3 ms·
I don't know if it's by gross weight or calories, but the number I've heard is that feeding plants to animals is 10-20 less effective than just having people ea
by rvense 2y ago
I don't know if it's by gross weight or calories, but the number I've heard is that feeding plants to animals is 10-20 less effective than just having people eat the plants. Or mostly eat the plants. So, in the case of Denmark, where 50% of the surface area is used to grow food for pigs, we could instead use 3-5% of the surface are to grow food for people and come out at something resembling the same amount of food, at least if we're just talking "food needed to survive". And given some of the other talk we see on this site, (or used to see a few years ago) about how indoor farming is an absolute necessity because we're running out of land due to rising populations, I think that seems quite significant.
BTW, I am not a full-time vegan nor interested in becoming one, but the average meat consumption in Denmark is as far as I know measure in the hundreds of grams per day. Maybe there's room for compromise?
- tracker1 2y agoCows don't eat plants that people can derive appropriate nutrition from. They also don't generally use land that is appropriate for crops. Also, from what I understand, the emissions from the animals isn't significantly different than seasonal die off from natural grasslands they graze on. Beyond this, most of the calculated water consumption "used" is rainwater on said grasslands.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoCows in America derive most of their calories from corn. And while most Montana cows generally live on land unsuitable for crops, Montana only has a small fraction of American cows. And I believe that your comments are even less true in other prominent cattle producing countries than America.
- tracker1 2y agoAnd in Denmark?
- bryanlarsen 2y agoNo Montana like semi-deserts in Denmark.
- tracker1 2y agoI mean, what are the standards in Denmark in terms of land use? grass fed vs grain fed, etc. Since the article is referring to Denmark.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoGrass-fed beef in Denmark would necessarily be raised on viable crop land, so would displace an order of magnitude more cropland than grain fed beef.
- tracker1 2y agoGrass doesn't grow on hills, or soil with lots of stone/rocks that would be prohibitively expensive to turn into cropland? Not to mention that cropland using regenerative farming, or anything actually sustainable, should include grazing animal rotation.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago> Grass doesn't grow on hills, or soil with lots of stone/rocks that would be prohibitively expensive to turn into cropland? Denmark doesn't have a significant amount of those. It's pretty flat and rock free.
- rvense 2y agoAs far as I know, mostly soy. A lot of it from South America.