Food and agriculture have a significant impact on our planet, particularly in terms of carbon emissions, water withdrawals, and land use.
Food and agriculture have a significant impact on our planet, particularly in terms of carbon emissions, water withdrawals, and land use.
I mean not really.
Live stock accounts for 60% of land usage, but only 2% of calories consumed. Much of that land is growing feed for cattle. They eat millions more calories in grain than is harvested.
Meat is just such a luxury with how many resources it uses. Like the world doesn’t have enough space for everyone to eat meat like the US does.
It also feels very cruel to grow so much feed for cows when people are starving.
But people love Meat and have it part of their culture so people won’t stop no matter what.
So fingers crossed for lab grown meat so this debate can just vanish.
most cows mostly eat grass. what crops are given to livestock is usually plants (or parts of plants) that people can’t or won’t eat.
I think what they’re getting at is that the land being used to grow that grass and inedible plants could instead be used to grow plants that humans can eat.
most of the crops that are fed to animals are just the parts of the plants that people can’t or won’t eat. soybeans, for instance: 85% of all the soybeans in the world go through an oil press, and after extracting the oil, we feed the industrial waste to livestock.
grasslands usually aren’t suitable for growing crops.
Most cows eat grass. True. But most cows are fed grains, not grass.
So growing grain, using the seeds for feeding humans and using the rest for raising additional food for humans is a good idea and was practiced for millenia. But this way our ancestors got a pig or a cow per year per family, not a steak a day.
i never said they aren’t. i’m saying the bulk of what makes a cow is grass. grain finishing isn’t that big of a deal (in my opinion). certainly, the whole food system accounts for ~20% of our emissions, so we could be focused on other sectors instead of food which people eat.