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Pasture is not just where animals are held. It is land that grows plants eaten directly from the ground by animals, i.e., grazing. So if pasture land isnt suita

Pasture is not just where animals are held. It is land that grows plants eaten directly from the ground by animals, i.e., grazing. So if pasture land isnt suitable to be crop land, then animals fed by grazing pasture is efficient. And according to my reading of this industry website, nearly half of livestock calories come from this: https://www.sacredcow.info/blog/qz6pi6cvjowjhxsh4dqg1dogiznou6 https://www.sacredcow.info/blog/qz6pi6cvjowjhxsh4dqg1dogizno... I think you are talking about fodder i.e., crops grown for animal consumption on land that could be used for crops eaten by people. But the above link says only 8% of livestock calories come from fodder. Another 14% come from grains and other food that could have been eaten by people. But altogether this less than a quarter of the calories livestock consume. The remaining ~30% of calories feeding livestock come from eating stuff generated by the agricultural industry as human-inedible byproducts, chiefly the crop residue left behind when crops are harvested. Would great appreciate corrections or clarifications if I’ve misinterpreted the above.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
People with little to no experience in industries with razor thin margins don't tend to appreciate how optimized for squeezing out pennies those industries are.
ryanmercer 4y ago
>Another 14% come from grains and other food that could have been eaten by people. But altogether this less than a quarter of the calories livestock consume. Are you wholly unfamiliar with feedlots? 50% + of the bodyweight of the bulk of cattle in the world comes when they live on a feedlot, where they get 5.5 to 6.5 pounds of feed, via trough, to raise them from 600-900 pounds up to the slaughter weight of 1250-1350 pounds. Corn (dent, which is still usable for human foodstuffs but is mostly just grown for animal feed) is widely used on the feed lot because you don't need 5.5-6.5 pounds per pound of beef, you only need 2.07-2.24 pounds per pound of slaughter weight. Each pound of dent corn yields about 1,566 kcals so you're trading 3241+ kcal of (fertilized) corn crop for 800-1250 kcals of beef. So for 1 acre of corn you need 40 to 50 pounds of nitrogen, 1 acre of corn. For the 2020 crop year, USDA estimates U.S. corn yield to be 181.8 bushels per acre. 1 bushel is 56 pounds. So to finish 1 cow to slaughter weight, assuming it's pasture fed to 600 pounds, you're looking at roughly 2.9 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer. So roughly 2.9 pounds of nitrogen, 1345 pounds of corn, and then factor in the water which is 1-2 gallons per 100 pounds of of bodyweight per day times 12-36 months depending on what fat content is desired in the meat. Again, we can use less fertilizer, reduce water usage, and better use some current cropland (75+ million acres in the United States alone) for crops intended for human consumption, drastically reduce the risk of new diseases by eliminating hundreds of millions of chronically stressed animal hosts, and to simply restore of them to native species in an area and reduce all of the negative environmental impacts of farming in those areas (runoff, soil depletion, loss of native habitats).
- jessriedel 4y ago
  Are you disputing the numbers I gave above or just choosing to concentrate on a particular subset of cattle? I don’t believe what you’re describing is representative of livestock in general.
  - riversflow 4y ago
    What he’s describing is absolutely standard practice, and is how beef you buy from a typical grocer is raised.
thinkcontext 4y ago
I don't think the numbers you've selected are germane to the conversation. The point of the discussion is how much land substitution there is between animal feed and human feed. The USDA said that in 2013 48% of the US corn crop was used for animal feed, which translates to unbelievably vast acreage. Your numbers indicate that the corn calories are not 100% of the calories consumed by animals. https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-corn-factsheet.pdf https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...
- jessriedel 4y ago
  Well, what it tells us is that corn is a large fraction of the crops fed to animals but a significantly smaller fraction of crops fed to humans. Indeed, it looks like there are 915M acres of agricultural land in the US, and of which 89.5M (<10%) is corn, which works out to 4.7% of all US ag land being used to grow corn fed to animals. Like, obviously that much land is “vast” on an absolute scale, just like any non-trivial fraction of a nationwide number, but it doesn’t strike me as an obviously unreasonable percentage. Here’s a pretty good chart: https://www.arespectfullife.com/2018/08/05/41-of-u-s-land-is-used-for-livestock-production/ https://www.arespectfullife.com/2018/08/05/41-of-u-s-land-is... So if we accept that the pasture range cannot be used for crops, then what we are looking at is the animal feed area (which is both fodder and crops that could be eaten by humans but is eaten by animals). It’s 125M acres, I think, or ~14% of all ag land.
  - thinkcontext 4y ago
    Again, I don't like the way you are using numbers. Your 915M acres figure lumps pasture into cropland, which you are using to make the corn for feed number look smaller. > So if we accept that the pasture range cannot be used for crops, then what we are looking at is the animal feed area (which is both fodder and crops that could be eaten by humans but is eaten by animals). It’s 125M acres, I think, or ~14% of all ag land. The Bloomberg article that is the source for your source, disagrees with you and categorizes the livestock feed acreage as cropland. So again, you are distorting the picture to make the animal feed number look smaller. Your own source is saying that more acres of cropland are used to feed animals than people.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

