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> We could rewild huge parts of the Earth Probably not without radically changing how we grow plants for human consumption, assuming we still eat plants and do

> We could rewild huge parts of the Earth Probably not without radically changing how we grow plants for human consumption, assuming we still eat plants and don't move to an all-meat diet. Looking over the data for the area I farm, according to government figures, 36% of the cropland is used for animal food. Most farmers here grow a rotation of soybeans, corn, edible beans, and wheat. The edible beans and wheat are intended for direct human consumption. I couldn't find an exact breakdown for soybean use, but on my farm ~60% of the soybeans are intended for direct human consumption and ~40% for animal consumption. I imagine that is not atypical. Corn is primarily intended for animal consumption. A little back of the napkin math and you get somewhere around 35% of the output after a four year rotation on my farm being intended for animal consumption, which is effectively what the real world data also shows. The rotation is important to maintaining soil health and keeping disease at bay. I don't see that going away, save further technical advancement, so you'd probably just see the corn shift to something like biofuels if animals weren't eating it to maintain the rotation to grow the human food.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> you get somewhere around 35% That still has to be in the millions or billions of acres globally. No?
- ender341341 4y ago
  I think the rest of what that post is saying is that 35% is an important part of soil maintenance (ie avoiding another dust bowl). Though I do think with testing we should still be able to drastically reduce the amount of land needed, though likely not exactly 1:1 with previous animal consumption.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Billions, it would appear. But that doesn't necessarily mean that billions of acres can be taken out of service. While local conditions don't perfectly extrapolate to the world, remember that 100% of my acres grow human food when observed over the span of more than one year. The 35% animal food production seen in a single year is the outcome of the crop rotation. Certainly, I'd be far more profitable if I could reliably grow beans for human consumption over and over and over, but Mother Nature is a harsh mistress.
saxonww 4y ago
What do you use for fertilizer today, and where does it come from? Is there a scaling concern there, as well?
- ben_w 4y ago
  There's a "running out" concern for phosphate. Technically it can be extracted from the same seawater it's running off into, but IIRC that hasn't been demonstrated in a cheap enough way yet.
collaborative 4y ago
Lab grown meat combined with bacteria tank flours - looking forward to it
jcampbell1 4y ago
Soybeans are crushed, meaning the oil and protein are separated. The major crushers are ADM, Bunge, and Cargill. The protein is then toasted into flakes for better animal digestion, and sold to milling operations of meat producers (e.g Smithfield foods). The oil is sold to consumers as soybean oil in most of the world, and marketed as vegetable oil in the US. Hunt-Wesson is the biggest soybean oil buyer in the US. Your split of 60/40 human/animal split for soybeans is accurate on a calorie basis. I just though I would add some color as to why it is the case… the beans are split.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > Soybeans are crushed ... The oil is sold to consumers as soybean oil in most of the world, and marketed as vegetable oil in the US. That's the 40% I referred to. Crushers, while generally less profitable, are a better fit for my poorer ground. I lumped this in as animal food to keep things simple, but you're right that there is also human uses. You could write books about the subject if you want to capture all the details and nuance. The 60% are food grade (IP) soybeans, which generally end up as things like tofu, soy milk, along with other foods where the soybean seeds are eaten whole (more common in Asian countries). I was growing 100% IP soybeans for a while, but as mentioned before wasn't having much luck on my poor ground so had to introduce some less resource intensive crushers into the mix to keep things sustainable.
  - jcampbell1 4y ago
    Ah interesting. I’ve never known anyone who grows IP beans because the farmers I know are in NC which is a meat state. Are IP beans kept moist or sold dry?
    - randomdata 4y ago
      Dry, and strictly so. At least for the market I sell in they must be between 11% and 14.5% moisture off the combine (must be naturally dried).
myshpa 4y ago
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture ... and 77% of it is used for livestock: meat and dairy https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh. https://ourworldindata.org/soy https://ourworldindata.org/soy
- wtetzner 4y ago
  We could also just eat grassfed beef instead of feeding animals soy.
  - awillen 4y ago
    That would require even more land since a given amount of land can grow fewer calories of grass than soy.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- randomdata 4y ago
  > Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture ... While true, we are talking about cropland, not agriculture land (e.g. pastures). Nowhere near 50% of the world's land area is suitable for cropland.
  - myshpa 4y ago
    Yes, it is ... simply deforest more land for our animals ... we could fatten ourselves so much more ;) https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

