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And this speed is making both them and the land sick — cows are meant to eat grass, not the grains used to fatten them quickly. Do also keep in mind that there

And this speed is making both them and the land sick — cows are meant to eat grass, not the grains used to fatten them quickly. Do also keep in mind that there are wide swaths of land which can usefully be occupied by ruminants that cannot be farmed without piping in almost all the water and dumping fertilizer on it. Such marginal land is counted as arable so as to further attack animal husbandry.

smallerfish 5y ago
> And this speed is making both them and the land sick — cows are meant to eat grass, not the grains used to fatten them quickly. I don't disagree with this part. My point is just that a) livestock are an enormously inefficient way of raising calories and b) that's taking into consideration the horrendous industrial meat system. The US raised 33 million cows to slaughter in 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/194357/total-cattle-slaughter-in-the-us-since-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194357/total-cattle-slau...). Converting those to be pasture raised would use a vast amount of land (1), a huge reduction of calories already being produced (unsustainably) from corn and soy, and require a lot of additional labor. (1) https://www.omnicalculator.com/biology/cattle-per-acre https://www.omnicalculator.com/biology/cattle-per-acre -- I don't know if the defaults are generally applicable for the US, but let's say 0.33 cows per acre (which may be optimistic - see e.g. https://www.outdoorhappens.com/how-many-cows-per-acre-in-your-state/ https://www.outdoorhappens.com/how-many-cows-per-acre-in-you...). A cow raised fully on grass requires around 24 months. So, if the US wants to keep slaughtering 33 million cows per year, 66 million cows need to be alive at any one time. (https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-the-planet-heres-the-science https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is...) So, minimum land use would be 3 x 66 million = 198,000,000. That's equivalent to the total land used right now for soy, corn AND cotton combined (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2021/06-30-2021.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2021/06-30-2021.php).
- dilap 5y ago
  Funnily enough, there used to be about 60 million wild buffalo roaming north america. We killed them off & have devoted vast tracts of land to monocrop agriculture fueled by petrochemical fertilizers.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Those 60 million Bison lived ~15 years on average. Cattle on the other hand rarely make it past adulthood, so those 33 million cattle slaughtered every year requires significantly more food. That’s the core reason we are feeding cattle with farmed corn, you simply get more beef from the same land.
    - dilap 5y ago
      Sure, I'm shooting from the hip. But I think the broader point is true -- there's nothing wrong/unsustainable/unnatural about having a bunch of ruminants running around. That's how it used to be! What's unnatural, and, I think, unsustainable, is vast fields of intensively-grown monocrops, propped up by petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides.
      - Retric 5y ago
        Having ruminants running around is very stable, but if we are then harvesting them for meat you start depriving that ecosystem of various nutrients. It’s significantly more stable, but still not “sustainable” indefinitely. On the other hand if we aren’t harvesting them it’s arguably kind of pointless.
    - pas 5y ago
      Why do slaughtered cattle require more food? Naively I'd guess that the big adult bison eat at least as much as the young cows in the same timeframe.
      - Retric 5y ago
        It’s the same reason eating to much makes you gain weight. Roughly speaking a 1300 pound adult cow needs ~9,700 calories per day to maintain it’s weight. Where a 770 lb calf only needs 6,230 calories per day to maintain body weight, but growing 2.2 lb per day, requires an additional 4,130 calories per day. So, 6,230 + 4,130 = 10,360. Thus between around 700 lb and full body weight they need more calories than an adult. With feedlot cattle being both close to adult body weight and adding more pounds per day. A newborn 80lb calf doesn’t its self need that many calories directly, but it both grows very rapidly gets its calories from it’s mother which turns grass calories to turn into milk calories at about 3:1 efficiency.
- omginternets 5y ago
  It’s only inefficient if you continue to ignore the points being raised by the parent post.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    The only point I see that wasn't addressed was that we can use land unsuitable for agriculture for grazing, but in that case all the supposed top-soil benefits are going to the wrong place anyway.
    - t-3 5y ago
      "The wrong place" can become "the right place" in a relatively short period of time if we change the way we think about agriculture, is the point. For what it's worth, I think the main problem here is agricultural subsidies - they completely distort the market. Calories are cheap due to this, true, but the result is completely unsustainable agricultural practices, poorer health, a more fragile economy, and less variety and higher prices for unsubsidized goods.
      - hn_version_0023 5y ago
        Agreed. There’s another thing that must change as well: our (the US specifically) focus on profits above all else. We act as if our actions and decisions have no consequences and continually mortgage the future for profits today. If we don’t change this, we’re dooming ourselves.
      - lanfeust6 5y ago
        > For what it's worth, I think the main problem here is agricultural subsidies - they completely distort the market. Yep. In the discourse surrounding this there's a call to reduce or eliminate meat consumption, but simultaneously we have market incentives for meat consumption through legislation. This is untenable.
lancesells 5y ago
> And this speed is making both them and the land sick — cows are meant to eat grass, not the grains used to fatten them quickly. Substitute grass for vegetables and I think this applies to humans as well.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  No, we evolved to consume prepared food, including meat. Our mouths, jaws, and digestive system have been coevolving for past few tens-to-hundreds of thousands of years with our diets and food preparation methods. Certainly, vegetables have not been a major source of calories for humans in many tens of thousands of years now (because they don’t have a lot of calories in them in the first place, but also because they are only available in narrow window of the growing season.
  - cesnja 5y ago
    Grains, legumes and root vegetables would disagree.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      The word “vegetables” is typically understood to not include grains, and to not include all legumes.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    You are essentially right that prepared meat played a big role in our evolution, but we're at a point now where growing seasons are less of an issue due to the global economy, and things like incomplete proteins from eating a single type of locally growing bean can be handled through more diverse sourcing. If we were really trying to optimize, we might look at tradeoffs WRT locally raised meats vs grains and beans that have to be shipped around due to growing season type issues. But really what we're doing now is shipping meat all over the world, which is like the worse of both worlds. Anyway, we can get by with a little meat. I'm under the impression that our current diets are pretty weird historically. You don't need meat with every dinner.

