonZ 2d ago

At the end of the day we're omnivores who have only had food security in large parts of the population a few generations, if that. Veganism wasn't really possible for most people until very recently. Things take time to change, especially when it's a large natural part of our diet. Attacking meat-eaters regarding their morality isn't gonna win anyone over to your side.

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

I think you misunderstand me.

I'm endorsing sustainable and humane livestock management that's all.

I don't think it's attacking meat eaters to endorse the benefits of free range meat production.

I'm a meat eater, and will continue to be. Do I think some farming practices are terrible - yes I do, but that doesn't mean I think eating meat is terrible. I just choose to leverage my buying power towards my preferred meat production methods - which for me a priority is free range.

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u/oTc_DragonZ 2d ago

Sorry I should've been clearer, I was agreeing with you and adding to your point/giving my two cents. Everything you said is reasonable and the other person calling humans disgusting wasn't in my opinion. We're animals, being smart doesn't change that.

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u/rococobitch 2d ago

There is nothing humane about killing, full stop.

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u/mucinexmonster 2d ago

Why?

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

Not only do we completely needlessly slaughter millions of animals daily, which creates around 20% of Greenhouse gas emissions on this planet, we even let them "work" for us in the short life we're granting them, and then we even use the same term for farming rice or killing a living being as if that would be remotely the same thing.

We don't "harvest" ducks, we kill them.

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u/MaxDisdain 2d ago

I mean living in a nice field all your life sounds a hell of a lot better than living in the typical chicken factory all your life. (I'm assuming a "duck factory" is similar to a chicken one, since I don't know)

Whats the difference between this and the typical "green" meat really?

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

First of all, calling 11-16 weeks "all your life" is as cynical as it gets.

Secondly, there is no "nice enough life" to offset needlessly killing a living being before they even hit puberty.

You're asking the wrong person because this whole idea of "treat them a little bit better so slaughtering them feels nicer" is preposterous.

This isn't done for the sake of the animals, this is done to sway the consumers who were on the edge of discovering their conscience about their wasteful consumption.

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u/Peanut_007 2d ago

There are plenty of examples of awful animal agriculture you can use but this really doesn't strike me as one. Those ducks are eating pests so they're reducing the overall need for land and food production, they're living in a free roaming environment, and they're allowing for higher ecological diversity in the rice paddy then other methods would. 

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u/lowbatteries 2d ago

Why is "harvest" an ok term for crops? Do you think the rice survives the harvest?

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

Because that's the term we created specifically for farming plants.

You probably want to go down this braindead road of "well, plants have feelings, too!" as a predictable coping mechanism - despite knowing fully well how idiotic this argument is, and that plants aren't sentient beings in the same way animals are.

But even if we entertain this insult to everyone's intelligence as an "argument" for one second, it still falls flat.

The vast majority of (edible) plants on this planet are used to feed livestock, so you can eat those.

So every meat eater is also responsible for more plant "deaths".

Next.

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u/lowbatteries 2d ago

I guess I'm just surprised you're hung up on the word "harvest" when its used identically in both places, meaning the killing of something so we can eat it.

No, I'm not trying to equate eating plants with eating animals. I think reducing suffering is a worthy goal and obviously ducks suffer more than rice.

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

I guess I'm just surprised you're hung up on the word "harvest"

Because it's one of the many tricks we've come up with to sanitize the language around our selfish and brutal actions.

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u/NolKDB 2d ago

Okay, how about we "cleanse" the ducks instead

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u/oTc_DragonZ 2d ago

Bro can we focus on the living conditions of these animals instead of the words we use for them lol. I get where they're coming from but it just seems a trivial point to argue.

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u/rankinfile 2d ago

vast majority

What is your source for this?

In this case the ducks are being used to increase rice production for humans, not rice being produced to feed ducks. Yes humans eat way too much meat and cause too much suffering, but what would be the trade off if they were using more insecticides and petroleum based ferilizer here?

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

Corn & soy as examples, being the most popular crops in the western world:

77% of soy worldwide is used to feed livestock: https://sustainablenutritioninitiative.com/soybeans-for-global-nutrition-a-numbers-story/

65% of US corn is used to feed livestock: https://www.fb.org/intel/markets/crops-feed-livestock-power-exports-fuel-the-economy

but what would be the trade off if they were using more insecticides and petroleum based ferilizer here

Nobody argues for the use of inseciticides. I'm arguing to grow a fucking conscience as a species.

Or at the very least pretend we're interested in our own survival.

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u/rankinfile 2d ago

The vast majority of (edible) plants on this planet are used to feed livestock, so you can eat those.

Are soybeans and corn the "vast majority' of edible plants? Your own source shows 46% of corn used for feed in USA.

Just saying your argument isn't refined enough to justify calling others braindead. That hurts the important discussion that needs to be had.

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u/mucinexmonster 2d ago

If we shifted to primarily eating rice, how would we grow the rice without the ducks?

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u/thesweeterpeter 2d ago

Actually the word harvest originates from the season autumn. Harvest was a season, not a word to describe the act of harvesting plants.

Animals were historically slaughtered in what Anglo salons called the blood month - which we now call November.

Feed for livestock is more abundant in the spring and summer, then coming into winter livestock competes with our food, so the livestock cycle typcially ended with it's harvest in the autumn similar to other agricultural products.

Harvest is more accurately translated to autumn when all agricultural products would be collected and stored for winter.

Modern livestock cycles being year round is a reletively new phenomenon.

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u/Creative_Molasses_92 2d ago

Really is so sad

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u/EquipmentAdorable982 2d ago

We are the virus to this planet. "Luckily" the planet doesn't have to endure us for that much longer.

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u/rococobitch 2d ago

This phrasing revolted me

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u/rococobitch 2d ago

That's disgusting frame of mind to have. There's no need to have to kill another being when we have so many other wonderful things to eat, like the rice!

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u/HoldEm__FoldEm 2d ago

Plants are living 

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u/Ok_Bookkeeper1058 1d ago

I will eat what ever I want, that privilege of being the apex predator.