7 ms·

Please stop repeating the falsehood that animal pastures can somehow be transmuted into high yield crops for the human food supply: about 1/3rd of farmland in t

Please stop repeating the falsehood that animal pastures can somehow be transmuted into high yield crops for the human food supply: about 1/3rd of farmland in the US can never be transformed into suitable farmland for that task, and this accounts for most of the land used for pasture. If we're having problems maintain soil fertility levels now, imagine if we needed 2-3x the fertilizer to transform unsuitable land into still unsuitable land (but now growing human-edible crops) because somebody thought this was a good idea.

jhgb 5y ago
I was under the impression that a significant percentage of cattle was not fed purely from pastures. Perhaps this what GP's comment was about?
- Aromasin 5y ago
  Correct. The vast majority of US cattle are grain fed/finished. "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, reported at the July 24-26 meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science in Montreal. Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated. With only grass-fed livestock, individual Americans would still get more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of meat and dairy protein, according to Pimentel's report, "Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment." "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, reported at the July 24-26 meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science in Montreal. Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated. With only grass-fed livestock, individual Americans would still get more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of meat and dairy protein, according to Pimentel's report, "Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment." https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-m... To add to that, the argument that animal pastures cannot be used for anything else has been proven demonstrably false time and time again. They are not usable for modern day agricultural monoculture cropland, which is the metric that the studies use and I'm sure the commenter is referring to. That does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that they cannot be rewilded or even transformed into usable farm land again through long term soil regeneration methods such as permaculture farming or effective through growing climate appropriate polycultures.
  - b112 5y ago
    And I suppose the soil unsuitable for crops ( too much clay, etc) but OK for wild grasses, or rocky terrain would just magically fix itself. Maybe we should blast to level it, and make new soil then? Around here, Quebec Canada, few cattle are grain fed, and the land they graze on is rocky, hilly, non crop land. But, even more importantly, is that there is no food shortage. None. Zero. Nada. In fact, all around the world, Canada, Europe, farmers are paid not to farm. I detest it when people try to obtain goals, by using false narratives.
    - Aromasin 4y ago
      Frankly, yes, they do fix themselves. You'd be utterly shocked at what landscapes look like if we leave them. Having been part of forest regeneration efforts across the UK for the past 8 years - from southern heathlands to rocky Welsh and Scottish outcrops, good for "nothing but sheep" - I can say with all certainty that every part of the country except the most extreme alpine regions is suitable for reforestation or some form of plantation dense rewilding, mooring, wild flower meadow, etcetera. The same can be said of much of Canada and America, with my peers over there having the same results when grazing stops. Hell, the Mongolian steppes are turning to results of goat herding, and the Gobi desert is though to have been cause by the same. In the UK for example, people are completely ignorant to how the place looked before we levelled it for grazing, viewing the 70% ecologically barren agricultural land (of which 80% of that is used for grazing or agriculture to feed cattle) as the norm and the 2.5% old growth forest as a more novelty, and something strangely "unique to that area". The country was 60-80% temperate rainforest before human habitation, depending on what research you go by. This video is especially poignant, and really shows the dramatic impact simply doing nothing has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZSJKbzyMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZSJKbzyMc
another_story 5y ago
It doesn't need to be turned into farmland, we need to stop using existing farmland to grow feed for livestock, which is where so much of it goes.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  that only happens because the kind of crops that are farmed are subsidized, so it's economically advantageous to farm those specific crops. we should stop subsidizing crops it only incentivize monocultures
the8472 5y ago
1/3rd of the US farmland being used for pasture and 80% of global crops being fed to livestock are not mutually exclusive on their own. Edit: Surprisingly our world in data has a breakdown of land uses (which includes grazing) but not of crop use. This study[0] says that about 40% of global crop use (by calories) is used to feed livestock and that it takes about 3.7 crop calories for 1 calorie of animal product. So yes, there's plenty of saving potential even if we kept all the grazing livestock untouched. [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044044#erl477547s3-2 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044...
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  it can be argued that they actually are. if that farmland could be used to make human food, which is a lot more remunerative, they already would.
