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As far back as 1997, over half of all grain grown in the US goes to livestock [1]. So, going from animal protein to plant protein is a net reduction of farm lab

by fnovd 8y ago

As far back as 1997, over half of all grain grown in the US goes to livestock [1]. So, going from animal protein to plant protein is a net reduction of farm labor and therefore requires less exploitation. [1] https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-m...

MisterOctober 8y ago
Yep -- when I started researching corn for my own horticultural reasons, I was cold shocked to find out only ~10% goes to feed humans, with the balance going mainly to animal feed and ethanol : http://worldofcorn.com/#corn-usage-by-segment http://worldofcorn.com/#corn-usage-by-segment
- sharkmerry 8y ago
  Thanks for all the links. I sincerely was asking as a counterpoint, not to troll. I did know about grain being used to feed cattle, but a lot of the grain they eat is not of "human quality" so saying that we can just switch humans from meat to grain and feed 800 million people is very misleading.
  - fnovd 8y ago
    Do you have any sources on the percentage of grain that is not of human-quality? Are there any estimates of what percentage of the non-human quality grain can be filtered to become human-quality? We're not talking about fundamentally different plants, just the difference between seeds, stalks, & husks vs seeds alone. Even putting the exact number aside, we're talking about thousands and thousands of hectares of arable land used solely to feed livestock. Even if the number is only 80 million (back in 1997), it is still a large-enough number to beg the question: is this the best use of our resources?
    - sharkmerry 8y ago
      I've been looking but I cant find anything yet. > We're not talking about fundamentally different plants, just the difference between seeds, stalks, & husks vs seeds alone. I think it's also how its stored and # of broken kernels (for corn anyways), etc. Im not arguing against the point, was just trying to bring some perspective
    - MisterOctober 8y ago
      I don't have a source / link handy at the moment, but a couple relevant notes to consider : 1) the vast (vast) majority of corn consumed by humans is processed into things like corn syrup, modified starch, whiskey, etc, rather than eaten "whole" as a grain [like, say, as tortilla chips or whatever], so the notion of broken kernels, etc, scarcely applies to this particular consideration -- see above-linked infographic 2) The question of what type of corn is grown is a really interesting one -- I could rattle on about this for a long time, but suffice to say that the family of varieties generally known as "Corn Belt Dent" [derived at some length from Nothstine and similar early dent corns] is designed to serve both feed / silage and processing-for-human-consumption [including ethanol] purposes. Now, this is not stuff you eat as "corn on the cob" [those are called sweet corns, though back in the day folks used to eat green Corn Belt Dent roasted as "Trucker Ears"], nor is it the same as popcorn [which is its own family, derived at length from flint corns]. There are in fact varieties designed specifically for silage [the common type of feed, where pretty much the entire plant is fermented and fed to animals; these varieties have less fibrous leaves and sometimes more leaves] and grain / processing / ethanol ['floury' types], but it's a matter of choice / market analysis from the farmer's perspective, and ye olde corn belt dent can serve both purposes if need be. one quick link re : ethanol : https://articles.extension.org/pages/27536/corn-for-biofuel-production https://articles.extension.org/pages/27536/corn-for-biofuel-...
zrobotics 8y ago
The thing is, as someone who grew up in the corn belt on a farm, grain farmers by and large aren't involved in exploitative labor practices to any significant degree. The only farms I was aware of that used immigrant labor were feedlot and dairy operations. One of my close friends in high school certainly came from a large farm (16k acres, mostly corn and soybeans, some wheat, and a negligible amount of cattle, maybe 75 head). Their hired labor were easily middle-class, it was not at all similar to the laborers hired at the larger livestock operations (of which swine producers seemed to be the worst). Additionally, while no significant fruit/vegetable crops were grown in my area, those remain another large user of migrant labor. Unless we as a society can accept higher food prices, I don't see this problem going away. And note that while my family's farm was small (1500 acres), the only way it has remained afloat is a cattle feedlot that is barely under the CAFO limit and a focus on alfalfa hay of sufficient quality to sell to large diaries, so not at all immune from these concerns. That being said, while I am a carnivore I heartily agree that too much animal protein is raised in this country. I don't believe that veganism is a tenable solution (and suspect it isn't actually a long-term healthy diet), Americans in general consume too much animal protein as a percentage of diet. Transitioning to a more reasonable diet is, in my mind, the only viable outcome. That, and growing way less corn in this country, there is a lot of farmland that could be producing crops for direct human consumption instead of making ethanol, which is energy inefficient and wasteful considering we have a petroleum surplus.

