Comment by ramblenode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ramblenode | Hacker News Reader

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This is a kind of "wronger than wrong" fallacy [0]. Yes, not all pasture land is suitable for cereal crops. But that doesn't negate the fact that most livestock production does present an inefficient tradeoff when optimizing for nutrition and land/climate impact.

This is because a) a large portion of cereal crops are diverted to feed livestock and b) very little livestock comes from natural pasture land. So only a miniscule percent of livestock production represents no land use tradeoff whatsoever.

a) 40% of cereal crops go toward animal feed [1] and most modern animal agriculture would be impossible without this. Arable land that could be feeding humans is being used to feed animals which then feed humans. That represents roughly a 90% loss of potential biological productivity [2].

b) Despite the US having some of the largest natural pasture, only 4% of retail beef in the US is grass-fed--meaning only a tiny percent are fed exclusively from pasture [3]. Additionally, most pasture land has been converted from forest. 40% of deforestation overall is due to animal agriculture [4]. This is only a little less than plant-based agriculture which provides sinificantly more food.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cereal-distribution-to-us...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level

[3] https://extension.sdstate.edu/grass-fed-beef-market-share-gr...

[4] https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/cop26-agricultural-expan...

I think one of the bigger questions than "why does the US raise so much livestock" is "why doesn't the US raise bison & buffalo instead of cows"?

I'd imagine a lot of the US' livestock needs could be handled by just re-wilding pasture lands with native plant and animal species (including bison). And just as a guess I'd imagine it'd be more sustainable than trying to raise cows.

"Arable land that could be used to feed humans..."

Is there a shortage of food for humans? I dont think there is a supply issue, rather where famines occur it seems political?

If we needed less land to feed humans we could instead use the land to sequester carbon and provide habitats for wild animals, e.g. by planting forests.

Of course your point a is true, but it doesn't need to be. In other parts of the world cattle are not fed on cereals at all, or minimally. Equally cereal production has been a major cause of native grassland being plowed up, with much of the biomass turning back into CO2. If it were turned back to pasture it would begin to sequester carbon again. Grazing animals could be grown on that pasture, but not at the intensity of a US factory farm.

The answer is that the system is complex and there are no easy fixes.

The problem is that most pasture is not natural; most of it was converted from forest at some point. In that way it is still an environmental tradeoff.

Pasture doesn't really sequester carbon either, and grazing is still a big net GHG emitter because of methane (more potent than C02).

Forest, on the other hand, sequesters carbon, produces oxygen, and creates microclimates that are more hospitable to humans and which buffer against extreme weather changes.

Hang on a minute, 'most' pasture might not be natural, but no arable ground to grow the alternative food is natural at all! And even if 'most' pasture is not natural we should not ignore that significant pasture was natural. Lets take the Great Plains of North America as an example. Ploughing it up to turn it into arable land was not natural and released much carbon.

> Pasture doesn't really sequester carbon either

Simply untrue. In the UK if I had pasture land I could even get paid for the carbon I had added to the soil. Here is a nice quote that says the complete opposite of your unreferenced comment:

"Prairies have the ability to store as much carbon below the ground as forests can store above the ground. When carbon is stored below ground it will remain locked there and be unable to enter the atmosphere."

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ageconugensc/73/#:~:text=Prai....

I think you are making the same mistake as everyone else by pretending there is a simple solution. Special interest groups, like those who are dogmatically opposed to meat production, are twisting the science just as much as their opposition is.

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