Submitted by Vucea t3_zvt87h in Futurology
Doctor_Box t1_j1s80f7 wrote
The majority of crops are being grown to feed animals. We could easily skip the middleman and just eat plants which would vastly cut down the amount of crops we would need to grow.
HermitAndHound t1_j1txv5q wrote
Mass production of meat in feedlots is a terrible idea. But animals are part of healthy ecosystems. Manure is a fine fertilizer. It's perfectly possible to design productive local farming systems that regenerate soil, improve biodiversity, bring good plant crops AND produce animal protein.
Put the animals back where they belong. Switch back to cows that can live on grass and don't need soy or other protein-rich feed to keep up their insane milk production. Chicken kept on a small scale, to eat scraps and weed food gardens are a benefit to the system, not a problem.
Meat wouldn't be dirt cheap (and shouldn't be), and there'd be less of it. But not keeping animals would be wasting an opportunity. They can turn stuff that we can't eat into something we can while producing fertilizer and doing chores around the farm.
snowmannn t1_j1ual9j wrote
I agree, but like you said, meat would get very expensive (maybe that is a good thing). I just don't see how it can happen on a large scale though. The current industrial AG system is a very entrenched and (currently) very profitable. I fear that we would never see society willingly transition to $20 steaks for the good of the planet.
I've worked on several industrial chicken farms, catching chickens, sorting fertilized eggs off the belt, etc... I think long-term the only sustainable way to feed the masses animal protein is through lab-grown meat. But I agree wholeheartedly that animals are (and should be) a vital part of a healthy ecosystem. But on an industrial scale, it is terribly inefficient to have to feed, heat and care for a living creature, in order to harvest a small portion of animal protein. My 2 cents is that once lab-grown meat is at cost and taste parity with conventional meat, it will begin to really usurp industrial livestock production. I think and hope there will always be a market for locally raised sustainable livestock. Not sure how it will all play out... For context I personally have a small flock of 15 pastured chickens and their manure is how I feed my garden :)
Doctor_Box t1_j1uim5x wrote
>I think and hope there will always be a market for locally raised sustainable livestock.
Why, once there is a lab grown perfect alternative, would you still hope there are locally raised animals getting their throats cut?
snowmannn t1_j1uk1rn wrote
Being from a rural agrarian community... Livestock is integral to farming in many different ways. There is a deep, long history of the symbiotic relationship of livestock in agriculture. Yes, I hope there is still sustainable, pastured raised livestock in the future, even after lab grown meat.
Doctor_Box t1_j1wpmx9 wrote
Unless you're Amish and using Oxen to plough the fields today this argument does not hold water. Farming can and has modernized and changed over time. Having this romantic nostalgia for culture, tradition, or the way things were is not a good reason to continue harming and exploiting animals.
If cutting throats of animals at a fraction of their lifespans is integral to your way of life then it's time to change.
HermitAndHound t1_j1yepa9 wrote
Modern agriculture is problematic, though. There's "peak oil" when oil production starts dwindling because it's getting harder and harder to extract more of it, but there's also "peak phosphorus". Me extract the stuff to make artificial fertilizers and it's not an indefinite resource.
Soil is being washed and blown away. Extreme weather events are becoming more and more common making it all the more vital to have healthy, spongy soil that can handle massive downpours and store water. We can't go on with open-soil farming, putting the same four crops everywhere conditions be damned and trying to make up for the problems with artificial means.
It's not being romantic, or glorifying the "good old times" (which they weren't). Nature has a little bit of practice in how to handle fluctuations. Using the same concepts to make food production resilient and regenerative isn't tree-hugger woo, it's efficient.
Ruminants and grass land go together. We killed most of the wild ones, leaves using livestock to fill that ecological function. Whether that's cattle, sheep or goats, or on much smaller plots, maybe just some rabbits depends on the area and what the land and people need.
People want to preserve old breeds of livestock (it's a resilience thing too, variety is good), but you can't keep every individual until it drops dead on its own. A healthy population needs natural predation, or selection by humans. How do we keep old, not-currently-economically-interesting sheep breeds alive? We eat them. Draft horse breeds mostly survived the switch to combustion engines by also being damn tasty.
Doctor_Box t1_j20sx2j wrote
It's really unfortunate how animal agriculture takes over terms like "protein" and now "regenerative farming". We have more choices than the two you have laid out. It's not only a choice between farm animals or destructive intensive monocropping (which we already do to feed animals now btw).
First look at the macro. The majority (more than 50%) of cropland is used for feeding animals so by taking them out of the equation we have freed up a ton of land and possibilities. Once we no longer have such a high requirement on crops grown we can look at changing how we grow them.
Now ignore what cows are to you for a second and just think about what they do for the soil. They are eating whatever is growing there processing it, using a huge amount of those nutrients to grow, and depositing the rest on the ground as fertilizer. It's an open loop system where the majority of nutrients go to the cow then the cow is carried off the farm to be killed and eaten and those nutrients never return to the land that grew the cow.
Instead we can look at composting, crop rotation, letting land go fallow and other farming practices to keep the nutrients on site. These include no till farming where we minimize the soil disturbance and keep it healthier and intercropping where multiple crops are grown at once in a way that support each other and balance the nutrient requirement in the soil.
