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> And contrary to what some people believe, it matters what kind of soil you have how much water, and what climate you're in. This is what the "but we don't ne

> And contrary to what some people believe, it matters what kind of soil you have how much water, and what climate you're in. This is what the "but we don't need to farm animals, it's a waste, we can just eat the plants instead" crowd don't get. You can't eat the kind of plants you can grow, where people grow plants to raise animals.

phreeza 3y ago
In principle it is right that it makes sense to use animals to get the optimal amount of calories out of marginal land that can't be used to directly grow edible plants. The current state of agriculture is very far removed from that optimum though.
AlotOfReading 3y ago
This is a half-truth at best. The places where you can only grow inedible crops are extremely marginal environments and they usually can't support economical densities. These are pretty unique environments like the northern plains and northern central Asia where only a small percentage of the livestock population lives. Even here, livestock are usually fed to the extent that the land can support and then additional feed is provided with crops grown in less marginal environments. For finishing, that's almost entirely human edible crops like corn, sorghum and oats (even if the specific varietals aren't considered edible).
- Gordonjcp 3y ago
  Or, you know, most of the UK, and in particular Scotland, where most of the farmland is hill grazing.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Are you kidding? Most of the UK is phenomenal for crops, practically a garden of Eden. Do you think megafarms in Kent or even Herefordshire are on particularly marginal land? Yes, the Scottish Highlands are a marginal environment, but that's reflected in how many cattle they have. There are some 20m cattle in the UK. 1.7m are in Scotland. I couldn't find specific numbers for the highland counties, but only ~15k of those are highland breeds. That's also what I saw in Scotland. Lots of farms and ranches down south, very small villages with huge ranges/low densities up north.
    - Gordonjcp 3y ago
      Yes, and the thing you'll notice is that anything that's remotely viable for arable farming is used for just that. Even large-scale industrial farms still rotate pasture, though, because otherwise the soil gets spectacularly fucked up within about four years. Without cows, everyone would starve.

phreeza 3y ago

In principle it is right that it makes sense to use animals to get the optimal amount of calories out of marginal land that can't be used to directly grow edible plants. The current state of agriculture is very far removed from that optimum though.

AlotOfReading 3y ago

This is a half-truth at best. The places where you can only grow inedible crops are extremely marginal environments and they usually can't support economical densities. These are pretty unique environments like the northern plains and northern central Asia where only a small percentage of the livestock population lives. Even here, livestock are usually fed to the extent that the land can support and then additional feed is provided with crops grown in less marginal environments. For finishing, that's almost entirely human edible crops like corn, sorghum and oats (even if the specific varietals aren't considered edible).

Gordonjcp 3y ago
Or, you know, most of the UK, and in particular Scotland, where most of the farmland is hill grazing.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Are you kidding? Most of the UK is phenomenal for crops, practically a garden of Eden. Do you think megafarms in Kent or even Herefordshire are on particularly marginal land? Yes, the Scottish Highlands are a marginal environment, but that's reflected in how many cattle they have. There are some 20m cattle in the UK. 1.7m are in Scotland. I couldn't find specific numbers for the highland counties, but only ~15k of those are highland breeds. That's also what I saw in Scotland. Lots of farms and ranches down south, very small villages with huge ranges/low densities up north.
  - Gordonjcp 3y ago
    Yes, and the thing you'll notice is that anything that's remotely viable for arable farming is used for just that. Even large-scale industrial farms still rotate pasture, though, because otherwise the soil gets spectacularly fucked up within about four years. Without cows, everyone would starve.