10 ms·

Is soy a key driver of deforestation?

110 points by sohkamyung 6y ago

estaseuropano 6y ago
> More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 6% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh. The idea that foods often promoted as substitutes for meat and dairy – such as tofu and soy milk – are driving deforestation is a common misconception. > [...] > Whilst the expansion of pasture for beef production is the leading driver of deforestation in Brazil, soy still plays a significant role when we take its indirect impacts into account. To end deforestation, there are a couple of key actions we can take. For consumers, since most deforestation is driven by expanding pastures for beef, or soy to feed poultry and pigs, reducing meat consumption is an effective way to make a difference. For companies and regulators, zero-deforestation policies must be more widely implemented (i.e. not only focused on the Amazon) and must be more carefully designed to take spillover effects into account. Tl;dr: soy is a driver of deforestation IF you ignore where it goes. The real driver of deforestation is meat production.
- jojobas 6y ago
  Meat is a driver of deforestation if you ignore where it goes. The real driver of deforestation is the human.
  - travis_brooks 6y ago
    I lived a vegetarian diet for over 30 years but eventually the effects of health problems caused by nutritional deficiencies were impossible to ignore. We evolved as omnivorous animals, to deny this history for philosophical reasons seems good and just for a while until the physical reality of our biology kicks in. If you can do a diet like this for 40 or more years without health problems you're better at it than I was, but I'm dubious that its very common.
    - Lutger 6y ago
      What kind of health problems did you have? I'm at 30 years vegetarian and my blood work has even improved when I started eating mostly vegan. I won't say I'm super fit, but I feel that's mostly due to lack of exercise. No problems for sure. I generally eat lots of vegetables and supplement B12 and D.
      - travis_brooks 6y ago
        I felt super healthy for years then a variety of problems hit me at once. It started off with excessive bruising from minor bumps, headaches, then extreme tiredness. I would get small cuts and they wouldn't seem to heal, doctors baffled. A few years after that I was getting extreme pain in various joints, eventually leading to regular bursitis in the arms and legs. Yeah I know, a vegetarian diet is supposed to reduce inflammation but it didn't. I found it almost impossibly repulsive but I eventually worked up the courage to eat a pastrami sandwich and the effects were almost immediate. Various aches and pains were gone within 24 hours, I could sleep much more comfortably, a bounce returned to my step. I eat very small amounts of meat a month because I still find it a bit disgusting but I seem to be in better shape than I was 5 years ago.
        sc4les 6y ago
        Haha what. The magic pastrami saved your life with the magic ingredient of what? What did the blood test show?
        jokethrowaway 6y ago
        This could be a B12 deficiency. B12 deficiency stores can deplete over 2-4 years so it will be a while before you notice. You also need very small amounts (monkeys get their B12 intake by accidentally eating bugs on their bananas). I tried going vegetarian for a period of my life and I started feeling extremely tired after a while. I stopped doing it mainly because getting protein is hard and I didn't notice any other positive changes.
        6y ago
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    Human behavior. Specifically, meat consumption.
    - collyw 6y ago
      Or human behaviour, reproducing too much. Meat wouldn't be a problem with a reduced population.
  - cameronh90 6y ago
    Would you prefer to get rid of billions of humans so that the remainder can continue to eat meat?
    - shard972 6y ago
      yes
    - Lutger 6y ago
      I know you are saying this because it sounds absurd, but in a way it seems to be kind of what we're doing right now, but slowly. The rich are eating the poor. I don't think the rich necessarily intend to, but in consumerist societies the consequences of our actions are so far removed from the moment of decision they usually don't even register for a lot of people, and surely don't make an impact on our ethical radar. As a moderately well off Dutch guy, I am one of those rich people, and I'm constantly finding out how I am consuming rather than using the earth. I'm losing trust in our society, it's like discovering we are governed by a bunch of children instead of adults. I guess I'm still naive at 40 years old.
