6 ms·

Yeah, and the vast amounts of land used to grow those things can be redirected to other things that humans can eat. I have no idea why otherwise smart people g

Yeah, and the vast amounts of land used to grow those things can be redirected to other things that humans can eat. I have no idea why otherwise smart people get such a brain block on the topic of meat-eating. These "gotcha" points fall apart if you take 10 seconds to think about it.

whatshisface 7y ago
I'm not an expert on global agriculture, but a lot of the famous Texas cattle ranches can basically only grow grass. If the natural state of the land is brush that only goes up to your ankles you aren't going to feed much other than grazers off it. The efficient solution would be to use the good land to grow food and the rest of the land to feed livestock, and that's what tends to happen (feedlot factory farms fueled by cereal crops notwithstanding).
- chimprich 7y ago
  > the famous Texas cattle ranches can basically only grow grass Why? Anyway, wheat is a grass.
  - beat 7y ago
    Not all grasses are equally edible. Most aren't, in fact.
  - mcphage 7y ago
    > Why? Not enough water.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Wheat is the simple-starch-rich seed kernel of a hybridised grass. Much of Texas lacks water -- generally West Texas, a line extending from roughly Austin. In the US generally, the 100th parallel divides the moister east from the drier west. Topsoils are also far poorer than further east. There was an experiment conducted some years ago on dryland farming. It ended poorly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time is an excellent telling of this: https://books.google.com/books?id=np1RwDQfpjsC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=np1RwDQfpjsC&pg=PP1#v=onep...
conjectures 7y ago
Yup. Think I've heard them all over the course of 20 years. The obvious explanation is that people don't like the implication that their behaviour is unethical and look for clever outs. Rather than simply owning that benefits > costs from their point of view (a la 'I like bacon too much'). Of course questioning motivations is not a point to be made in an argument. However it is an entirely satisfactory Bayesian explanation of why so many people take the other side of the argument with such force.
- eitland 7y ago
  Any of your teachers/lecturers had a background from agriculture? I'm not saying this is not possible. But I am saying - as someone who has grown up on a farm and studied farming - that it might be somewhat more complicated. For a start, not all farmland is usable for anything but grass.
  - conjectures 7y ago
    Do you know what fraction of world calories that type of land is? Otherwise this objection is a case of 'an edge case exists, and I would like you to imagine that it is the major determining factor.'
    - eitland 7y ago
      What I am saying is you can kiss goodbye to everything except fruit, potatoes and some easy vegetables on good fields in Norway (except central East Coast and Trøndelag, they have somewhat better conditions). Fruit will be hit or miss in a lot of places and will only be an option in southern parts of the country anyways. Same goes for a number of other places in the world. As I pointed out from the start, the efficiency gained by growing plant food for humans instead of food for animals elsewhere in the world might more than compensate for this, -but going hardcore vegan will reduce global food production compared to a mixed approach. It will also erase a lot of culture and landscapes that depend on active animal farming, but who cares?
      - 7y ago
squish78 7y ago
Those vast amounts of land usually don't have viable soil for multi-year agriculture. Arable land is limited
- GVIrish 7y ago
  Arable land is getting cleared out en masse to farm cattle. Cattle farming is not driven by the inability to grow crops on that land, it's driven by the demand for red meat (and dairy products).
  - squish78 7y ago
    Rainforest land is not arable. Farmers who try to grow crops (typically soybean) in the Amazon get 2-3 years of crops before the land becomes infertile, then it has to fallow again. Their only option is to add massive amounts of chemical fertilizers which washes out into the Amazon basin. Aside from leaving the forests undisturbed (which is my preference), raising cattle is better for that ecosystem than agricultural farming would be.
    - GVIrish 7y ago
      Slashing and burning rainforest to farm cattle or raise crops are both bad options given how critical the Amazon is to maintaining climate and biodiversity. Either way, the amount of land and water required to raise each lb of beef is an order of magnitude greater than the amount needed for a pound of chicken, which is in turn an order of magnitude higher than the resources needed for a pound of vegetables. The expanding demand for beef is ecologically unsustainable, doubly so if people are burning down critical environments to create cow pasture.
      - squish78 7y ago
        I don't think anyone disagrees with you. My point (again) is that this land can't be sustainably farmed for vegetable/cereal crops, so cattle is the only industry that the land could be used for. I would prefer there were some sustainable ranching practices, but I don't know enough about Brazilian agriculture to comment on how that land is managed after it's cleared. I guess the million dollar question is - who has the moral authority to tell Brazilians that they don't have the right to utilize their land and natural resources like China, USA, India, and every other industrial nation?
eitland 7y ago
As someone who grew up on a steep farm where grass, fruits and potatoes where the only options that worked out in practice (most of it is steep, summer is short and unpredictable) I'd say maybe you should reconsider. One easy thought experiment that helped me understand: given how extremely poor our ancestors where and how hard they worked to make ends meet there must have been some advantage to keeping animals. Otherwise they wouldn't have had them, because they are sometimes a real hassle and gathering food for them is time consuming I can tell you. So maybe your idea would work in a more temperate climate. And maybe it would provide extra food for people further north, but it would mean a lot of land that cannot be used for anything but pastures would go out of use.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  Yes, but remember that pigs are probably the only animals that are grown only for their meat. Cows, sheep and goats are grown for their milk also, sheep for their fleece, chicken, duck and geese for their eggs etc. Eggs and dairy are valuable sources of protein that can last a lot longer than slaughtering and eating the animal that produces them. So, in many places, where people raise animals they keep them alive for the small but steady supply of eggs and milk, and only kill them for their meat on special occasions (like religious festivals and so on). That's my experience anyway. I spend my summers in a friend's farm and they have a small army of chickens, a plattoon of goats and in different times, a couple of pigs or so. We get fresh eggs and fresh goat's milk, but all the meat we eat is bought from outside the farm. It seems to be a very good deal actually, which was surprising to me when I first realised it, because of course the chickens and goats have to be fed. Then again- they often eat what we do (or rather, our leftovers).
- chimprich 7y ago
  > given how extremely poor our ancestors where and how hard they worked to make ends meet there must have been some advantage to keeping animals Our ancestors generally ate far less meat. They could also feed smaller animals like poultry on scraps of food, which doesn't really scale to feeding the billions of animals we currently raise for food.
  - 7y ago

