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Livestock can subsist on plants, like wild grasses, that are unpalatable or even inedible to humans. These plants often grow on "unarable" land that won't supp
by tomjakubowski 10y ago
Livestock can subsist on plants, like wild grasses, that are unpalatable or even inedible to humans. These plants often grow on "unarable" land that won't support human crops. For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. What stops us from doing that now?
I suspect the real problem is closer to wasting arable land, water, shipping (with all of those environmental externalities), etc. on growing crops that aren't used to directly feed humans, and government subsidies that hide the true cost of corn-fed livestock from consumers.
- agitator 10y agoYes, and the high demand for animal based proteins has been a large cause of deforestation. Also, beef and other livestock produce a large portion of green house gas emissions.
- sanswork 10y agoWe don't need to use that land though. If we're not feeding livestock then we don't need near as many crops to support ourselves so let the unusable land return to the wild. Also if you want to use scrub land to feed your livestock you're going to need a lot of it like in Australia. >For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. For millennia most people wouldn't be getting access to 200lbs of meat a year. There was also a lot fewer of us to feed that much meat to.