      - andi999 6y ago
        Can you elaborate? Generally poverty is on the decline, except for unstable countries is this what you mean with the rich are eating the poor (by them beeing not poor anymore)?
    - jokethrowaway 6y ago
      Yes, but it would be more efficient to eat those humans for the planet.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Well, getting rid of them is one step too much, but yes, if you have fewer humans each human will be wealthier [0] and this does mean continuing to eat meat. [0] Assuming automation takes care of labor shortages, the only meaningful restriction is the availability of resources and less humans mean more resources per human to be exploited.
travis_brooks 6y ago
This idea of soy being the bad guy seems a bit naïve. These days forests are usually first cut down to make charcoal. Thats the initial reason that its economically feasible to cut down a forest, there is no local fuel source cheaper than charcoal. After that its typically a palm oil producer that takes over the now cleared land. In wealthier places like Brazil there is enough investment to buy cattle and plant a feed crop of soy instead.
- isolli 6y ago
  Would you have a source for that?
  - spiderfarmer 6y ago
    https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/charcoal-trade-is-destroying-africa-s-forest-cover/5100247.html https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/charcoal-trade-is-dest...
    - isolli 6y ago
      Thanks. Based on this source, it looks like the main driver of deforestation may be charcoal in Africa and soy in Brazil. There was no need to dismiss soy as one of the contributing factors.
llarsson 6y ago
Summary: in practice yes, but sneakily not directly, because those areas are first turned into pastures. However, once used up, they are then turned into soy bean fields. This also circumvents legislation specific to the rainforest area against deforestation to plant soy beans, because, well, it happened indirectly. As other comments here also bring up, direct human consumption accounts for about a fifth of all produced soy beans, with only six being in the forms consumers directly probably think of (tofu, edamame, etc.), and the other 14 in the shape of e.g. soy bean oil. The main driver for all this production (and hence deforestation), however, at a whopping 77%, is to be a source of cheap livestock feed. This is what the article says. It does not, directly anyway, make any health or environmental claims regarding one diet over another. Deforestation of the rain forest is bad. We all know this. And because it is only done to meet demands from consumers, what we as consumers can do is demand access to supply chain insight so we can then avoid products that come from this horribly shortsighted process. Regardless of whether said product is a piece of meat, a bottle of oil, or a block of tofu.
- dasyatidprime 6y ago
  I assume you mean 6% and 14% to sum to the human consumption 20%, in the second paragraph?
- mtsr 6y ago
  Or, you know, eat less meat. I’m not expecting anyone to go vegan or even vegetarian (I’m neither). But if we all eat a small portion of meat once or twice a week instead of large portions every day, demand for soy will go way down.
  - m_eiman 6y ago
    Or at least select meat from local sources who aren't fed soy beans. And prefer chicken over beef. Preferrably also eco-friendly meat.
    - tobylane 6y ago
      The animal was fed something we could have eaten. It doesn’t do us much good to shun soy fed beef for corn fed beef. Agree with you on local and chicken.
mnskym 6y ago
If you meant male pattern balding, then probably yes. Say goodbye to your testosterone
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jamil7 6y ago
  Pretty easily debunked.
  - mnskym 6y ago
    Too bad the mirror does not agree
- jakeinspace 6y ago
  Wait, doesn't testosterone cause male pattern baldness? How does phytoestrogen cause that? If anything, I'd think it would be the opposite.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    Yes, it does. The men on both sides of my family have hereditary slightly higher than average testosterone levels, and hair loss starting around 18-20yo is seemingly unavoidable. None of us are lantern-jawed propaganda poster supermen, though. So testosterone is not the end-all, be-all hormone :-)