by fnovd 8y ago

MisterOctober 8y ago

Yep -- when I started researching corn for my own horticultural reasons, I was cold shocked to find out only ~10% goes to feed humans, with the balance going mainly to animal feed and ethanol : http://worldofcorn.com/#corn-usage-by-segment http://worldofcorn.com/#corn-usage-by-segment

sharkmerry 8y ago
Thanks for all the links. I sincerely was asking as a counterpoint, not to troll. I did know about grain being used to feed cattle, but a lot of the grain they eat is not of "human quality" so saying that we can just switch humans from meat to grain and feed 800 million people is very misleading.
- fnovd 8y ago
  Do you have any sources on the percentage of grain that is not of human-quality? Are there any estimates of what percentage of the non-human quality grain can be filtered to become human-quality? We're not talking about fundamentally different plants, just the difference between seeds, stalks, & husks vs seeds alone. Even putting the exact number aside, we're talking about thousands and thousands of hectares of arable land used solely to feed livestock. Even if the number is only 80 million (back in 1997), it is still a large-enough number to beg the question: is this the best use of our resources?
  - sharkmerry 8y ago
    I've been looking but I cant find anything yet. > We're not talking about fundamentally different plants, just the difference between seeds, stalks, & husks vs seeds alone. I think it's also how its stored and # of broken kernels (for corn anyways), etc. Im not arguing against the point, was just trying to bring some perspective
  - MisterOctober 8y ago
    I don't have a source / link handy at the moment, but a couple relevant notes to consider : 1) the vast (vast) majority of corn consumed by humans is processed into things like corn syrup, modified starch, whiskey, etc, rather than eaten "whole" as a grain [like, say, as tortilla chips or whatever], so the notion of broken kernels, etc, scarcely applies to this particular consideration -- see above-linked infographic 2) The question of what type of corn is grown is a really interesting one -- I could rattle on about this for a long time, but suffice to say that the family of varieties generally known as "Corn Belt Dent" [derived at some length from Nothstine and similar early dent corns] is designed to serve both feed / silage and processing-for-human-consumption [including ethanol] purposes. Now, this is not stuff you eat as "corn on the cob" [those are called sweet corns, though back in the day folks used to eat green Corn Belt Dent roasted as "Trucker Ears"], nor is it the same as popcorn [which is its own family, derived at length from flint corns]. There are in fact varieties designed specifically for silage [the common type of feed, where pretty much the entire plant is fermented and fed to animals; these varieties have less fibrous leaves and sometimes more leaves] and grain / processing / ethanol ['floury' types], but it's a matter of choice / market analysis from the farmer's perspective, and ye olde corn belt dent can serve both purposes if need be. one quick link re : ethanol : https://articles.extension.org/pages/27536/corn-for-biofuel-production https://articles.extension.org/pages/27536/corn-for-biofuel-...

zrobotics 8y ago

The thing is, as someone who grew up in the corn belt on a farm, grain farmers by and large aren't involved in exploitative labor practices to any significant degree. The only farms I was aware of that used immigrant labor were feedlot and dairy operations. One of my close friends in high school certainly came from a large farm (16k acres, mostly corn and soybeans, some wheat, and a negligible amount of cattle, maybe 75 head). Their hired labor were easily middle-class, it was not at all similar to the laborers hired at the larger livestock operations (of which swine producers seemed to be the worst). Additionally, while no significant fruit/vegetable crops were grown in my area, those remain another large user of migrant labor. Unless we as a society can accept higher food prices, I don't see this problem going away. And note that while my family's farm was small (1500 acres), the only way it has remained afloat is a cattle feedlot that is barely under the CAFO limit and a focus on alfalfa hay of sufficient quality to sell to large diaries, so not at all immune from these concerns. That being said, while I am a carnivore I heartily agree that too much animal protein is raised in this country. I don't believe that veganism is a tenable solution (and suspect it isn't actually a long-term healthy diet), Americans in general consume too much animal protein as a percentage of diet. Transitioning to a more reasonable diet is, in my mind, the only viable outcome. That, and growing way less corn in this country, there is a lot of farmland that could be producing crops for direct human consumption instead of making ethanol, which is energy inefficient and wasteful considering we have a petroleum surplus.