If even some of the land that was freed up by a fall-off in livestock production was instead used to grow plants, we'd actually have a food surplus, and a significant one.
EDIT: "even some of"
EDIT: "even some of"
Seriously.
Most livestock production is done in hyper-concentrated confinement operations which take up negligible land space. For the wellbeing of the animals, the quality of the environment surrounding these sites, and the quality of the meat -- these confinement operations should be done away with. The space, though, is irrelevant.
Eliminating livestock production increases food availability because the feed-conversion-ratio is between 4 and 40 (how many pounds of feed turn into 1 pound of cow,pig,chicken, etc).
It is certainly not about space.
India is primarily vegetarian ONLY because they have lots of land in which to grow things. Most other regions do not have so much grow-worthy land, and require a mix of farming and livestock to sustain their populations.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn/background.aspx
(ethanol has shifted that mostly some, yay!)
For instance, on my farm, while our soil and climate is quite good for growing beans of many varieties, which are great for human consumption, you still need to maintain a rotation to maintain a viable farm. We've had to push cereals out of some of our land because it simply won't grow on their soils. That basically leaves corn as our only real rotation option.
To add to that, corn is essentially worthless right now. Its market price is below what it costs to grow. I'd rather grow something I can make money from, but I don't know what that is. You just have to roll the dice and hope the price improves before you have to sell it.
As an interesting aside, a neighbour of mine actually did try growing beans year after year, but he soon found himself out of business completely when disease started running rampant and his yields dropped to nothing. It was kind of sad to watch, and frightening to think what could be if we lose the animal markets.
Mostly, this thread seems a bit wishy-washy on how we feed livestock in the U.S...
But sure, it's unlikely humans would keep growing that much corn if it wasn't going to ethanol or livestock.
> But sure, it's unlikely humans would keep growing that much corn if it wasn't going to ethanol or livestock.
Which is likely, and in line with what I was suggesting earlier. However, unless some unforeseen markets open up, that means leaving the land fallow every few years rather than growing corn, not growing more food for humans.
That is where I was going with my original post. If we stopped growing corn completely, that doesn't necessarily mean we gain 80 million acres to grow something else, you just lose the meat out of the nation's diet, putting more pressure on the land that is already growing other foods.
I'm not saying it is impossible to see such a transition through, but our agriculture system grew up with animals being a large part of it. To stop that over a short period of time would be a huge transition, and I could see it being an incredibly painful time for farmers and consumers alike. It won't simply be a matter of stopping the consumption of animals and starting to eat a vegetarian diet like small groups of people are able to do today.