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    Cows are human food.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      they are in fact the preferred way to use that land, because they are more remunerative than planting crops. makes sense.
- ryanmercer 5y ago
  Pasture, that is harvested for straw/hay to feed to cattle, still gets fertilized usually at a minimum with added nitrogen. That nitrogen could be better used in other fields growing crops specifically for humans, never mind the negative implications of the runoff that causes damage elsewhere.
- throwaway4aday 5y ago
  > Low values of embodied crop calories are related to production systems for ruminants based on fodder and forage, while large values are usually associated with production systems for non-ruminants fed on crop products. Cows are ruminants. > First, we estimated country-wise feed requirements. We calculated feed required per grid cell for each livestock types in ton per year multiplying regional and livestock-wise daily feed requirements (Haberl et al 2007) with the gridded livestock counts. Honestly, I'm not very interested in their results after reading this. If they're just estimating based on number of livestock x calories required for livestock along with a bucket of crop yields for an area then this is just paper shuffling. You'll have my attention when you get real numbers directly from the farmers themselves rather than just aggregating 3rd hand information over a grid area. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044044/meta https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044...
citizenkeen 5y ago
I don't believe the argument is that the acreage for animal pastures would be converted, but rather the acreage for the crops they eat would be converted. Or is that in error as well?
- 2000UltraDeluxe 5y ago
  Not at all. Those fields are now fertilized with cow manure, though. Without the cattle, you'd need more artificial fertilizer for the crops you intend to feed humans with. Would it be good for the environment? Quite possibly. Would it result in more fertilizer available on the market? Not really.
  - brtkdotse 5y ago
    The cows need to consume food which has to be grown to produce manure. They don’t magically produce hydrogen, phosphorus and potassium on their own.
  - ryanmercer 5y ago
    Most commercial cattle aren't pasture fed, they aren't free ranging it in a field eating whatever they forage. Hobby and small farms, sure, but the operations that raise the most heads the cattle generally spend the bulk of their life standing in a dirt pen (a feedlot) eating from a trough. They're then fed a mix of corn, soy, ruffage (grasses). Here is an example of a feedlot https://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/jpg/33a3ab67aa6bbe3184c0441d2988fa16-2.jpg https://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/jpg/33a3ab67aa6bbe3184c0441d2... The cattle come to a side and eat from troughs like this https://cdn.farmjournal.com/s3fs-public/styles/840x600/public/BT_Feedlot_Cattle_Bunk5.JPG?itok=p4rlRQ4o https://cdn.farmjournal.com/s3fs-public/styles/840x600/publi... It takes 2.5~ pounds of grain and 1,850~ gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.
    - throwaway4aday 5y ago
      So why not argue for a return to pasture and grass fed and finished cattle then? A lot more people would be willing to agree with you. Intensive use of feedlots has only been going on since the 60s due to an increased demand for beef. The message should be to moderate our consumption of beef and give the cattle a better life at pasture rather than crammed into a feedlot.
dbatten 5y ago
The objection I've usually heard is less about farm land being used for pasture instead of growing crops, and more about the amount of crops that have to be grown to feed the cattle... Growing corn to feed cows to feed humans is massively less efficient than growing corn to feed humans, or at least that's how the story goes. Is there not an efficiency problem there that we could improve on? (Not an expert in this area, genuinely curious.)
- verve_rat 5y ago
  Sure, but go back to pasture based systems. Cows are a fantastic way to turn grass into human edible nutrients. That will probably reduce the amount of meat on the market, but no where near the drastic levels some people talk about. All land is not fungible, we need to use the best tools for the job, and that will be a mix of a bit of everything, including animal meat.
- Gustomaximus 5y ago
  Not expert either but from forums, I think its a bit of both. People treat pasture country like it would be good for cropping in theoretical climate discussions, and the more correct growing corn/grain/hay etc to feed cattle to feed humans. Another factor is cattle feed is often poor quality human food, so the reject stuff. That wheat that was harvested a bit early to avoid storms and no good for the flour is great for cattle. Also, to the main topic of this thread, I wonder if its good for food security we grow extra crops to feed livestock. If there is a food supply shortage, cattle can go to slaughter and there is plenty of extra corn or other about for humans. We eat less meat for a few years while we fix the supply chains type thing. The way we see supply shortages from COVID, Id hope we never become too efficient in the food supply chain. The consequence of something creating lower food production is far worse than limited computer chips. Its not a system we want to be over optimised for the good times.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
myshpa 5y ago
Not every piece of land existing should be used to feed us. We could reforest the pastures (start reducing CO2 in the atmosphere) and return the land to the wildlife (put a stop to an anthropomorphic extinction).

jhgb 5y ago

I was under the impression that a significant percentage of cattle was not fed purely from pastures. Perhaps this what GP's comment was about?