Ekaros 6y ago
If there weren't demand for soy, would they produce something else with similar methods? People have to earn living to survive.
- neuronic 6y ago
  The amount of meat we produce and the stupidly low prices we sell it for are required by nobody. It's a want and not a need. People want 1$ burgers. They don't need them. They can eat thousands of alternative meals to nourish themselves. Meat should be a luxury only, everything else is unsustainable and sooner or later the problem will make itself known anyways. We can still choose how inconvenient it's going to be, however. I eat quite a lot of meat myself, choosing to pay more for better quality product with animal well-being in mind. I am dumbfounded at the availability of cheap meat. It's 1.000x worse than international air traffic in terms of climate and ecology but somehow it's "normal" that everyone can get pounds and kilograms of meat for less than 10$. It's wrong and unsustainable and the only question there is if we control the inevitable crash or not.
yholio 6y ago
Is 'x' industry the key driver of 'y' environmental destruction? No, for all values of x and y. The key drivers for each and every 'y' are economics, poverty and/or poor regulation, while 'x' is just the current manifestation. People plant soy because that's the best crop available for them. If the soy market collapses, they will resort to some other cash crop. If you drive the people out of the area but leave poor regulation in place, some mega-corp will discover there are profits to be made, and continue the process.
neuronic 6y ago
We need to drastically reduce meat consumption by producing viable artificial replacements (artificially grown muscle meat) as soon as possible. We need to stop eating meat on this scale but you will never be able to convince more than a subset of people. You have to take it away or replace it with something of equal (!) quality. It's insane how damaging (and evil) beef production is. Disclaimer: I eat quite a lot of meat but since earning good money after university have made an effort to buy better quality organic meat whenever possible. I replace some meats entirely with vegan alternatives because in some instances it makes NO difference in taste or even texture. I would not eat a vegan burger, never bbq a vegan steak. But chili or spaghetti bolognese with vegan ground meat can be really delicious since flavors and texture are overpowered by other ingredients anyways. Same with lots of sandwich meats. Meat is WAY too cheap for what it is: a climate damaging product for which live animals are brutally tortured and killed. If you have money, please at least buy meat which has animal well-being in mind. My mind on this was changed after witnessing a botched slaughtering of a pig. I can never get those screams and blood fountains out of my mind. The electrical stunning failed and workers didnt bother to repeat it because... time. Gotta keep producing.
- thiago_fm 6y ago
  Your mind still didn't change, organic meat is about the same problem, you are killing animals to praise your palate. What you are saying is: I no longer do normal and plain slavery, I now do organic slavery. Instead of importing people from Africa, I get my slaves from small cities nearby, which are well fed. It's all bullshit and marketing. You aren't anywhere more evolved for eating organic meat. It's hilarious to read your comment, it's basically everything what is wrong in the world. People finding more expensive ways of doing the same trash behaviour "with conscience". I can't believe somebody can fall for this. Just stop eating meat and start to think of the animals, if you care. Just like slavery, it took white people centuries to stop being lazy and assholes to stop with it. The same it will be with meat, when people start looking at eating meat as a very nasty thing that our evolved society no longer needs and also becomes unsustainable(we are already very close), people are going to start quitting eating meat.
  - 6y ago
weddpros 6y ago
I have the impression something is making the numbers not comparable: we humans eat soy beans but the rest of the plant is fed to animals. So I don't see how we can conclude anything about surface (deforestation). Maybe soy demand is driven by beans, and we're left with the rest of the plant which we feed to animals. But if we don't feed animals with the rest of the plant, what are we going to make with it?