People with little to no experience in industries with razor thin margins don't tend to appreciate how optimized for squeezing out pennies those industries are.

ryanmercer 4y ago

>Another 14% come from grains and other food that could have been eaten by people. But altogether this less than a quarter of the calories livestock consume. Are you wholly unfamiliar with feedlots? 50% + of the bodyweight of the bulk of cattle in the world comes when they live on a feedlot, where they get 5.5 to 6.5 pounds of feed, via trough, to raise them from 600-900 pounds up to the slaughter weight of 1250-1350 pounds. Corn (dent, which is still usable for human foodstuffs but is mostly just grown for animal feed) is widely used on the feed lot because you don't need 5.5-6.5 pounds per pound of beef, you only need 2.07-2.24 pounds per pound of slaughter weight. Each pound of dent corn yields about 1,566 kcals so you're trading 3241+ kcal of (fertilized) corn crop for 800-1250 kcals of beef. So for 1 acre of corn you need 40 to 50 pounds of nitrogen, 1 acre of corn. For the 2020 crop year, USDA estimates U.S. corn yield to be 181.8 bushels per acre. 1 bushel is 56 pounds. So to finish 1 cow to slaughter weight, assuming it's pasture fed to 600 pounds, you're looking at roughly 2.9 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer. So roughly 2.9 pounds of nitrogen, 1345 pounds of corn, and then factor in the water which is 1-2 gallons per 100 pounds of of bodyweight per day times 12-36 months depending on what fat content is desired in the meat. Again, we can use less fertilizer, reduce water usage, and better use some current cropland (75+ million acres in the United States alone) for crops intended for human consumption, drastically reduce the risk of new diseases by eliminating hundreds of millions of chronically stressed animal hosts, and to simply restore of them to native species in an area and reduce all of the negative environmental impacts of farming in those areas (runoff, soil depletion, loss of native habitats).

jessriedel 4y ago
Are you disputing the numbers I gave above or just choosing to concentrate on a particular subset of cattle? I don’t believe what you’re describing is representative of livestock in general.
- riversflow 4y ago
  What he’s describing is absolutely standard practice, and is how beef you buy from a typical grocer is raised.

thinkcontext 4y ago

I don't think the numbers you've selected are germane to the conversation. The point of the discussion is how much land substitution there is between animal feed and human feed. The USDA said that in 2013 48% of the US corn crop was used for animal feed, which translates to unbelievably vast acreage. Your numbers indicate that the corn calories are not 100% of the calories consumed by animals. https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-corn-factsheet.pdf https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...

jessriedel 4y ago
Well, what it tells us is that corn is a large fraction of the crops fed to animals but a significantly smaller fraction of crops fed to humans. Indeed, it looks like there are 915M acres of agricultural land in the US, and of which 89.5M (<10%) is corn, which works out to 4.7% of all US ag land being used to grow corn fed to animals. Like, obviously that much land is “vast” on an absolute scale, just like any non-trivial fraction of a nationwide number, but it doesn’t strike me as an obviously unreasonable percentage. Here’s a pretty good chart: https://www.arespectfullife.com/2018/08/05/41-of-u-s-land-is-used-for-livestock-production/ https://www.arespectfullife.com/2018/08/05/41-of-u-s-land-is... So if we accept that the pasture range cannot be used for crops, then what we are looking at is the animal feed area (which is both fodder and crops that could be eaten by humans but is eaten by animals). It’s 125M acres, I think, or ~14% of all ag land.
- thinkcontext 4y ago
  Again, I don't like the way you are using numbers. Your 915M acres figure lumps pasture into cropland, which you are using to make the corn for feed number look smaller. > So if we accept that the pasture range cannot be used for crops, then what we are looking at is the animal feed area (which is both fodder and crops that could be eaten by humans but is eaten by animals). It’s 125M acres, I think, or ~14% of all ag land. The Bloomberg article that is the source for your source, disagrees with you and categorizes the livestock feed acreage as cropland. So again, you are distorting the picture to make the animal feed number look smaller. Your own source is saying that more acres of cropland are used to feed animals than people.