whatshisface 7y ago

I'm not an expert on global agriculture, but a lot of the famous Texas cattle ranches can basically only grow grass. If the natural state of the land is brush that only goes up to your ankles you aren't going to feed much other than grazers off it. The efficient solution would be to use the good land to grow food and the rest of the land to feed livestock, and that's what tends to happen (feedlot factory farms fueled by cereal crops notwithstanding).

chimprich 7y ago
> the famous Texas cattle ranches can basically only grow grass Why? Anyway, wheat is a grass.
- beat 7y ago
  Not all grasses are equally edible. Most aren't, in fact.
- mcphage 7y ago
  > Why? Not enough water.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Wheat is the simple-starch-rich seed kernel of a hybridised grass. Much of Texas lacks water -- generally West Texas, a line extending from roughly Austin. In the US generally, the 100th parallel divides the moister east from the drier west. Topsoils are also far poorer than further east. There was an experiment conducted some years ago on dryland farming. It ended poorly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time is an excellent telling of this: https://books.google.com/books?id=np1RwDQfpjsC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=np1RwDQfpjsC&pg=PP1#v=onep...

conjectures 7y ago

Yup. Think I've heard them all over the course of 20 years. The obvious explanation is that people don't like the implication that their behaviour is unethical and look for clever outs. Rather than simply owning that benefits > costs from their point of view (a la 'I like bacon too much'). Of course questioning motivations is not a point to be made in an argument. However it is an entirely satisfactory Bayesian explanation of why so many people take the other side of the argument with such force.