Aromasin 5y ago
Correct. The vast majority of US cattle are grain fed/finished. "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, reported at the July 24-26 meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science in Montreal. Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated. With only grass-fed livestock, individual Americans would still get more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of meat and dairy protein, according to Pimentel's report, "Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment." "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, reported at the July 24-26 meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science in Montreal. Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated. With only grass-fed livestock, individual Americans would still get more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of meat and dairy protein, according to Pimentel's report, "Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment." https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-m... To add to that, the argument that animal pastures cannot be used for anything else has been proven demonstrably false time and time again. They are not usable for modern day agricultural monoculture cropland, which is the metric that the studies use and I'm sure the commenter is referring to. That does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that they cannot be rewilded or even transformed into usable farm land again through long term soil regeneration methods such as permaculture farming or effective through growing climate appropriate polycultures.
- b112 5y ago
  And I suppose the soil unsuitable for crops ( too much clay, etc) but OK for wild grasses, or rocky terrain would just magically fix itself. Maybe we should blast to level it, and make new soil then? Around here, Quebec Canada, few cattle are grain fed, and the land they graze on is rocky, hilly, non crop land. But, even more importantly, is that there is no food shortage. None. Zero. Nada. In fact, all around the world, Canada, Europe, farmers are paid not to farm. I detest it when people try to obtain goals, by using false narratives.
  - Aromasin 4y ago
    Frankly, yes, they do fix themselves. You'd be utterly shocked at what landscapes look like if we leave them. Having been part of forest regeneration efforts across the UK for the past 8 years - from southern heathlands to rocky Welsh and Scottish outcrops, good for "nothing but sheep" - I can say with all certainty that every part of the country except the most extreme alpine regions is suitable for reforestation or some form of plantation dense rewilding, mooring, wild flower meadow, etcetera. The same can be said of much of Canada and America, with my peers over there having the same results when grazing stops. Hell, the Mongolian steppes are turning to results of goat herding, and the Gobi desert is though to have been cause by the same. In the UK for example, people are completely ignorant to how the place looked before we levelled it for grazing, viewing the 70% ecologically barren agricultural land (of which 80% of that is used for grazing or agriculture to feed cattle) as the norm and the 2.5% old growth forest as a more novelty, and something strangely "unique to that area". The country was 60-80% temperate rainforest before human habitation, depending on what research you go by. This video is especially poignant, and really shows the dramatic impact simply doing nothing has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZSJKbzyMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZSJKbzyMc

another_story 5y ago

It doesn't need to be turned into farmland, we need to stop using existing farmland to grow feed for livestock, which is where so much of it goes.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
that only happens because the kind of crops that are farmed are subsidized, so it's economically advantageous to farm those specific crops. we should stop subsidizing crops it only incentivize monocultures

the8472 5y ago

1/3rd of the US farmland being used for pasture and 80% of global crops being fed to livestock are not mutually exclusive on their own. Edit: Surprisingly our world in data has a breakdown of land uses (which includes grazing) but not of crop use. This study[0] says that about 40% of global crop use (by calories) is used to feed livestock and that it takes about 3.7 crop calories for 1 calorie of animal product. So yes, there's plenty of saving potential even if we kept all the grazing livestock untouched. [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044044#erl477547s3-2 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044...

