To answer your question, it takes a lot more soy beans to feed a cow, that then will digest them and use only part of them, produce waste, consume water. The c

To answer your question, it takes a lot more soy beans to feed a cow, that then will digest them and use only part of them, produce waste, consume water. The cow will be slaughtered and only part of the body will be consumed (gut, head, for example, make for a huge part and are not usually eaten), some of the eatable parts will be wasted in the food chain. If you count for everything, the amount of land and resources used to produce a gallon of cow's milk is always going to be much higher than anything done with a crop directly, because you cut out the middleman, the animal. For the specific case of almonds, why not use soy milk instead for a better comparison. I'm sure you will agree that you can produce a lot more soy milk by using the soy directly then by feeding to a cow, impregnate it, shooting the calf on birth if its male, etc. the whole process. Not to mention the copious amount of cow excrement produced and the impact on global warming due to methane emissions of the cows intestines.