this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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No. His research showed that growing veggies reduces bio diversity of land. Eating a cow is better than eating rice.
...but those cows eat plants, and way more than we do, so wouldn't that just amplify the problem?
They eat plants we cannot eat in the areas we cannot plant any human edible plants.
This logic checks out, however I do wonder if that's actually how it happens in practice. As in, what percentage of their feed is grown somewhere that we absolutely can't grow human food.
One good example is New Zealand. They only have about 2% of arable land and their population was always very small. Even when Europeans started to settle on the islands, overall population didn't grow much. But once Europeans brought grazing animals, NZ population has exploded! Now the islands can support a lot more humans, plus they have enough excess they export to buy plant food they don't grow.
Another example is Scotland. They have 10% of arable land and their population is less than 10% of total UK population. Yet they supply 55% of all beef in the UK and 63% of all lamb. And they still export some meat to EU even after Brexit, even though these exports have fallen drammatically. If you compare the satellite view of Scotland and England, you will see that Scotland is a lot more forests and wild areas, while England is just one large wheat and rape field with a bunch of large cities here and there.
Then there are Alps, which are known for high quality dairy products. Fuck all grows in the mountains so high (in terms of human edible food), yet there are many cows freely grazing and co-existing peacefully with the nature. Just like their wild ancestors did.
P.S. Fun fact - many public parks in UK cities have cattle proof entrances like the one you can see here in Cambridge. Because cows have no issues eating grass which grows in the parks, so you can use this land not only to enjoy your weekend or lunch break, but also to grow food. Here's one in London. And not just in any random part of London, but it's in Richmond, where old rich twats live.
And here's a photo of my brother looking at cows in Richmond. Why pay to mow the grass and for cow feed when you can simply let them graze in a park? Win-win-win!
Please don't present this as the norm for animal agriculture, as it's disingenuous at best. The rare instances where this occurs are far outweighed by the habitable land use that animal agriculture accounts for globally. And even in the countries you call out, such as New Zealand, factory farming is on the rise, and pigs are almost exclusively factory farmed.
cattle eat somewhere north of 90% grazed material or so-called "crop seconds" which are parts of plants that people can't or won't eat. so, for cattle at least, it is true.
"Crop residues" or "crop seconds" only account for about a quarter of global animal feed, and the grain fed to cattle in the US alone could feed a billion people.
https://awellfedworld.org/issues/hunger/feed-vs-food/
https://lemmy.zip/comment/11115828
according to the research on water use, hardly any grain goes to cattle first.
Can you share the source for this chart? It doesn't list whether this is for a specific country, region or global.
just up that thread
https://lemmy.zip/post/17443468
Calorie supply is irrelevant. The main source of calories today is sugar. People in developed countries like the US get 14% of their daily calorie intake from sugar, some countries like Brazil get over 20% from sugar. That's way above the recommended 5%.
Another issue with your logic is that land used for grazing can and is simultaneously used for other needs, and it also supports natural bio diversity. Crop land is pretty much a dead land.
The chart also considers protein supply for this reason.
It's extremely rare that grazing land is used for anything else. In fact, over half of tropical deforestation is done to create pasture land for cattle.
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-causes
I see grazing land used for other things at the same time every day. Most countries don't farm like US does.
What an absolute load of shit. How dare you try to use a great man's name to spread misinformation.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/interview-with-crocodile-2001-04-18/
Source?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/interview-with-crocodile-2001-04-18/
Thanks, but I believed you that he said it, I was asking for any sort of source to back it up. The argument he makes in that interview is terrible and should in no way inform your opinion unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
I've described some real world examples in a different comment https://lemmy.world/comment/10805817
You talk about the forests of scotland, the vast majority of these are monoculture plantations with absolutely terrible biodiversity. By far the largest producers of meat in scotland are factory farms where animals are fed using things like soy, only a minority of livestock entering the food market are reared anything like sustainably.
There is nowhere near enough land to grass feed the amount of ruminants that we consume, so feed crops need to be grown or imported.
You're just plain wrong.
About which part?
Everything. Apart from monoculture forests. But it's better this way than no forests at all just a century ago.
the vast majority of the soy fed to animals is the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil.
Cart before horse - before industrial scale animal farming relatively little soy oil was produced for human consumption. If we weren't growing soy to use it mostly for animal feed we would grow things like palm oil, which grows in the same climate and yields something like 14x as many calories per acre on the same land.
https://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/soybean_crushing1.php
Edit: Or instead of growing soy with the objective of making animal feed (with the added bonus of getting some oil from it) we could grow crops which have far higher calorific yields like maize, potatoes etc.
I don't think palm rotates with corn, so I don't believe it would be grown instead of soy beans.
Which would be an argument against using palm instead of soy if we grew soy primarily for its oil, rather than gaining the oil as a byproduct of growing soy to feed animals.
over 80% of soy is pressed for oil. they press it in an oil press. The byproduct of that process is soy meal or soy cake. The oil is only about 20% of the bean but makes up about half of its crop value. soybeans are grown for oil and because they rotate with corn. they help fixate nitrogen for other crops and they produce oil. The fact that we're able to also feed the byproduct of the oil production to animals is a conservation of resources.
None of what you are saying is necessarily untrue but you still have the cart before the horse. Soy is as widespread as it is because we can use it to sustain industrial livestock farming, it isn't some happy side effect as much as it is the deliberate intention.
it's not accurate to say the soy beans are grown for animals at all though. they're grown for markets and soild health. markets value the oil far higher on a per pound basis than the rest of the bean. I just can't believe a telling of the story of soybeans that places animal feed so prominently, when it's literally the industrial waste that is fed to animals.
I don't know what to tell you mate, this isn't some closely guarded secret look at the history of the crop especially from the end of WW2 onwards.
I have read plenty, (you didn't think I was looking all this up just today, did you?) and i have told you a story in which the objective facts are indisputable. the only point of disagreement we have is how to interpret those facts, and I have given actual reasoning for my interpretation, while you said "look it up".
"The demand for soybeans is currently tied to global meat consumption and is expected to grow"
(https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/global-market-report-soybeans)
how many farmers did they ask for their reasons for planting soybeans?
Far more than you have, I would wager.
it's a simple question that has nothing to do with me.
I'm open to any answer in this; but I think he misses the point here that every animal in itself would need a field of grass in food volume to survive.
No matter how you put it, it seems to me that adding an extra animal to the equation requires more food/water/space, not less.
When you're adding a cow to an existing wild field, the field and its inhabitants don't disappear. When you start planting crops in that field, you destroy the whole associated ecosystem.
Meat production is much, much more agressive on the biodiversity of land than veggies with comparable nutritional value. Lots of research shows that. Not only is the area needed to farm animals immense, but then you also need to grow feed crops like soy and corn to feed the animals. Both are major sources of deforestation. You are absolutely wrong.
the vast majority of the soy fed to animals is the industrial waste from soybean oil production. it's a conservation of resources, not an expenditure
That's not true. We're way past that point.
oh? so the owidx chart that shows 70% of all soy by weight being fed to animals as "soy cake" or "soy meal" is outdated? I would happily believe that if you present some evidence.
My point is that at the scale we're doing it, this is not a waste product. It's just a product like the oil is a product. We like calling things a waste product to make us feel better about our exploitative behaviours. Like how we call leather a waste product of the dairy industry. It's not waste, it's just another product.
using a byproduct that would otherwise go to waste is good
oof.
No, it's not. That's a myth.