smallerfish 5y ago

> And this speed is making both them and the land sick — cows are meant to eat grass, not the grains used to fatten them quickly. I don't disagree with this part. My point is just that a) livestock are an enormously inefficient way of raising calories and b) that's taking into consideration the horrendous industrial meat system. The US raised 33 million cows to slaughter in 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/194357/total-cattle-slaughter-in-the-us-since-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194357/total-cattle-slau...). Converting those to be pasture raised would use a vast amount of land (1), a huge reduction of calories already being produced (unsustainably) from corn and soy, and require a lot of additional labor. (1) https://www.omnicalculator.com/biology/cattle-per-acre https://www.omnicalculator.com/biology/cattle-per-acre -- I don't know if the defaults are generally applicable for the US, but let's say 0.33 cows per acre (which may be optimistic - see e.g. https://www.outdoorhappens.com/how-many-cows-per-acre-in-your-state/ https://www.outdoorhappens.com/how-many-cows-per-acre-in-you...). A cow raised fully on grass requires around 24 months. So, if the US wants to keep slaughtering 33 million cows per year, 66 million cows need to be alive at any one time. (https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-the-planet-heres-the-science https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is...) So, minimum land use would be 3 x 66 million = 198,000,000. That's equivalent to the total land used right now for soy, corn AND cotton combined (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2021/06-30-2021.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2021/06-30-2021.php).

