I became a #vegetarian (aspiring #vegan) almost exclusively to contribute to reduce animal #suffering.
With time, I realised that the other reasons to avoid animal-based foods are surprisingly strong, too.
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1️⃣ Land usage:
Plant-based calories (and proteins) are much more efficient and require way less land and water than meat and dairy.
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@tripu This misses a very important point… While almost all land suitable for crops is also suitable for animals the reverse isnt true. In fact it is quite often the case animals are raised on land explicitly not suitable for crops. I dont know the exact breakdown, and that would be important to evaluate this fairly. But I know from my interaction with farmers that a great many of them raise their livestock on mountainous land not suited for crops and use fertile farmland mostly for crops.. Even when the land is flat and not mountainous it is often unsuitable for crops due to the makeup of the soil (too rocky, no good drainage, etc)
bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@freemo @tripu the madness starts when good meadows are plowed and used for crops, killing an important habitat (at least in middle europe), removing a CO2 sink and ruining the soil for a very long time as it’s prone to erosion. i’ve seen this being done to plan corn for bio-gas - of course they need artificial fertilized for it - total madness :)
it may certainly not “optimal” to have ruminants on green land, but they create food from plants humans never could consume. everyone talks about reducing climate impact.
it also doesn’t make sense to drop one of the most important local protein and fat sources in cold and moderate climates, instead transporting stuff around the globe.
one thing that should happen though is that livestock is again raised in more traditional ways, really grazing on meadows etc.
“It is quite often the case animals are raised on land explicitly not suitable for crops.”
If 23% of agricultural land currently dedicated to crops provides 83% of necessary calories worldwide, we would need to “reclaim” only an additional 4.7% of land from livestock usage in order to feed everyone only with plants. Even looking at protein sources, only 11.3% of land would have to be reallocated from “animals” to “plants”.
So even if it were “often the case” that land used for animals can’t be used for plants, it looks like we could still do the switch.
/cc @bonifartius
You are assuming the land reclaimed from animals would have the same caloric output per acre, thats a faulty assumption.
@freemo @tripu @bonifartius Would be interesting to see what stopping factory farming would do.
So hear me out: Stop factory farming(i.e. where animals are crammed in confined spaces), rededicate the lands farmed for animal food for those to produce human food. Leave the grazing grounds and animals there untouched and see if the meat output from those is needed.
I think we should really differentiate grazing and factory farmed animals. Both for climate (factory farming can be scaled a lot) and from an animal cruelty (obvious, yes?) perspective.
Edit: And if something can be scaled for profit, it will be in current societies.
