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Animal feed, along with fresh water and land usage is a major issue, as you have suggested. Less animals for human consumption = less feed, water and land requ

Animal feed, along with fresh water and land usage is a major issue, as you have suggested. Less animals for human consumption = less feed, water and land required for animals. This opens up resources and agricultural land for vertical farming specifically for human consumption. Humans currently consume 55% of the calories from agriculture, with animals at 36% and the rest for biofuels. https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel...

colechristensen 4y ago
Water usage is an exaggerated concern because people misuse statistics. There are places where water usage _is not a concern at all_. In Iowa we take rainwater and pipe it to rivers faster, the opposite of irrigation. A gallon of fresh water "saved" in agriculture in Iowa is meaningless. More than is necessary comes from the sky. Water usage is a problem where people are trying to grow things where there isn't enough water (i.e. much of California), in those places agriculture needs to be more selective about what it grows and needs to grow less as to not overburden water sources. In Iowa though half the state would be standing water much of the year if we didn't actively drain our fields, griping about how much water growing corn "uses" is absurd in that situation.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  Yes, but dumping oil based fertilizer on fields to produce government subsidized "biofuel" is still ridiculously stupid.
- paulmd 4y ago
  Rainwater isn't the only form of water, farmers in Iowa pump groundwater too, and those aquifers are becoming seriously depleted in a lot of the plains states. This is causing pretty serious drops in groundwater levels in a lot of areas and won't be sustainable indefinitely. https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/wss-gw-depletion-us-map-trend.png?itok=dSuNrKyA https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/... https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/groundwater-decline-and-depletion https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    Of the 26 million acres of farmland operated in Iowa, 152,000 acres are irrigated or 0.58% (2015). Municipal, industrial, etc. water is quite often groundwater, but the farmland is 99.5% not irrigated at all.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Okay, so if you get rid of livestock farming, what do you do with the land that is currently used for grazing and how do you cope with the inevitable soil depletion from not turning arable land over to pasture every so often?

colechristensen 4y ago

Water usage is an exaggerated concern because people misuse statistics. There are places where water usage _is not a concern at all_. In Iowa we take rainwater and pipe it to rivers faster, the opposite of irrigation. A gallon of fresh water "saved" in agriculture in Iowa is meaningless. More than is necessary comes from the sky. Water usage is a problem where people are trying to grow things where there isn't enough water (i.e. much of California), in those places agriculture needs to be more selective about what it grows and needs to grow less as to not overburden water sources. In Iowa though half the state would be standing water much of the year if we didn't actively drain our fields, griping about how much water growing corn "uses" is absurd in that situation.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
Yes, but dumping oil based fertilizer on fields to produce government subsidized "biofuel" is still ridiculously stupid.
paulmd 4y ago
Rainwater isn't the only form of water, farmers in Iowa pump groundwater too, and those aquifers are becoming seriously depleted in a lot of the plains states. This is causing pretty serious drops in groundwater levels in a lot of areas and won't be sustainable indefinitely. https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/wss-gw-depletion-us-map-trend.png?itok=dSuNrKyA https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/... https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/groundwater-decline-and-depletion https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Of the 26 million acres of farmland operated in Iowa, 152,000 acres are irrigated or 0.58% (2015). Municipal, industrial, etc. water is quite often groundwater, but the farmland is 99.5% not irrigated at all.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

Okay, so if you get rid of livestock farming, what do you do with the land that is currently used for grazing and how do you cope with the inevitable soil depletion from not turning arable land over to pasture every so often?