• jet@hackertalks.com
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    1 day ago

    We have about 5x as much range land as we do arable land on the planet.

    Soil stewardship and replenishment are critical to a sustainable ecology - and ruminants are key to generating new top soil.

    • jeffw@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Also, for the record, not every inch of land categorized as grazable is not able to support cattle (arid, bad soil fertility, mountains and other terrain issues, etc.). When I said we couldn’t meet current demand, that assumes those were non-issues.

    • jeffw@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Sure bud. Sure. Just make all the cattle free range and we solve every problem in the world.

      Now we just have to subsidize beef even more than we already do so that people can afford their free range beef. God forbid they eat another form of protein that’s sustainable and environmentally friendly.

      There’s reality and then there’s your hypotheticals. I’ll continue to discuss reality but not absurd hypotheticals like “let’s just change 95% of our beef production”.

      And for the record, 5x is a vast overstatement. It’s closer to 2-3x. Still not plausible. Even if every single inch of grazable land on the planet were filled with cattle (and no other animal), we could not fill current beef demands. And that’s a demand that will grow very rapidly in the coming decades.

      • jet@hackertalks.com
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        1 day ago

        God forbid they eat another form of protein that’s sustainable and environmentally friendly.

        The non-animal protein that is sustainable and environmentally friendly - where does it get its fertilizer from?

        • jeffw@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          They get it from synthetic fertilizer? You think it comes from cattle lol?

          Dude, you cut a cow and you need WAAAAAY less land and fertilizer than if you feed that cow.

          And yes, not all land for cattle feed can be used for human crops, but even if we had zero beef, we’d have enough land to support human crops.

          I honestly think you’re trolling now because you’re not only denying reality and making up absurd claims, but you’re ignoring my points and not responding to them lol.

          Is synthetic fertilizer bad for the environment? Sure, but we need a hell of a lot less when we decrease beef production. If you add more cattle for natural manure fertilizers, you need more land to grow their feed. This is a self-perpetuating cycle.