> you get somewhere around 35% That still has to be in the millions or billions of acres globally. No?

ender341341 4y ago
I think the rest of what that post is saying is that 35% is an important part of soil maintenance (ie avoiding another dust bowl). Though I do think with testing we should still be able to drastically reduce the amount of land needed, though likely not exactly 1:1 with previous animal consumption.
randomdata 4y ago
Billions, it would appear. But that doesn't necessarily mean that billions of acres can be taken out of service. While local conditions don't perfectly extrapolate to the world, remember that 100% of my acres grow human food when observed over the span of more than one year. The 35% animal food production seen in a single year is the outcome of the crop rotation. Certainly, I'd be far more profitable if I could reliably grow beans for human consumption over and over and over, but Mother Nature is a harsh mistress.

saxonww 4y ago

What do you use for fertilizer today, and where does it come from? Is there a scaling concern there, as well?

ben_w 4y ago
There's a "running out" concern for phosphate. Technically it can be extracted from the same seawater it's running off into, but IIRC that hasn't been demonstrated in a cheap enough way yet.

collaborative 4y ago

Lab grown meat combined with bacteria tank flours - looking forward to it

jcampbell1 4y ago

Soybeans are crushed, meaning the oil and protein are separated. The major crushers are ADM, Bunge, and Cargill. The protein is then toasted into flakes for better animal digestion, and sold to milling operations of meat producers (e.g Smithfield foods). The oil is sold to consumers as soybean oil in most of the world, and marketed as vegetable oil in the US. Hunt-Wesson is the biggest soybean oil buyer in the US. Your split of 60/40 human/animal split for soybeans is accurate on a calorie basis. I just though I would add some color as to why it is the case… the beans are split.

randomdata 4y ago
> Soybeans are crushed ... The oil is sold to consumers as soybean oil in most of the world, and marketed as vegetable oil in the US. That's the 40% I referred to. Crushers, while generally less profitable, are a better fit for my poorer ground. I lumped this in as animal food to keep things simple, but you're right that there is also human uses. You could write books about the subject if you want to capture all the details and nuance. The 60% are food grade (IP) soybeans, which generally end up as things like tofu, soy milk, along with other foods where the soybean seeds are eaten whole (more common in Asian countries). I was growing 100% IP soybeans for a while, but as mentioned before wasn't having much luck on my poor ground so had to introduce some less resource intensive crushers into the mix to keep things sustainable.
- jcampbell1 4y ago
  Ah interesting. I’ve never known anyone who grows IP beans because the farmers I know are in NC which is a meat state. Are IP beans kept moist or sold dry?
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Dry, and strictly so. At least for the market I sell in they must be between 11% and 14.5% moisture off the combine (must be naturally dried).

myshpa 4y ago

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture ... and 77% of it is used for livestock: meat and dairy https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh. https://ourworldindata.org/soy https://ourworldindata.org/soy

wtetzner 4y ago
We could also just eat grassfed beef instead of feeding animals soy.
- awillen 4y ago
  That would require even more land since a given amount of land can grow fewer calories of grass than soy.
sieabahlpark 4y ago
randomdata 4y ago
> Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture ... While true, we are talking about cropland, not agriculture land (e.g. pastures). Nowhere near 50% of the world's land area is suitable for cropland.
- myshpa 4y ago
  Yes, it is ... simply deforest more land for our animals ... we could fatten ourselves so much more ;) https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use