dilap 5y ago
Funnily enough, there used to be about 60 million wild buffalo roaming north america. We killed them off & have devoted vast tracts of land to monocrop agriculture fueled by petrochemical fertilizers.
- Retric 5y ago
  Those 60 million Bison lived ~15 years on average. Cattle on the other hand rarely make it past adulthood, so those 33 million cattle slaughtered every year requires significantly more food. That’s the core reason we are feeding cattle with farmed corn, you simply get more beef from the same land.
  - dilap 5y ago
    Sure, I'm shooting from the hip. But I think the broader point is true -- there's nothing wrong/unsustainable/unnatural about having a bunch of ruminants running around. That's how it used to be! What's unnatural, and, I think, unsustainable, is vast fields of intensively-grown monocrops, propped up by petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Having ruminants running around is very stable, but if we are then harvesting them for meat you start depriving that ecosystem of various nutrients. It’s significantly more stable, but still not “sustainable” indefinitely. On the other hand if we aren’t harvesting them it’s arguably kind of pointless.
  - pas 5y ago
    Why do slaughtered cattle require more food? Naively I'd guess that the big adult bison eat at least as much as the young cows in the same timeframe.
    - Retric 5y ago
      It’s the same reason eating to much makes you gain weight. Roughly speaking a 1300 pound adult cow needs ~9,700 calories per day to maintain it’s weight. Where a 770 lb calf only needs 6,230 calories per day to maintain body weight, but growing 2.2 lb per day, requires an additional 4,130 calories per day. So, 6,230 + 4,130 = 10,360. Thus between around 700 lb and full body weight they need more calories than an adult. With feedlot cattle being both close to adult body weight and adding more pounds per day. A newborn 80lb calf doesn’t its self need that many calories directly, but it both grows very rapidly gets its calories from it’s mother which turns grass calories to turn into milk calories at about 3:1 efficiency.
omginternets 5y ago
It’s only inefficient if you continue to ignore the points being raised by the parent post.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  The only point I see that wasn't addressed was that we can use land unsuitable for agriculture for grazing, but in that case all the supposed top-soil benefits are going to the wrong place anyway.
  - t-3 5y ago
    "The wrong place" can become "the right place" in a relatively short period of time if we change the way we think about agriculture, is the point. For what it's worth, I think the main problem here is agricultural subsidies - they completely distort the market. Calories are cheap due to this, true, but the result is completely unsustainable agricultural practices, poorer health, a more fragile economy, and less variety and higher prices for unsubsidized goods.
    - hn_version_0023 5y ago
      Agreed. There’s another thing that must change as well: our (the US specifically) focus on profits above all else. We act as if our actions and decisions have no consequences and continually mortgage the future for profits today. If we don’t change this, we’re dooming ourselves.
    - lanfeust6 5y ago
      > For what it's worth, I think the main problem here is agricultural subsidies - they completely distort the market. Yep. In the discourse surrounding this there's a call to reduce or eliminate meat consumption, but simultaneously we have market incentives for meat consumption through legislation. This is untenable.

lancesells 5y ago

> And this speed is making both them and the land sick — cows are meant to eat grass, not the grains used to fatten them quickly. Substitute grass for vegetables and I think this applies to humans as well.

xyzzyz 5y ago
No, we evolved to consume prepared food, including meat. Our mouths, jaws, and digestive system have been coevolving for past few tens-to-hundreds of thousands of years with our diets and food preparation methods. Certainly, vegetables have not been a major source of calories for humans in many tens of thousands of years now (because they don’t have a lot of calories in them in the first place, but also because they are only available in narrow window of the growing season.
- cesnja 5y ago
  Grains, legumes and root vegetables would disagree.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    The word “vegetables” is typically understood to not include grains, and to not include all legumes.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  You are essentially right that prepared meat played a big role in our evolution, but we're at a point now where growing seasons are less of an issue due to the global economy, and things like incomplete proteins from eating a single type of locally growing bean can be handled through more diverse sourcing. If we were really trying to optimize, we might look at tradeoffs WRT locally raised meats vs grains and beans that have to be shipped around due to growing season type issues. But really what we're doing now is shipping meat all over the world, which is like the worse of both worlds. Anyway, we can get by with a little meat. I'm under the impression that our current diets are pretty weird historically. You don't need meat with every dinner.