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That doesn't seem right - surely a modern animal farm yields more food per energy expended than a group of hunters?
by prodmerc 9y ago
That doesn't seem right - surely a modern animal farm yields more food per energy expended than a group of hunters?
- humblehee 9y agoAnthropology classes teach that the parent comment is true: hunter-gatherer societies are much more energy efficient. Every step of modernization, from animal to machine power, decreases energy efficiency but increases intensity: food can be made more quickly and in less space. Consider that animals are more powerful, but require food and water of their own. Tractors are more powerful still, but require fuel, steel, and huge industries that bring those two together. The best citation I have off hand is this https://anthropology.artsci.wustl.edu/courses/wucrsl/L48/361/FL2017 https://anthropology.artsci.wustl.edu/courses/wucrsl/L48/361...
- mabbo 9y agoIt does make sense when you consider where the energy all comes from: the sun. Plants absorb solar energy and store it as chemical energy. Animals roam far and wide to eat those plants, collecting the chemical energy in one place- themselves. Then human hunters come along and simply 'pick' the energy from the dense source that is the animal. Now, the humans don't need to do much work because the energy is all in one place (they just need to find that one place). But the energy itself was collected over a huge area.
- maxerickson 9y agoTractors and fertilizer inputs to the feed, of which only a fraction ends up in the meat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio). Things like eggs and crickets are very efficient, with about 1/2 the feed energy ending up in the product. For beef it is more like 10-15% of the feed energy.
- prodmerc 9y agoInteresting stuff. I guess the advantage is that you don't have to rely on nature and chance to get that food, since you literally create it from scratch.