eitland 7y ago
Any of your teachers/lecturers had a background from agriculture? I'm not saying this is not possible. But I am saying - as someone who has grown up on a farm and studied farming - that it might be somewhat more complicated. For a start, not all farmland is usable for anything but grass.
- conjectures 7y ago
  Do you know what fraction of world calories that type of land is? Otherwise this objection is a case of 'an edge case exists, and I would like you to imagine that it is the major determining factor.'
  - eitland 7y ago
    What I am saying is you can kiss goodbye to everything except fruit, potatoes and some easy vegetables on good fields in Norway (except central East Coast and Trøndelag, they have somewhat better conditions). Fruit will be hit or miss in a lot of places and will only be an option in southern parts of the country anyways. Same goes for a number of other places in the world. As I pointed out from the start, the efficiency gained by growing plant food for humans instead of food for animals elsewhere in the world might more than compensate for this, -but going hardcore vegan will reduce global food production compared to a mixed approach. It will also erase a lot of culture and landscapes that depend on active animal farming, but who cares?
    - 7y ago

squish78 7y ago

Those vast amounts of land usually don't have viable soil for multi-year agriculture. Arable land is limited

GVIrish 7y ago
Arable land is getting cleared out en masse to farm cattle. Cattle farming is not driven by the inability to grow crops on that land, it's driven by the demand for red meat (and dairy products).
- squish78 7y ago
  Rainforest land is not arable. Farmers who try to grow crops (typically soybean) in the Amazon get 2-3 years of crops before the land becomes infertile, then it has to fallow again. Their only option is to add massive amounts of chemical fertilizers which washes out into the Amazon basin. Aside from leaving the forests undisturbed (which is my preference), raising cattle is better for that ecosystem than agricultural farming would be.
  - GVIrish 7y ago
    Slashing and burning rainforest to farm cattle or raise crops are both bad options given how critical the Amazon is to maintaining climate and biodiversity. Either way, the amount of land and water required to raise each lb of beef is an order of magnitude greater than the amount needed for a pound of chicken, which is in turn an order of magnitude higher than the resources needed for a pound of vegetables. The expanding demand for beef is ecologically unsustainable, doubly so if people are burning down critical environments to create cow pasture.
    - squish78 7y ago
      I don't think anyone disagrees with you. My point (again) is that this land can't be sustainably farmed for vegetable/cereal crops, so cattle is the only industry that the land could be used for. I would prefer there were some sustainable ranching practices, but I don't know enough about Brazilian agriculture to comment on how that land is managed after it's cleared. I guess the million dollar question is - who has the moral authority to tell Brazilians that they don't have the right to utilize their land and natural resources like China, USA, India, and every other industrial nation?

eitland 7y ago

As someone who grew up on a steep farm where grass, fruits and potatoes where the only options that worked out in practice (most of it is steep, summer is short and unpredictable) I'd say maybe you should reconsider. One easy thought experiment that helped me understand: given how extremely poor our ancestors where and how hard they worked to make ends meet there must have been some advantage to keeping animals. Otherwise they wouldn't have had them, because they are sometimes a real hassle and gathering food for them is time consuming I can tell you. So maybe your idea would work in a more temperate climate. And maybe it would provide extra food for people further north, but it would mean a lot of land that cannot be used for anything but pastures would go out of use.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
Yes, but remember that pigs are probably the only animals that are grown only for their meat. Cows, sheep and goats are grown for their milk also, sheep for their fleece, chicken, duck and geese for their eggs etc. Eggs and dairy are valuable sources of protein that can last a lot longer than slaughtering and eating the animal that produces them. So, in many places, where people raise animals they keep them alive for the small but steady supply of eggs and milk, and only kill them for their meat on special occasions (like religious festivals and so on). That's my experience anyway. I spend my summers in a friend's farm and they have a small army of chickens, a plattoon of goats and in different times, a couple of pigs or so. We get fresh eggs and fresh goat's milk, but all the meat we eat is bought from outside the farm. It seems to be a very good deal actually, which was surprising to me when I first realised it, because of course the chickens and goats have to be fed. Then again- they often eat what we do (or rather, our leftovers).
chimprich 7y ago
> given how extremely poor our ancestors where and how hard they worked to make ends meet there must have been some advantage to keeping animals Our ancestors generally ate far less meat. They could also feed smaller animals like poultry on scraps of food, which doesn't really scale to feeding the billions of animals we currently raise for food.
- 7y ago