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The two situations aren't really comparable without more information. Clearly the people in A are still eating a craptonne of plants, and also have access to mu
by eigenket 5y ago
The two situations aren't really comparable without more information. Clearly the people in A are still eating a craptonne of plants, and also have access to much more land per person than B, since they can afford to have a lot dedicated to very unproductive pasture.
- ummonk 5y agoYeah, it's hard to compare and the greater yields of crops certainly bodes well for A. Though the productivity differences aren't as large as one would think - protein conversion ratios for smaller animals tend to be 2-3. It's worse for beef (~10) but you have to consider that half the cows are creating milk which has a high protein conversion ratio. And it's potentially even better for animals when you consider the quality of protein - e.g. see https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jsfa.8362 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jsfa.8362
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> It's worse for beef (~10) but you have to consider that half the cows are creating milk which has a high protein conversion ratio. Half?
- skak 5y agoOnly female cows produce milk.
- aflag 5y agoAll cows are female.
- ummonk 5y agoIn common parlance (rather than technical terminology), "cows" means "cattle".
- thaumasiotes 5y agoAlmost all cattle are female. aflag doesn't get less accurate if you interpret "cows" as the species term that it is.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoWhere do you get "half" from that? Female cows are economically productive and males are not. The ratio is not even close to half-and-half. Go look at a herd of cows sometime.
- xkcd-sucks 5y agoPastoral societies usually inhabit ecosystems that don't support human-edible crops