3 ms·

I don't see the connection between adopting a vegan lifestyle and caring about biodiversity. You yourself point out that farmland practices are driving bird po

I don't see the connection between adopting a vegan lifestyle and caring about biodiversity. You yourself point out that farmland practices are driving bird population decline, but vegans eat food that is produced on farms. I follow a carnivore diet because I think it is best for the nature and biodiversity -- I avoid eating plants that have been sprayed with pesticides that kill the bugs that the birds eat.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
Livestock takes up around 80% of agricultural land around the world, yet produces only 20% of the world's supply of calories: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets It's pretty wild. Farmed animals are very inefficient to eat, and we could actually rewild a lot of agricultural land and still have a surplus of food for people to eat if they ate plants instead. The spraying of crops that you're concerned about is more of a problem for the crops that are fed to livestock, as well. While you aren't eating those crops directly, they cover so much land and require such a staggering amount of treatment. You're effectively financing that process by purchasing meat. Remember, every kilo of beef you eat required 6–10 kilos of feed (Feed conversion ratios differ for other livestock, but none are efficient. And if you say "well, chickens are way more efficient", I'd suggest looking into how factory farming of chicken is a behemoth disease vector that threatens all kinds of biodiversity, including you). Whether humans would eat that feed or not, these are crops grown for livestock and a non-trivial amount of crops grown could be swapped out for human-suitable crops. Take for example grains and legumes fed to cows, pigs, and chickens; these are also human foods, and they only need to be cultivated to different standards to make it to grocery shelves. Your understanding of what's best for nature and biodiversity is not supported by our best science or any available evidence that I'm aware of. We know that grazing depletes land more than leaving it alone; there is no strong evidence for real "restorative grazing" on any meaningful scale. We know that partitioning vast amounts of agricultural land to feed livestock depletes our water supply too quickly, which harms wildlife immensely. We know that the inefficiencies of factory farming requires funnelling vast amounts of crops through livestock, which requires vast amounts of land which often leads to nitrogen and phosphorous rich runoff in watersheds. This also leads to depleted soils, soil erosion, dramatically reduced soil biodiversity, reduced retention of rainfall, and the list goes on. Animal agriculture is antithetical to biodiversity and being stewards of nature.
- esperent 3y ago
  > Livestock takes up around 80% of agricultural land around the world Note that this also includes land used to grow food for animals. So if you drive past a field of wheat, there's a high chance it's going to end up eaten by a cow.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Your general point is right, but cows are fed on corn and soybeans, not wheat to nearly the same degree.
- addaon 3y ago
  > Livestock takes up around 80% of agricultural land around the world, yet produces only 20% of the world's supply of calories: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets Is this ratio particularly bad? How does this number (4x the land per calorie compared to the agricultural average) compare for, say, broccoli or spinach? My intuition is that 4x is pretty good for anything but grains and perhaps tubers... but I wouldn't know how to start finding evidence one way or the other. Maybe grapes and other densely-growing high-calorie-density fruit are up there with grains?
  - myshpa 3y 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 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-kcal-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-kcal-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-protein-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-protein-poore
    - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
      I suspect we'd increase population to match production capacity. Just like every other time we've had an increase in effective resource production, we just increase consumption to match.
PhasmaFelis 3y ago
The meat you eat took far more farmed plants to grow than you would have required if you ate the plants instead.
- jononomo 3y ago
  Perhaps, but I would prefer to live a healthy life rather than cripple myself with diabetes and disease. Humans are not grazing animals with four stomachs like cattle.

steve_adams_86 3y ago

Livestock takes up around 80% of agricultural land around the world, yet produces only 20% of the world's supply of calories: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets It's pretty wild. Farmed animals are very inefficient to eat, and we could actually rewild a lot of agricultural land and still have a surplus of food for people to eat if they ate plants instead. The spraying of crops that you're concerned about is more of a problem for the crops that are fed to livestock, as well. While you aren't eating those crops directly, they cover so much land and require such a staggering amount of treatment. You're effectively financing that process by purchasing meat. Remember, every kilo of beef you eat required 6–10 kilos of feed (Feed conversion ratios differ for other livestock, but none are efficient. And if you say "well, chickens are way more efficient", I'd suggest looking into how factory farming of chicken is a behemoth disease vector that threatens all kinds of biodiversity, including you). Whether humans would eat that feed or not, these are crops grown for livestock and a non-trivial amount of crops grown could be swapped out for human-suitable crops. Take for example grains and legumes fed to cows, pigs, and chickens; these are also human foods, and they only need to be cultivated to different standards to make it to grocery shelves. Your understanding of what's best for nature and biodiversity is not supported by our best science or any available evidence that I'm aware of. We know that grazing depletes land more than leaving it alone; there is no strong evidence for real "restorative grazing" on any meaningful scale. We know that partitioning vast amounts of agricultural land to feed livestock depletes our water supply too quickly, which harms wildlife immensely. We know that the inefficiencies of factory farming requires funnelling vast amounts of crops through livestock, which requires vast amounts of land which often leads to nitrogen and phosphorous rich runoff in watersheds. This also leads to depleted soils, soil erosion, dramatically reduced soil biodiversity, reduced retention of rainfall, and the list goes on. Animal agriculture is antithetical to biodiversity and being stewards of nature.

esperent 3y ago
> Livestock takes up around 80% of agricultural land around the world Note that this also includes land used to grow food for animals. So if you drive past a field of wheat, there's a high chance it's going to end up eaten by a cow.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Your general point is right, but cows are fed on corn and soybeans, not wheat to nearly the same degree.
addaon 3y ago
> Livestock takes up around 80% of agricultural land around the world, yet produces only 20% of the world's supply of calories: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets Is this ratio particularly bad? How does this number (4x the land per calorie compared to the agricultural average) compare for, say, broccoli or spinach? My intuition is that 4x is pretty good for anything but grains and perhaps tubers... but I wouldn't know how to start finding evidence one way or the other. Maybe grapes and other densely-growing high-calorie-density fruit are up there with grains?
- myshpa 3y 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 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-kcal-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-kcal-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-protein-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-protein-poore
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    I suspect we'd increase population to match production capacity. Just like every other time we've had an increase in effective resource production, we just increase consumption to match.

PhasmaFelis 3y ago

The meat you eat took far more farmed plants to grow than you would have required if you ate the plants instead.

jononomo 3y ago
Perhaps, but I would prefer to live a healthy life rather than cripple myself with diabetes and disease. Humans are not grazing animals with four stomachs like cattle.