- neuronic 6y ago
  As far as I know the animal feed is produced from the beans too.
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  Humans only eat the beans, because those are a valuable protein source. Actually, it's one only very few practical, mass produceable vegan protein sources. Cattle, can also digest the rest of the plant. Like they would digest grass. And if you have the stuff anyway, why not feed it to grow some cattle meat. However, for high performance, that ain't enough, you still need more protein. Soy protein is an important and (so far) cheap protein source in many animal feeds. But it is getting more expensive and problematical...
bayesian_horse 6y ago
In some instances, soy as a protein source in animal nutrition can be replaced by insects, like meal worms, soldier flys and the like. Especially in aquaculture. I don't think insect protein will ever be a huge factor for direct Human consumption, because even though it can theoretically be raised on less resources (or with less impact) than other animal protein, it takes a lot of man power to process insects into something edible.
gdubs 6y ago
There’s a lot of absolutism in this thread, but there are so many incremental things we can change. First, we should put a price on carbon given the clear negative externalities. Animal agriculture — when you actually factor in everything like transportation, chemical fertilizer production, and land-use change — is a big driver of climate change. [1] Put a price on carbon, and consumption will go down. Organic, while not a panacea, at least reduces the petrochemical component — so it’s an easy first step you can take. For the animals that are still grown, switch to sustainable farming practices like agroforestry, which consists of a mosaic of trees and grasslands. And wherever possible, we should reforest land. We should pay countries with forests not to cut them down. Research is being done on breeding perennial versions of our popular annual staples. The perennials have much deeper roots, storing tons of carbon. And less tillage means less carbon being put into the atmosphere. Aquaculture and fishing can be made more sustainable as well — though it’s an area I’m less familiar with. Finally, support local farms. If we are going to eat more plants and vegetables, it would have a big impact to get them from places closer to home. Monocultures are the big culprit — if we support local farms growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, it’s better for our health and the health of the planet as well. Consider a “victory garden” at home. It may only provide you some herbs and tomatoes, but you’ll feel good doing it and learn more about — and become more invested in — food grown with care. I became mostly vegan for personal reasons about five years ago. It was a struggle for about two weeks. I’m not dogmatic about it, nor do I think people should be shamed into it. But I did become much healthier. I actually gained muscle and lost fat (with exercise). (Again, I’m not trying to brainwash anyone into doing it — and I’m a data point of one.) But if that’s not for you, maybe my list above contains some element that you’d be in support of. Rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach, or shaming people, we can make incremental steps and before you know it we’ll be in a much more sustainable position. 1: For years, agriculture has been misrepresented as a small slice of the emissions pie. But this is because it’s typically measured solely by things like tractor fuel and tillage. These estimates ignore petrochemical fertilizer production, trucking, etc. These things are typically listed as separate categories - but our food production system is deeply tied to all aspects of our energy economy.
wooger 6y ago
Cue vegans saying: "Are we the baddies?"
jefurii 6y ago
Beef consumption is also a huge driver of water usage. Water used directly or indirectly to raise cattle accounts for 55% of the water used in the Colorado River basin[1]. Beef and dairy production consumes something like 25% of the water in California. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/agriculture-cattle-us-water-shortages-colorado-river https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/agricult...

110 points by sohkamyung 6y ago

> More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 6% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh. The idea that foods often promoted as substitutes for meat and dairy – such as tofu and soy milk – are driving deforestation is a common misconception. > [...] > Whilst the expansion of pasture for beef production is the leading driver of deforestation in Brazil, soy still plays a significant role when we take its indirect impacts into account. To end deforestation, there are a couple of key actions we can take. For consumers, since most deforestation is driven by expanding pastures for beef, or soy to feed poultry and pigs, reducing meat consumption is an effective way to make a difference. For companies and regulators, zero-deforestation policies must be more widely implemented (i.e. not only focused on the Amazon) and must be more carefully designed to take spillover effects into account. Tl;dr: soy is a driver of deforestation IF you ignore where it goes. The real driver of deforestation is meat production.

jojobas 6y ago
Meat is a driver of deforestation if you ignore where it goes. The real driver of deforestation is the human.
- travis_brooks 6y ago
  I lived a vegetarian diet for over 30 years but eventually the effects of health problems caused by nutritional deficiencies were impossible to ignore. We evolved as omnivorous animals, to deny this history for philosophical reasons seems good and just for a while until the physical reality of our biology kicks in. If you can do a diet like this for 40 or more years without health problems you're better at it than I was, but I'm dubious that its very common.
  - Lutger 6y ago
    What kind of health problems did you have? I'm at 30 years vegetarian and my blood work has even improved when I started eating mostly vegan. I won't say I'm super fit, but I feel that's mostly due to lack of exercise. No problems for sure. I generally eat lots of vegetables and supplement B12 and D.
    - travis_brooks 6y ago
      I felt super healthy for years then a variety of problems hit me at once. It started off with excessive bruising from minor bumps, headaches, then extreme tiredness. I would get small cuts and they wouldn't seem to heal, doctors baffled. A few years after that I was getting extreme pain in various joints, eventually leading to regular bursitis in the arms and legs. Yeah I know, a vegetarian diet is supposed to reduce inflammation but it didn't. I found it almost impossibly repulsive but I eventually worked up the courage to eat a pastrami sandwich and the effects were almost immediate. Various aches and pains were gone within 24 hours, I could sleep much more comfortably, a bounce returned to my step. I eat very small amounts of meat a month because I still find it a bit disgusting but I seem to be in better shape than I was 5 years ago.
      - sc4les 6y ago
        Haha what. The magic pastrami saved your life with the magic ingredient of what? What did the blood test show?
      - jokethrowaway 6y ago
        This could be a B12 deficiency. B12 deficiency stores can deplete over 2-4 years so it will be a while before you notice. You also need very small amounts (monkeys get their B12 intake by accidentally eating bugs on their bananas). I tried going vegetarian for a period of my life and I started feeling extremely tired after a while. I stopped doing it mainly because getting protein is hard and I didn't notice any other positive changes.
        6y ago
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Human behavior. Specifically, meat consumption.
  - collyw 6y ago
    Or human behaviour, reproducing too much. Meat wouldn't be a problem with a reduced population.
- cameronh90 6y ago
  Would you prefer to get rid of billions of humans so that the remainder can continue to eat meat?
  - shard972 6y ago
    yes
  - Lutger 6y ago
    I know you are saying this because it sounds absurd, but in a way it seems to be kind of what we're doing right now, but slowly. The rich are eating the poor. I don't think the rich necessarily intend to, but in consumerist societies the consequences of our actions are so far removed from the moment of decision they usually don't even register for a lot of people, and surely don't make an impact on our ethical radar. As a moderately well off Dutch guy, I am one of those rich people, and I'm constantly finding out how I am consuming rather than using the earth. I'm losing trust in our society, it's like discovering we are governed by a bunch of children instead of adults. I guess I'm still naive at 40 years old.
    - andi999 6y ago
      Can you elaborate? Generally poverty is on the decline, except for unstable countries is this what you mean with the rich are eating the poor (by them beeing not poor anymore)?
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    Yes, but it would be more efficient to eat those humans for the planet.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Well, getting rid of them is one step too much, but yes, if you have fewer humans each human will be wealthier [0] and this does mean continuing to eat meat. [0] Assuming automation takes care of labor shortages, the only meaningful restriction is the availability of resources and less humans mean more resources per human to be exploited.

travis_brooks 6y ago

This idea of soy being the bad guy seems a bit naïve. These days forests are usually first cut down to make charcoal. Thats the initial reason that its economically feasible to cut down a forest, there is no local fuel source cheaper than charcoal. After that its typically a palm oil producer that takes over the now cleared land. In wealthier places like Brazil there is enough investment to buy cattle and plant a feed crop of soy instead.

isolli 6y ago
Would you have a source for that?
- spiderfarmer 6y ago
  https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/charcoal-trade-is-destroying-africa-s-forest-cover/5100247.html https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/charcoal-trade-is-dest...
  - isolli 6y ago
    Thanks. Based on this source, it looks like the main driver of deforestation may be charcoal in Africa and soy in Brazil. There was no need to dismiss soy as one of the contributing factors.

llarsson 6y ago

Summary: in practice yes, but sneakily not directly, because those areas are first turned into pastures. However, once used up, they are then turned into soy bean fields. This also circumvents legislation specific to the rainforest area against deforestation to plant soy beans, because, well, it happened indirectly. As other comments here also bring up, direct human consumption accounts for about a fifth of all produced soy beans, with only six being in the forms consumers directly probably think of (tofu, edamame, etc.), and the other 14 in the shape of e.g. soy bean oil. The main driver for all this production (and hence deforestation), however, at a whopping 77%, is to be a source of cheap livestock feed. This is what the article says. It does not, directly anyway, make any health or environmental claims regarding one diet over another. Deforestation of the rain forest is bad. We all know this. And because it is only done to meet demands from consumers, what we as consumers can do is demand access to supply chain insight so we can then avoid products that come from this horribly shortsighted process. Regardless of whether said product is a piece of meat, a bottle of oil, or a block of tofu.

