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Many decades ago the US gov decided to create corn subsidies with the idea of high production of calories and energy. Ethanol in gasoline is a wealth creator.

Many decades ago the US gov decided to create corn subsidies with the idea of high production of calories and energy. Ethanol in gasoline is a wealth creator. If the USA withdrew from this, farmers would likely switch away from corn. Within a few years we could 10x meat production. Large open pastures producing grass fed meats would be a far better choice.

blackoil 3y ago
> we could 10x meat production Isn't most corn fed to animals in factory farms?
- incomingpain 3y ago
  Factory farms are evil and should be ended. Grass fed all the way.
digging 3y ago
> If the USA withdrew from this, farmers would likely switch away from corn. Within a few years we could 10x meat production. Large open pastures producing grass fed meats would be a far better choice. First, you can't convert all current farm plots owned by independent farmers into contiguous grazing land, and second, animals need tons of vegetable nutrition. Lots of that corn is already diverted to animal feed - grasslands aren't going to be more productive for animal calories than engineered corn. That's why we actually need to be decreasing meat production - it's incredibly wasteful. If you believe we could 10x meat production by replacing corn (which... we can't), we could just 200x vegetable production instead. Obviously that makes no sense to replace vegetables with vegetables on the same land and get orders of magnitude more crops. The conclusions you should be drawing is that we should stop subsidizing corn for HFCS as an unhealthy high-calorie filler and instead subsidize nutritious vegetables like legumes.
- incomingpain 3y ago
  >That's why we actually need to be decreasing meat production - it's incredibly wasteful. I realize there are many people who want to reduce meat production. I absolutely am optimistic about a tiny footprint synthetic meat production that competes with top quality steaks. But until that exists, we should be increasing meat production of all kinds. Oh and farmers pass on your new high taxes in shape of food inflation. Pretty big protests going on across europe right now.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
> Ethanol in gasoline is a wealth creator. [...] > ...10x meat production. Wow, way to switch from one environmental disaster to another, even bigger one.
throwup238 3y ago
> Large open pastures producing grass fed meats would be a far better choice. The vast majority of cows are already pasture raised in the US. Those feedlots with packed pens serving tons of corn feed that most people think of when they think of factory farming is only the last step of the process called finishing that improves the fattiness and flavor of the meat for human consumption. The corn that's used for bioethanol is actually later fed to cows at those feedlots as distillers grains [1]. It accounts for a significant fraction of animal feed so eliminating bioethanol would make beef more expensive, not cheaper. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains

blackoil 3y ago

> we could 10x meat production Isn't most corn fed to animals in factory farms?

incomingpain 3y ago
Factory farms are evil and should be ended. Grass fed all the way.

digging 3y ago

> If the USA withdrew from this, farmers would likely switch away from corn. Within a few years we could 10x meat production. Large open pastures producing grass fed meats would be a far better choice. First, you can't convert all current farm plots owned by independent farmers into contiguous grazing land, and second, animals need tons of vegetable nutrition. Lots of that corn is already diverted to animal feed - grasslands aren't going to be more productive for animal calories than engineered corn. That's why we actually need to be decreasing meat production - it's incredibly wasteful. If you believe we could 10x meat production by replacing corn (which... we can't), we could just 200x vegetable production instead. Obviously that makes no sense to replace vegetables with vegetables on the same land and get orders of magnitude more crops. The conclusions you should be drawing is that we should stop subsidizing corn for HFCS as an unhealthy high-calorie filler and instead subsidize nutritious vegetables like legumes.

incomingpain 3y ago
>That's why we actually need to be decreasing meat production - it's incredibly wasteful. I realize there are many people who want to reduce meat production. I absolutely am optimistic about a tiny footprint synthetic meat production that competes with top quality steaks. But until that exists, we should be increasing meat production of all kinds. Oh and farmers pass on your new high taxes in shape of food inflation. Pretty big protests going on across europe right now.

Paul-Craft 3y ago

> Ethanol in gasoline is a wealth creator. [...] > ...10x meat production. Wow, way to switch from one environmental disaster to another, even bigger one.

throwup238 3y ago

> Large open pastures producing grass fed meats would be a far better choice. The vast majority of cows are already pasture raised in the US. Those feedlots with packed pens serving tons of corn feed that most people think of when they think of factory farming is only the last step of the process called finishing that improves the fattiness and flavor of the meat for human consumption. The corn that's used for bioethanol is actually later fed to cows at those feedlots as distillers grains [1]. It accounts for a significant fraction of animal feed so eliminating bioethanol would make beef more expensive, not cheaper. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains