Land use for meat-eaters, not so bad

[Nancy LC]

Finally!

Full Article (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008130203.htm)

"Surprisingly, however, a vegetarian diet is not necessarily the most efficient in terms of land use," said Peters.

The reason is that fruits, vegetables and grains must be grown on high-quality cropland, he explained. Meat and dairy products from ruminant animals are supported by lower quality, but more widely available, land that can support pasture and hay. A large pool of such land is available in New York state because for sustainable use, most farmland requires a crop rotation with such perennial crops as pasture and hay.

Thus, although vegetarian diets in New York state may require less land per person, they use more high-valued land. "It appears that while meat increases land-use requirements, diets including modest amounts of meat can feed more people than some higher fat vegetarian diets," said Peters.

[kyrasdad]

That's somewhat good to hear. Ultimately, though, I find the "eat less meat to save the world" argument specious because it's tantamount to telling us to breathe less oxygen. It's a true nonstarter, but radical vegans such as PCRM love to try to connect meat eating with global warming and land use when their priority has nothing to do with the topic.

Certainly, I think we are hitting the world harder in terms of our growing numbers, but I'm not going to live on wheat gruel to shoehorn an extra billion people into the carrying capacity of the world.

[Nancy LC]

I think the real message should be, "have fewer children".

[snowkitty]

It could be like japan when you are only allowed to have to children. If you have more you are penalize. That would be sad. I have 4 children and I couldn't imagine not having a big family.

[ojoj]

Certainly, I think we are hitting the world harder in terms of our growing numbers, but I'm not going to live on wheat gruel to shoehorn an extra billion people into the carrying capacity of the world.


Beautifully put!!

[Nancy LC]

It could be like japan when you are only allowed to have to children. If you have more you are penalize. That would be sad. I have 4 children and I couldn't imagine not having a big family.
I think that's actually China.

[Demokat]

I think the real message should be, "have fewer children".


:clap: :clap: :clap:

Amen to that!

[snowkitty]

ooops it is china :blush:

[fetch]

I think the real message should be, "have fewer children".
While I firmly reside in the "there's too many homo sapiens on this planet" camp, unfortunately I find the blanket statement outdated. Well, it is for those twenty countries with zero or negative populaton growth, anyways. In fact, I'm sure everyone has heard by now of those countries affected giving away everything from cars to cash as incentives for their citizens to procreate. The "problem" is those countries with out of control birth rates and population growth.

[kyrasdad]

While I firmly reside in the "there's too many homo sapiens on this planet" camp, unfortunately I find the blanket statement outdated. Well, it is for those twenty countries with zero or negative populaton growth, anyways. In fact, I'm sure everyone has heard by now of those countries affected giving away everything from cars to cash as incentives for their citizens to procreate. The "problem" is those countries with out of control birth rates and population growth.

The explosion in population is mostly a third world issue. Telling people in US/Canada/Europe to have fewer children wouldn't accomplish much -- they already are.

I feel no guilt at all for having mine and wanting another.

I also have no guilt for eating a food we were designed to eat.

[fetch]

The explosion in population is mostly a third world issue. Telling people in US/Canada/Europe to have fewer children wouldn't accomplish much -- they already are.
At the current average fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman in the U.S., unfortunately, we are not in league with Canada or some European countries. One source cited the UK's fertility rate at 1.7, Canada 1.4, and Germany 1.3.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html

[Demokat]

At the current average fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman in the U.S., unfortunately, we are not in league with Canada or some European countries. One source cited the UK's fertility rate at 1.7, Canada 1.4, and Germany 1.3.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html

It's also that we have a larger carbon footprint than the third world. Though they have more children, children in the West use up more of the resources of the world precisely because of access to them, and relative affluence compared to places like Africa or India.

[Daryl]

At the current average fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman in the U.S., unfortunately, we are not in league with Canada or some European countries. One source cited the UK's fertility rate at 1.7, Canada 1.4, and Germany 1.3.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html

And many countries will be in a bind when they don't have enough young people to care for the old, and pay the bills come due.

[Demokat]

And many countries will be in a bind when they don't have enough young people to care for the old, and pay the bills come due.

Italy is already in this predicament.

[ceberezin]

Here’s an interesting argument to use against those vegan Malthusians who tell us that land is wasted growing feeds for animals since it takes twenty pounds of plant protein to make one pound of animal protein (or some other such arguments that I’ve heard).

I was consulting to a company that wanted to build an alfalfa processing plant that turned alfalfa into chicken feed. Since chickens don’t eat grasses, they need to turn it into a form chickens could eat. It turns out the alfalfa is high in xanthophyl, a yellow pigment that gives chicken skin that yellowish tinge that shoppers identify with the best quality chicken. Naturally, they were concerned with how the chicken looked in the supermarket meat department, not in the nutritional content of chicken.

They had to locate the plant in the middle of an alfalfa field because once the alfalfa is cut, the protein in the alfalfa has a half-life of four hours. They had to get the cut alfalfa to the processing plant within four hours; otherwise, there would not be enough protein in the alfalfa to make it viable as chicken feed.

This principle of protein degradation turns out to be very interesting. When the alfalfa is cut and dried for animal fodder, there is very little of the original protein available. For the sake of argument, let’s say the remaining protein is ten percent of the original, and that it takes one acre of cut and dried alfalfa to bring a steer in a feed lot to market weight. If the animals grazed on the alfalfa field instead of getting it cut and dried, that same acre would yield enough protein to support ten animals, not just the one poor creature having a miserable time in the feed lot. So the land is wasted, not because it is being used to grow food for animals instead of people, as the vegan Malthusians would like us to believe; rather the land is wasted because it is being used to grow food for penned up animals instead of grazing ones.

[Daryl]

Italy is already in this predicament.

Yes, and much of Europe (except maybe France?), and Japan are rapidly headed the same way. It's an incredibly hard balancing act, between over and under populating the world.

[fujiwara]

Under a lot of Kansas is the Ogalalah aquifer. Thanks to irrigating FARMLAND with PLANTS on it, the aquifer is draining rather rapidly. Cattle could graze on the same land with much less, or no, irrigation, and save the aquifer for future generations drinking water.