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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

Which is a very good thing indeed, because it makes our food system robust by operating at a large caloric surplus.

When crop failures lead to rising grain prices, ranchers respond by not buying as much grain for their animals. The result is less Prime-grade beef and a whole lot more grain available.

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In reality, rich countries are still buying all the grain they can to feed their livestock and carry on as before, just a bit more expensive, while the poorer populations experience the real shortages.

In reality, the United States is the largest exporter of calories in the world, and the overwhelming source of direct food aid, and has been since WWII.

That is a contradiction to my statement in what way? Do you think the United States is the only wealthy country? The fact is that the war in Ukraine is leading to shortages and those are felt by the poorest, not the richest.

Every time! I don't talk to dishonest people. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Wait a minute. What did the OP say this time that is dishonest?

I'm totally aware that vegans consistently invade this kind of thread on HN to promulgate their vegan propaganda, like little prophets of malnutrition sent into the world by a god of famine, but this time, what was the lie? I can't see it.

As far as I can tell it's true that meat production and consumption is very unevenly distributed: the USA and Argentina produce almost double as much beeef as anybody else:

https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production#beef-and-buffalo-...

https://www.mekkographics.com/meat-consumption-by-country-an...

It also takes some mind reading to think I'm advocating for veganism just because I say meat production consumes more resources and that animal feed production competes with "lower value" plant based food production. The latter is undeniable. It's up to you if that means you want to reduce your meat consumption, and I personally don't.

This is giving the dystopian chills when I consider that the Uber-wealthy proponents of population reduction (Bill Gates) are buying up crop land. Long game?

Long game is either population control or world domination.

Owning all the land is world domination.

Gates never advocated population reduction. He has advocated for improvements in human development that inevitably leads to reduced fertility rates (ie slower growth). Gates owns a lot of farmland for one guy, but it's a miniscule percentage of the total farmland in the US.

in the US at least, corn, rice, wheat and soy are subsidized by the government so the normal market forces you are describe don't apply in the same way

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