On the one hand I’m very intrigued by this. It’s absolutely true that meat production, and in particular beef production, has an enormous environmental impact,

On the one hand I’m very intrigued by this. It’s absolutely true that meat production, and in particular beef production, has an enormous environmental impact, so if this article is correct it could be huge. But on the other hand I have some questions that I’ve not seen addressed. I’m a small farmer. My wife and I raise sheep. Ruminants can be raised on land that isn’t really productive. Maybe in some cases beef production is taking away land that would be otherwise farmed, but in my experience that’s rare. So, if we transition to plant-based meat, where does the farmland come from? We’re already losing productive farmland at an incredible clip. If we suddenly need to put millions of acres into new soybean or pea production, where does it come from? And second, at least in theory, mixed animal/crop production systems can be closed loop. If done properly, with fallow periods and crop rotations, you don’t need external agricultural fertilizer production. Granted, that’s not the way most crops are produced now, but a lot of us are arguing that it should be - we should have local agriculture, with less centralization and more intentional closed loop farming practices. If we really do go mostly to a vegetarian diet, that possibility dries up. Agriculture becomes more and more reliant on external chemical inputs. Small producers are even more marginalized than they are today. Are we sure that’s what we want?