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
it can be argued that they actually are. if that farmland could be used to make human food, which is a lot more remunerative, they already would.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  Cows are human food.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    they are in fact the preferred way to use that land, because they are more remunerative than planting crops. makes sense.
ryanmercer 5y ago
Pasture, that is harvested for straw/hay to feed to cattle, still gets fertilized usually at a minimum with added nitrogen. That nitrogen could be better used in other fields growing crops specifically for humans, never mind the negative implications of the runoff that causes damage elsewhere.
throwaway4aday 5y ago
> Low values of embodied crop calories are related to production systems for ruminants based on fodder and forage, while large values are usually associated with production systems for non-ruminants fed on crop products. Cows are ruminants. > First, we estimated country-wise feed requirements. We calculated feed required per grid cell for each livestock types in ton per year multiplying regional and livestock-wise daily feed requirements (Haberl et al 2007) with the gridded livestock counts. Honestly, I'm not very interested in their results after reading this. If they're just estimating based on number of livestock x calories required for livestock along with a bucket of crop yields for an area then this is just paper shuffling. You'll have my attention when you get real numbers directly from the farmers themselves rather than just aggregating 3rd hand information over a grid area. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044044/meta https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044...

citizenkeen 5y ago

I don't believe the argument is that the acreage for animal pastures would be converted, but rather the acreage for the crops they eat would be converted. Or is that in error as well?

2000UltraDeluxe 5y ago
Not at all. Those fields are now fertilized with cow manure, though. Without the cattle, you'd need more artificial fertilizer for the crops you intend to feed humans with. Would it be good for the environment? Quite possibly. Would it result in more fertilizer available on the market? Not really.
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  The cows need to consume food which has to be grown to produce manure. They don’t magically produce hydrogen, phosphorus and potassium on their own.
- ryanmercer 5y ago
  Most commercial cattle aren't pasture fed, they aren't free ranging it in a field eating whatever they forage. Hobby and small farms, sure, but the operations that raise the most heads the cattle generally spend the bulk of their life standing in a dirt pen (a feedlot) eating from a trough. They're then fed a mix of corn, soy, ruffage (grasses). Here is an example of a feedlot https://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/jpg/33a3ab67aa6bbe3184c0441d2988fa16-2.jpg https://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/jpg/33a3ab67aa6bbe3184c0441d2... The cattle come to a side and eat from troughs like this https://cdn.farmjournal.com/s3fs-public/styles/840x600/public/BT_Feedlot_Cattle_Bunk5.JPG?itok=p4rlRQ4o https://cdn.farmjournal.com/s3fs-public/styles/840x600/publi... It takes 2.5~ pounds of grain and 1,850~ gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.
  - throwaway4aday 5y ago
    So why not argue for a return to pasture and grass fed and finished cattle then? A lot more people would be willing to agree with you. Intensive use of feedlots has only been going on since the 60s due to an increased demand for beef. The message should be to moderate our consumption of beef and give the cattle a better life at pasture rather than crammed into a feedlot.

dbatten 5y ago

The objection I've usually heard is less about farm land being used for pasture instead of growing crops, and more about the amount of crops that have to be grown to feed the cattle... Growing corn to feed cows to feed humans is massively less efficient than growing corn to feed humans, or at least that's how the story goes. Is there not an efficiency problem there that we could improve on? (Not an expert in this area, genuinely curious.)

verve_rat 5y ago
Sure, but go back to pasture based systems. Cows are a fantastic way to turn grass into human edible nutrients. That will probably reduce the amount of meat on the market, but no where near the drastic levels some people talk about. All land is not fungible, we need to use the best tools for the job, and that will be a mix of a bit of everything, including animal meat.
Gustomaximus 5y ago
Not expert either but from forums, I think its a bit of both. People treat pasture country like it would be good for cropping in theoretical climate discussions, and the more correct growing corn/grain/hay etc to feed cattle to feed humans. Another factor is cattle feed is often poor quality human food, so the reject stuff. That wheat that was harvested a bit early to avoid storms and no good for the flour is great for cattle. Also, to the main topic of this thread, I wonder if its good for food security we grow extra crops to feed livestock. If there is a food supply shortage, cattle can go to slaughter and there is plenty of extra corn or other about for humans. We eat less meat for a few years while we fix the supply chains type thing. The way we see supply shortages from COVID, Id hope we never become too efficient in the food supply chain. The consequence of something creating lower food production is far worse than limited computer chips. Its not a system we want to be over optimised for the good times.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

myshpa 5y ago

Not every piece of land existing should be used to feed us. We could reforest the pastures (start reducing CO2 in the atmosphere) and return the land to the wildlife (put a stop to an anthropomorphic extinction).