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Plants are almost always more sustainable because they cut out the middle man in calorie production. It takes less land to grow food for a human than to grow en

Plants are almost always more sustainable because they cut out the middle man in calorie production. It takes less land to grow food for a human than to grow enough food for enough pigs for a human.

spacephysics 1y ago
This assumes the same bioavailability with plants and micro/macro nutrient parity between plants and meat products which is not true. You would need exogenous supplementation for parity.
strken 1y ago
There are exceptions to this. Marginal land can't be used for crops but can support cattle, the permaculture people use animals for various purposes that help them grow plants more efficiently, pigs have traditionally been fed waste that would go to compost today (and are thus somewhat more efficient than just feeding the pig something you grew), diverting existing waste products like whey or mechanically reclaimed meat can be more efficient than growing new plants, etc.
- chneu 1y ago
  There's an already large and growing body of research that shows cows are even bad for "marginal land". I work in the western US where we have a lot of desert grassland where cattle graze. We've seen a huge uptick in invasive grasses and wildfires as a result. Cows also consume what limited resources are available. Water, calories, etc. Ranchers also want to exterminate several predator species that do a ton of good for the ecosystem. Wolves, bears, coyotes, etc. Look at yellowstone for a clear example. I remember at a talk a few years ago a researcher estimated that cows are responsible for at least 30 animal extinctions in the western US. Things like reptiles, birds, etc. There are several listed species right now that list cows/ranching as their main threat. So this marginal land still suffers and putting cows on it winds up hurting us in the long run. The land is always healthier without cows on it. They are invasive.
  - strken 1y ago
    This is debatable. I believe the current state of the art is that cattle are lower impact than cropping, so they can more safely be grazed on land where cropping would damage the ecosystem. I agree that some land is too marginal for any kind of farming. You can graze stock on land that's going to be heavily degraded by their presence, and this is bad. You can also graze stock on land where trying to grow crops would cause damage, and this can be a better alternative.

Plants are almost always more sustainable because they cut out the middle man in calorie production. It takes less land to grow food for a human than to grow enough food for enough pigs for a human.

spacephysics 1y ago

This assumes the same bioavailability with plants and micro/macro nutrient parity between plants and meat products which is not true. You would need exogenous supplementation for parity.

strken 1y ago

There are exceptions to this. Marginal land can't be used for crops but can support cattle, the permaculture people use animals for various purposes that help them grow plants more efficiently, pigs have traditionally been fed waste that would go to compost today (and are thus somewhat more efficient than just feeding the pig something you grew), diverting existing waste products like whey or mechanically reclaimed meat can be more efficient than growing new plants, etc.

chneu 1y ago
There's an already large and growing body of research that shows cows are even bad for "marginal land". I work in the western US where we have a lot of desert grassland where cattle graze. We've seen a huge uptick in invasive grasses and wildfires as a result. Cows also consume what limited resources are available. Water, calories, etc. Ranchers also want to exterminate several predator species that do a ton of good for the ecosystem. Wolves, bears, coyotes, etc. Look at yellowstone for a clear example. I remember at a talk a few years ago a researcher estimated that cows are responsible for at least 30 animal extinctions in the western US. Things like reptiles, birds, etc. There are several listed species right now that list cows/ranching as their main threat. So this marginal land still suffers and putting cows on it winds up hurting us in the long run. The land is always healthier without cows on it. They are invasive.
- strken 1y ago
  This is debatable. I believe the current state of the art is that cattle are lower impact than cropping, so they can more safely be grazed on land where cropping would damage the ecosystem. I agree that some land is too marginal for any kind of farming. You can graze stock on land that's going to be heavily degraded by their presence, and this is bad. You can also graze stock on land where trying to grow crops would cause damage, and this can be a better alternative.