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There is substantially more land allocated to crops used for animal fodder than human consumption. We should probably be focusing on reducing/eliminating anima

There is substantially more land allocated to crops used for animal fodder than human consumption. We should probably be focusing on reducing/eliminating animal agriculture instead of further increasing farming intensity.

zaarn 9y ago
CRISPR could potentially enable lab-grown meat, which would address this issue. Such meat would not have any of the potential ethical problems some people might have with the addition of not requiring the vast amount of tech to keep a normal animal healthy until it gets to the slaughterhouse (antibiotics for one)
saalweachter 9y ago
There is definitely some opportunity in reducing meat consumption, I want to say that up front. Specifically, grain-fed beef is the one to reduce. In many other cases, meat production may be the best use of the available resources. Three specific cases to consider: First, not all land can support crops. There is a lot of marginal land in the world that can support pasture land, but not corn or cabbages. This is more common in the third world than in the US, although the US has some historical grasslands we've been irrigating the heck out of. Second, some animals can capture calories humans can't, or are unwilling to. Pigs can eat food scraps or no-longer-fresh produce. Third, not all animals are equally inefficient. Cows are the ones that are 10-to-1 on their calorie efficiency (although if those are 10 calories of grass, it's still a bargain). Pigs are closer to 3-to-1. You still save a fair bit by reducing the amount of grain-fed pork in the world, but it isn't as dramatic as the savings from beef. Chickens are like 1.8-to-1. That makes them basically competitive with soybeans as a protein source; you can plant 2/3 an acre of corn and 1/3 an acre of soybeans and feed it to chickens to get as much protein as 1 acre of soybeans, plus you get an organic fertilizer from them. From a pure environmental standpoint, there is no reason to ever stop producing chickens.
- tintor 9y ago
  Is organic chicken also 1.8-to-1?
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    There are a lot of variables in chickens (although most chicken you find in stores or restaurants will have been produced in the most efficient way possible, so the 1.8-to-1 number is pretty fair). Grain-fed organic chicken (where the grain inputs are produced "organically") will be basically the same as regular-old industrial chicken . The effective calories-per-acre of the chickens may be different, but the 1.8-to-1 factor should still hold. "Free range" or "pastured" chicken is where it becomes more complicated. Chickens running around eating grass and bugs and mice are burning more calories than chickens standing around a feed lot, and you can't really pasture chickens that densely - on the order of a hundred chickens per acre, while grain-raised chicken is the equivalent of like a thousand chickens per acre. On the other hand, you can pasture chicken on land that is difficult to use for agriculture, both in large, rocky, hilly pastures and in very small spaces. A backyard chicken given sufficient pasture and free access to feed will eat about half as much feed as a confined chicken; you are plausibly getting more calories out of them than the feed you put in, with the balance made up by the crickets and grass you weren't eating anyway. Of course, many backyards are suited to other types of agriculture, the soil being neither particularly rocky nor poor and the climate not being particularly intemperate, but backyard chickens are actually a reasonably viable way to raise chickens, as a civilization. You recapture wasted land and calories, individuals can ensure their meat comes from healthy and well-treated animals, and you can decentralize the meat processing (using either local butchers or butchering your chickens yourself), which has historically been an industry rife with human suffering.

zaarn 9y ago

CRISPR could potentially enable lab-grown meat, which would address this issue. Such meat would not have any of the potential ethical problems some people might have with the addition of not requiring the vast amount of tech to keep a normal animal healthy until it gets to the slaughterhouse (antibiotics for one)

saalweachter 9y ago

There is definitely some opportunity in reducing meat consumption, I want to say that up front. Specifically, grain-fed beef is the one to reduce. In many other cases, meat production may be the best use of the available resources. Three specific cases to consider: First, not all land can support crops. There is a lot of marginal land in the world that can support pasture land, but not corn or cabbages. This is more common in the third world than in the US, although the US has some historical grasslands we've been irrigating the heck out of. Second, some animals can capture calories humans can't, or are unwilling to. Pigs can eat food scraps or no-longer-fresh produce. Third, not all animals are equally inefficient. Cows are the ones that are 10-to-1 on their calorie efficiency (although if those are 10 calories of grass, it's still a bargain). Pigs are closer to 3-to-1. You still save a fair bit by reducing the amount of grain-fed pork in the world, but it isn't as dramatic as the savings from beef. Chickens are like 1.8-to-1. That makes them basically competitive with soybeans as a protein source; you can plant 2/3 an acre of corn and 1/3 an acre of soybeans and feed it to chickens to get as much protein as 1 acre of soybeans, plus you get an organic fertilizer from them. From a pure environmental standpoint, there is no reason to ever stop producing chickens.

tintor 9y ago
Is organic chicken also 1.8-to-1?
- saalweachter 9y ago
  There are a lot of variables in chickens (although most chicken you find in stores or restaurants will have been produced in the most efficient way possible, so the 1.8-to-1 number is pretty fair). Grain-fed organic chicken (where the grain inputs are produced "organically") will be basically the same as regular-old industrial chicken . The effective calories-per-acre of the chickens may be different, but the 1.8-to-1 factor should still hold. "Free range" or "pastured" chicken is where it becomes more complicated. Chickens running around eating grass and bugs and mice are burning more calories than chickens standing around a feed lot, and you can't really pasture chickens that densely - on the order of a hundred chickens per acre, while grain-raised chicken is the equivalent of like a thousand chickens per acre. On the other hand, you can pasture chicken on land that is difficult to use for agriculture, both in large, rocky, hilly pastures and in very small spaces. A backyard chicken given sufficient pasture and free access to feed will eat about half as much feed as a confined chicken; you are plausibly getting more calories out of them than the feed you put in, with the balance made up by the crickets and grass you weren't eating anyway. Of course, many backyards are suited to other types of agriculture, the soil being neither particularly rocky nor poor and the climate not being particularly intemperate, but backyard chickens are actually a reasonably viable way to raise chickens, as a civilization. You recapture wasted land and calories, individuals can ensure their meat comes from healthy and well-treated animals, and you can decentralize the meat processing (using either local butchers or butchering your chickens yourself), which has historically been an industry rife with human suffering.