dasyatidprime 6y ago
I assume you mean 6% and 14% to sum to the human consumption 20%, in the second paragraph?
mtsr 6y ago
Or, you know, eat less meat. I’m not expecting anyone to go vegan or even vegetarian (I’m neither). But if we all eat a small portion of meat once or twice a week instead of large portions every day, demand for soy will go way down.
- m_eiman 6y ago
  Or at least select meat from local sources who aren't fed soy beans. And prefer chicken over beef. Preferrably also eco-friendly meat.
  - tobylane 6y ago
    The animal was fed something we could have eaten. It doesn’t do us much good to shun soy fed beef for corn fed beef. Agree with you on local and chicken.

mnskym 6y ago

If you meant male pattern balding, then probably yes. Say goodbye to your testosterone

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jamil7 6y ago
Pretty easily debunked.
- mnskym 6y ago
  Too bad the mirror does not agree
jakeinspace 6y ago
Wait, doesn't testosterone cause male pattern baldness? How does phytoestrogen cause that? If anything, I'd think it would be the opposite.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  Yes, it does. The men on both sides of my family have hereditary slightly higher than average testosterone levels, and hair loss starting around 18-20yo is seemingly unavoidable. None of us are lantern-jawed propaganda poster supermen, though. So testosterone is not the end-all, be-all hormone :-)

Ekaros 6y ago

If there weren't demand for soy, would they produce something else with similar methods? People have to earn living to survive.

neuronic 6y ago
The amount of meat we produce and the stupidly low prices we sell it for are required by nobody. It's a want and not a need. People want 1$ burgers. They don't need them. They can eat thousands of alternative meals to nourish themselves. Meat should be a luxury only, everything else is unsustainable and sooner or later the problem will make itself known anyways. We can still choose how inconvenient it's going to be, however. I eat quite a lot of meat myself, choosing to pay more for better quality product with animal well-being in mind. I am dumbfounded at the availability of cheap meat. It's 1.000x worse than international air traffic in terms of climate and ecology but somehow it's "normal" that everyone can get pounds and kilograms of meat for less than 10$. It's wrong and unsustainable and the only question there is if we control the inevitable crash or not.

yholio 6y ago

Is 'x' industry the key driver of 'y' environmental destruction? No, for all values of x and y. The key drivers for each and every 'y' are economics, poverty and/or poor regulation, while 'x' is just the current manifestation. People plant soy because that's the best crop available for them. If the soy market collapses, they will resort to some other cash crop. If you drive the people out of the area but leave poor regulation in place, some mega-corp will discover there are profits to be made, and continue the process.

neuronic 6y ago

We need to drastically reduce meat consumption by producing viable artificial replacements (artificially grown muscle meat) as soon as possible. We need to stop eating meat on this scale but you will never be able to convince more than a subset of people. You have to take it away or replace it with something of equal (!) quality. It's insane how damaging (and evil) beef production is. Disclaimer: I eat quite a lot of meat but since earning good money after university have made an effort to buy better quality organic meat whenever possible. I replace some meats entirely with vegan alternatives because in some instances it makes NO difference in taste or even texture. I would not eat a vegan burger, never bbq a vegan steak. But chili or spaghetti bolognese with vegan ground meat can be really delicious since flavors and texture are overpowered by other ingredients anyways. Same with lots of sandwich meats. Meat is WAY too cheap for what it is: a climate damaging product for which live animals are brutally tortured and killed. If you have money, please at least buy meat which has animal well-being in mind. My mind on this was changed after witnessing a botched slaughtering of a pig. I can never get those screams and blood fountains out of my mind. The electrical stunning failed and workers didnt bother to repeat it because... time. Gotta keep producing.

