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Also, not all pasture land is suitable for growing crops. Certainly in my country there's lots of marginal land and hills that sheep are left to wander over tha

Also, not all pasture land is suitable for growing crops. Certainly in my country there's lots of marginal land and hills that sheep are left to wander over that are in no way suitable for growing any crops on. In this way humans can extract calories and protein from land that would otherwise be useless.

nikbackm 9y ago
Not so sure, if the animals can find something to eat on the land, then it should be possible to grow something humans can eat as well. Maybe not wheat and such, but other, more hardy plants.
- mikestew 9y ago
  Not so sure, if the animals can find something to eat on the land, then it should be possible to grow something humans can eat as well. You can try to grow it, but good luck hauling the tractor, plow, and combine up that steep hill that only a sheep can traverse. It's not a matter of "can I grow corn in that soil?", as you can grow corn on a rock if you throw enough fertilizer at it. It's a matter of "can I grow corn at any kind of scale that doesn't involve tilling and harvesting by hand?" And for context, keep in mind that people are killed in tractor rollover events all the time as a result of trying to traverse an incline.
  - elif 9y ago
    except in the US that's not really the case: https://factoryfarmmap.org/#animal:cattle;location:US;year:2012 https://factoryfarmmap.org/#animal:cattle;location:US;year:2...
- colechristensen 9y ago
  A lot of cattle is raised on semi-arid land which is essentially left in it's natural state. The land can support sparse grasses and shrubs, but no agriculture without significant irrigation. Because there is so little vegetation development the area needed per head is huge, but it's fine because the land can't and won't be used for anything else. More to the point, humans don't need this extra land for food with our without eating meat. There might be something to be said about limiting confined animal production fed with our most fertile crop land, but the same arguments aren't relevant for all cattle production. From an ecological perspective, you're not losing wild nature for agriculture, cattle are just displacing grazing animals which would have been there otherwise.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Landscapes grazed by human protected food animals are not much more "natural" than farmed landscapes. The grazing density of cattle, sheep, and goats is much higher than natural grazers and alters the ecosystems dramatically. This is mostly due to the lack of predators, which would cause the herds to move more often and have lower density. Wilderness landscapes can also have this problem when apex predators are removed and grazers eat and breed in peace. See Yellowstone and the reintroduction of the wolf.
    - mgarfias 9y ago
      You can mimic a lot of that with rotational grazing.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  My cousin has a ranch in the west. The land is incredibly poor, diatomaious earth (she finds dinasaur bones!), has very little natural water (and some of what little water she does have is hot spring water), and where grass grows the land is covered in sparse bunch grass. Her head of cattle to land ratio is some crazy number like 100 acres to a cow/calf pair. Could be less IDK exactly. Consequnetly she owns thousands of acres to feed her cattle. There is not enough water there to irrigate non-native edible species over her thousands acre ranch. She'd drain every creek, stream, and river to make a farm happen there.

nikbackm 9y ago

Not so sure, if the animals can find something to eat on the land, then it should be possible to grow something humans can eat as well. Maybe not wheat and such, but other, more hardy plants.

mikestew 9y ago
Not so sure, if the animals can find something to eat on the land, then it should be possible to grow something humans can eat as well. You can try to grow it, but good luck hauling the tractor, plow, and combine up that steep hill that only a sheep can traverse. It's not a matter of "can I grow corn in that soil?", as you can grow corn on a rock if you throw enough fertilizer at it. It's a matter of "can I grow corn at any kind of scale that doesn't involve tilling and harvesting by hand?" And for context, keep in mind that people are killed in tractor rollover events all the time as a result of trying to traverse an incline.
- elif 9y ago
  except in the US that's not really the case: https://factoryfarmmap.org/#animal:cattle;location:US;year:2012 https://factoryfarmmap.org/#animal:cattle;location:US;year:2...
colechristensen 9y ago
A lot of cattle is raised on semi-arid land which is essentially left in it's natural state. The land can support sparse grasses and shrubs, but no agriculture without significant irrigation. Because there is so little vegetation development the area needed per head is huge, but it's fine because the land can't and won't be used for anything else. More to the point, humans don't need this extra land for food with our without eating meat. There might be something to be said about limiting confined animal production fed with our most fertile crop land, but the same arguments aren't relevant for all cattle production. From an ecological perspective, you're not losing wild nature for agriculture, cattle are just displacing grazing animals which would have been there otherwise.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Landscapes grazed by human protected food animals are not much more "natural" than farmed landscapes. The grazing density of cattle, sheep, and goats is much higher than natural grazers and alters the ecosystems dramatically. This is mostly due to the lack of predators, which would cause the herds to move more often and have lower density. Wilderness landscapes can also have this problem when apex predators are removed and grazers eat and breed in peace. See Yellowstone and the reintroduction of the wolf.
  - mgarfias 9y ago
    You can mimic a lot of that with rotational grazing.
rabboRubble 9y ago
My cousin has a ranch in the west. The land is incredibly poor, diatomaious earth (she finds dinasaur bones!), has very little natural water (and some of what little water she does have is hot spring water), and where grass grows the land is covered in sparse bunch grass. Her head of cattle to land ratio is some crazy number like 100 acres to a cow/calf pair. Could be less IDK exactly. Consequnetly she owns thousands of acres to feed her cattle. There is not enough water there to irrigate non-native edible species over her thousands acre ranch. She'd drain every creek, stream, and river to make a farm happen there.