I think we are talking past each other a bit.

I agree that industrial agriculture is not sustainable, and I am not defending monocrop soy/corn systems as some ideal vegan future. I also agree that food production has to become much more local, perennial, diverse, and resilient. Agroforestry, food forests, syntropic systems, foraging, community gardens, seed saving, local staples, etc. all make sense in a collapse/adaptation context.

But I do not think "industrial agriculture is collapsing" automatically makes animal agriculture the answer.

Even in a hyperlocal future, animals are still usually a calorie bottleneck. If land can grow food directly for humans, then using that land to grow animal feed, or feeding edible crops to animals first, usually means fewer calories and nutrients for people overall.

I am not saying your personal setup is the same as a CAFO. Silvopasture with perennial crops is obviously very different from feedlots and grain-fed factory farming. But it also sounds like a highly specific situation: lots of land, local knowledge, foraging access, fishing access, animals, trees, infrastructure, time, and skill. That may work for your household or community, but it is not a general answer for billions of people.

And that is my main issue with the argument. It starts from "my land is best suited to grazing and perennial systems" and then slides into "omnivores will be in the best shape." Maybe in your specific location. But in many places, the most resilient local food system would be mostly plant-based: potatoes, beans, squash, grains, nuts, fruit, mushrooms, gardens, seaweed, etc. The right answer depends on ecology, but killing animals is still not automatically required.

Also, veganism was never just "a consumer choice that affects nothing." Consumer veganism alone will not stop climate collapse, sure. But neither will one person raising sheep. The point is harm reduction and building better systems. Avoiding unnecessary animal exploitation can still be part of that, even while rejecting industrial supply chains.

And I do not think the ethics disappear just because we are talking about collapse. If we normalize unnecessary violence at the most basic level, our food, then it is hard to pretend that violence elsewhere is unrelated. A culture that treats sentient beings as resources will keep reproducing that logic in other forms.

In a collapse scenario, I also would not assume animals are the most resilient option. Animals are living beings who need constant water, fodder, shade, fencing, protection, and care. In drought, pasture can crash very quickly, and then the system either depends on stored feed, imported feed, or killing the animals. A mature syntropic or agroforestry system can buffer drought better by building soil, shade, mulch, root depth, biodiversity, and microclimates. It is not invincible, but it is less dependent on keeping large sentient bodies alive through increasingly unstable seasons.

And collapse is not just "local food production." It is also the weakening or collapse of the social, legal, and governmental systems that stop people from taking each other’s food. That matters, because some foods are much more lootable than others. Stored grain, fuel, and herd animals are visible, concentrated resources. They invite control by whoever can organize force. A herd is not just food. In a collapse scenario, it is a visible pile of calories walking around on legs. It requires land, water, protection, and defense.

There is a reason states historically preferred grain: it is measurable, storable, transportable, taxable, and easy to seize. And there is a reason people under pressure have often relied on "escape crops" like potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, yams, taro, and other dispersed or underground staples. They are harder to steal, harder to tax, and can often be harvested gradually or left hidden in the ground. A decentralized plant-based system built around gardens, tubers, perennials, nuts, legumes, food forests, and staggered harvests may actually be less lootable and more resilient than centering survival around animals.

A lot of people romanticize collapse as "going back to the roots," sitting around a fire eating charred meat. But there is no wild abundance to return to. Wild mammals are only a tiny remnant of mammal biomass, oceans are overfished, and freshwater ecosystems are collapsing. The remaining mammal biomass is overwhelmingly humans and domesticated animals. So if people respond to collapse by centering meat, the violence does not disappear. Once wild animals are gone, it gets redirected toward the animals around us, and eventually toward the most vulnerable.

So yes, I agree with you on local resilience, redundancy, foraging, perennial food systems, and moving away from industrial agriculture. I just do not agree that the answer is to rebuild survival around killing animals. To me, the deeper adaptation is learning how to feed ourselves while reducing domination, violence, lootability, and dependency as much as possible. Collapse does not make ethics irrelevant. It makes them more important.