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Soybeans and corn can often be grown in the same areas, and corn uses more fertilizer than soybeans so your logic checks out. The problem is that corn produces
by opinion-is-bad 5y ago
Soybeans and corn can often be grown in the same areas, and corn uses more fertilizer than soybeans so your logic checks out. The problem is that corn produces more calories per acre than soybeans (or any other crop), so changing over large amounts of production could still result in a food shortage even if the total acres remains the same.
- zdragnar 5y agoWe could also cut the mandates for ethanol produced from corn- roughly 40% of corn grown goes into making it.
- throwawayboise 5y agoA lot of corn also goes to animal feed.
- Scoundreller 5y agoWhen I worked out the numbers, it was about 75% of US corn production going to ethanol and animal feed. A lot of the other 25% is probably corn syrup. Burning natural gas to make fertilizer to grow corn (a 2% efficient solar panel) to eventually blend with gasoline is uhhhhh, dumb.
- djrogers 5y agoThe article, and the problems it references, aren't really expected to be a US thing - it's developing nations, and places where food is already harder to come by...
- wintermutestwin 5y agoI'd imagine that the protein in soy is more important to the food supply than a simple measure of calories.
- chickenpotpie 5y agoWe could also stop feeding so much of these plants to animals and start feeding them to ourselves and cut our growing immensely. We’re feeding about 3/4 of our soybeans to animals, but they’re packed with protein that we can digest.