For evidence, my extended family down here raises cattle to this day. It's hard to beat doing hardly anything other than let the beasts eat grass for a couple of years. Try to beat that for a cost of goods.
To say nothing of the animal suffering involved, we currently expend ~10x the calories we get from the beef producing it (IIRC). If we could get even to 5x that'd be a huge environmental win.
Edit: Looking it up, beef sits at 25x, and chicken 9x. So, a lot of room for efficiency improvements.
from this anecdotal source: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sbfn6b/c...
1lb of grass to humans = 32kcals / lb
1lb of grass to cows = 800kcals / lb
800/32 = 25x
Assuming you grow something other than grass on that pasture to eat (also assuming it isn't marginal land which makes up 2/3 of agricultural land), wouldn't that other plant extract approximately the same amount of calories from the sun? And wouldn't the bioavailability of that plant also be lesser than that of meat?
Second, farm animals are not 100% efficient in absorbing calories and converting them to meat calories, so the 25x going from grass to beef is meaningless, assuming you were attempting o make some connection to my 25x figure on beef production efficiency.
Third, agricultural land is not all used for meat, and I'd need a source for that 2/3 being marginal figure. Looking it up I see ~2/3 (60%) of ag land is used for beef, but it is not all marginal. Beef is the main cause of Amazon deforestation for example.
Forth, if we just go by land use to globally consumed calories, cows, despite using 60% of ag land, only make up 2% of consumed calories. If we make an absurd assumption that 50% of all calories come from non-farmed sources, that still leaves 40% of ag land producing 48% of the world's calories in comparison, which would include non-beef meat as well.
Finally, just because the land wouldn't have much use to humans if we didn't use it for cows, doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit the planet, and us, if we stopped using it for such.
Whether it can be done entirely using solar is another question, but free-grazing animals that only consume energy from local grass are not anywhere near prolific enough to feed the entire planet.
Cost goes beyond the labor (which is what I am taking your comment to focus on)
2. Again, pastures are already there, nothing else is on them.
3. Perfect, that's more jobs, but I know small family farms with 100 head of cattle with no extra ranch hands.
4. Not really, unless they are very large farms, but at very large scales making artificial meet will have challenges too, much more complex than shoveling shit.
> 2. Again, pastures are already there, nothing else is on them.
We’ve gone way beyond pasture just “being there” to rely on for animal agriculture at the rate we do it. Look at BLM grazing rates which are there to pay for renewing the grassland but to rate limit how many animal graze or the grassland would be destroyed. Amazon in Brazil is also being cut back constantly to create new pasture land
> 3. Perfect, that's more jobs, but I know small family farms with 100 head of cattle with no extra ranch hands.
If doing things inefficiently just to create jobs is a good idea, we might as well ban shovels and backhoes and make everyone dig with spoons
A large part of America was already grassland. Many other parts the land aren't great, but cattle can still graze over it even with really sparse or dry vegetation.
> If doing things inefficiently just to create jobs is a good idea, we might as well ban shovels and backhoes and make everyone dig with spoons
I'm talking about families raising cattle on their private land and continuing to do so, not about banning shovels, backhoes, or meat.
a large part of America was already grassland, but that doesn't mean it can handle infinite herds, hence the BLM grazing fees[1]. This is also ignoring the fact that I was referring to pasture land globally when I included references to the Amazon.
>I'm talking about families raising cattle on their private land and continuing to do so, not about banning shovels, backhoes, or meat.
Private land means nothing when you say "Perfect, that's more jobs". You should talk about how inefficiency is acceptable if it spreads work across more small businesses then, and I will argue with you on that point. I care 0% about family's keeping their small businesses together if it means the rest of us have high prices. If those families take more money to create the same amount of food as a large scale farm, then I give zero shits if they lose the family farm. I would prefer that an enterprise takes over, produces food at a lower cost, and then sells me food at that lower cost due to the competition that capitalism causes.
Could you please explain to me why I should care about the family farm asking for my tax dollars to subsidize them while they complain that my liberal lifestyle is unacceptable and should be prevented by law?
[1]https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-and-forest-service-ann...