thiago_fm 6y ago
Your mind still didn't change, organic meat is about the same problem, you are killing animals to praise your palate. What you are saying is: I no longer do normal and plain slavery, I now do organic slavery. Instead of importing people from Africa, I get my slaves from small cities nearby, which are well fed. It's all bullshit and marketing. You aren't anywhere more evolved for eating organic meat. It's hilarious to read your comment, it's basically everything what is wrong in the world. People finding more expensive ways of doing the same trash behaviour "with conscience". I can't believe somebody can fall for this. Just stop eating meat and start to think of the animals, if you care. Just like slavery, it took white people centuries to stop being lazy and assholes to stop with it. The same it will be with meat, when people start looking at eating meat as a very nasty thing that our evolved society no longer needs and also becomes unsustainable(we are already very close), people are going to start quitting eating meat.
- 6y ago

weddpros 6y ago

I have the impression something is making the numbers not comparable: we humans eat soy beans but the rest of the plant is fed to animals. So I don't see how we can conclude anything about surface (deforestation). Maybe soy demand is driven by beans, and we're left with the rest of the plant which we feed to animals. But if we don't feed animals with the rest of the plant, what are we going to make with it?

neuronic 6y ago
As far as I know the animal feed is produced from the beans too.
bayesian_horse 6y ago
Humans only eat the beans, because those are a valuable protein source. Actually, it's one only very few practical, mass produceable vegan protein sources. Cattle, can also digest the rest of the plant. Like they would digest grass. And if you have the stuff anyway, why not feed it to grow some cattle meat. However, for high performance, that ain't enough, you still need more protein. Soy protein is an important and (so far) cheap protein source in many animal feeds. But it is getting more expensive and problematical...

bayesian_horse 6y ago

In some instances, soy as a protein source in animal nutrition can be replaced by insects, like meal worms, soldier flys and the like. Especially in aquaculture. I don't think insect protein will ever be a huge factor for direct Human consumption, because even though it can theoretically be raised on less resources (or with less impact) than other animal protein, it takes a lot of man power to process insects into something edible.

gdubs 6y ago

There’s a lot of absolutism in this thread, but there are so many incremental things we can change. First, we should put a price on carbon given the clear negative externalities. Animal agriculture — when you actually factor in everything like transportation, chemical fertilizer production, and land-use change — is a big driver of climate change. [1] Put a price on carbon, and consumption will go down. Organic, while not a panacea, at least reduces the petrochemical component — so it’s an easy first step you can take. For the animals that are still grown, switch to sustainable farming practices like agroforestry, which consists of a mosaic of trees and grasslands. And wherever possible, we should reforest land. We should pay countries with forests not to cut them down. Research is being done on breeding perennial versions of our popular annual staples. The perennials have much deeper roots, storing tons of carbon. And less tillage means less carbon being put into the atmosphere. Aquaculture and fishing can be made more sustainable as well — though it’s an area I’m less familiar with. Finally, support local farms. If we are going to eat more plants and vegetables, it would have a big impact to get them from places closer to home. Monocultures are the big culprit — if we support local farms growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, it’s better for our health and the health of the planet as well. Consider a “victory garden” at home. It may only provide you some herbs and tomatoes, but you’ll feel good doing it and learn more about — and become more invested in — food grown with care. I became mostly vegan for personal reasons about five years ago. It was a struggle for about two weeks. I’m not dogmatic about it, nor do I think people should be shamed into it. But I did become much healthier. I actually gained muscle and lost fat (with exercise). (Again, I’m not trying to brainwash anyone into doing it — and I’m a data point of one.) But if that’s not for you, maybe my list above contains some element that you’d be in support of. Rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach, or shaming people, we can make incremental steps and before you know it we’ll be in a much more sustainable position. 1: For years, agriculture has been misrepresented as a small slice of the emissions pie. But this is because it’s typically measured solely by things like tractor fuel and tillage. These estimates ignore petrochemical fertilizer production, trucking, etc. These things are typically listed as separate categories - but our food production system is deeply tied to all aspects of our energy economy.

wooger 6y ago

Cue vegans saying: "Are we the baddies?"

jefurii 6y ago

Beef consumption is also a huge driver of water usage. Water used directly or indirectly to raise cattle accounts for 55% of the water used in the Colorado River basin[1]. Beef and dairy production consumes something like 25% of the water in California. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/agriculture-cattle-us-water-shortages-colorado-river https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/agricult...