Finally in a alternate universe, that I want to stress does not actually exist, where we have to have cows and sheep in the field to maximize the productivity of that field during fallow years then we could treat those animals like service dogs now. We let them live out their lives doing what they do for the soil, but we do not have to kill them every year and breed new cows and sheep to take their place. Cows live for 20-25 years. We would need a tiny number of animals to accomplish that task. If we kept to the bare minimum number of animals for keeping the soil healthy we would effectively have a vegan population because there would be so few of them.
Doctor_Box t1_j1tycv9 wrote
>But not keeping animals would be wasting an opportunity. They can turn stuff that we can't eat into something we can while producing fertilizer and doing chores around the farm.
That's why I only eat dogs and cats. No need to support factory farming when I can eat locally from my back yard. I live in the city and can't have chickens so I raise dogs for meat and while they're growing they work for me and do things like get me a beer from the fridge. A mutually beneficial relationship for the 8-12 months I let them live.
There's also a great option for those stuck in apartments. You can order online from a great family owned business! https://www.elwooddogmeat.com/
I'm also looking to get the laws changed so we can eat humans who naturally pass away. I would hate to waste an opportunity!
atrophy1999 t1_j1si0d2 wrote
False. The nutrition density of meat is being blissfully ignored. The amount of calories and nutrients in meat isn't easily substituted by a single plant source. In order to substitute you would have to grow a hell-of-a-lot of different types of plants. This would increase the demand for fertilizer. You can't just grow plants without fertilizer.
PM_me_your_syscoin t1_j1slzh0 wrote
I don't know if the intuitive back-of-napkin math works there. A wider variety of crops wouldn't require more fertilizer just because they're different. You would need different types of fertilizer, which would actually help destress supply chains and prevent the risk of single-point failure that you have with monoculture. Also, you don't need as much overall agricultural production if you're primarily feeding humans and not cows/pigs/chickens.
FlintWaterFilter t1_j1szt0b wrote
There's only three macronutrients in fertilizer. The vast majority of fertilizer is made from the same ingredients and mixed in concentration according to application. The only way to speed up the supply chain of fertilizer is to produce it closer to the point of application.
time_drifter t1_j1t2iah wrote
This is my field of work and basically correct. The issue right now is the specific inputs for the process and sourcing them. Flocculant, potash, and catalyst for reactors have all been problematic over the past few years. Potash in particular because Canda and Russia are the biggest producers. If these inputs can be reliably sourced, production and distribution are relatively stable, just more expensive. Most of it is done by rail which is less prone to issue than freight or air.
One thing that does worry me is equipment longevity. Fertilizer production is very caustic and produces a lot of corrosive byproducts like phos-acid, sulphuric acid, etc. This requires constant maintenance using specialized and very difficult to procure parts. There are many critical components with no replacements on hand. Some of these parts are back ordered for a year or more with no alternative supplier(s). Unless we can rebuild or fabricate a solution, any one of these critical components can stop production.
MrPicklePop t1_j1tq5gd wrote
Yup not only that, but natural gas concerns in Europe have caused them to curtail industrial fertilizer production so they can build their winter natural gas reserves. What’s going to happen come planting season in Europe?
farmer1972 t1_j1ujh7g wrote
They have shut down one mine in Saskatchewan for potash. We have lots but the big boys don’t want the profit Marino drop
53eleven t1_j1sx8pn wrote
Plants don’t need fertilizer to grow if the soil is being taken care of.
korinth86 t1_j1t963g wrote
That is so backwards...
Nutrient density doesn't matter when you consider the amount of resources it takes to get to that point. There are far more nutrients in the years worth of feed a cow eats than the end meat product.
Meat makes it's easier for the consumer to get the nutrients we need. To go more vegetarian you need to eat a variety of foods, rice, beans, lentils, nuts, veggies, leafy greens, fruits, and should supplement with a multivitamin.
It's not hard, it's less convenient.
Fertilizer wise, vegetarian wins hands down. The amount of land necessary to keep humans healthy, without meat, would be less than having to raise animals to ultimately feed a human later.
Lab grown meat changes the equation a bit depending on ultimate cost.
farmer1972 t1_j1uj7d8 wrote
Lol and how do you think all that is grown
korinth86 t1_j1ujd6a wrote
Every time you take a step in the consumption chain you increase the needed inputs.
It's less efficient to raise cattle for food than it is to use that land to grow food to feed humans.
farmer1972 t1_j1ukbry wrote
Ok that I can agree on but most cattle are grazed on marginal land that won’t support a crop why not use it that way rather than letting it go to weeds. Do you know the amount of stuff (herbicide,pesticides,desiccation)that is needed for each one of those plants?
korinth86 t1_j1usft2 wrote
I'm dubious to the claim of "most". data I can find suggests about 60%> In the US the standard for grass fed is 50% of their diet to claim "grass fed".
There are days it's too wet to let your cows graze, they'll destroy the field. So you keep them in and have to feed them something. Then there are 3-4mo your fields don't produce grass, which means again, food comes from somewhere.
If the fields are growing enough grass to feed a meaningful amount of cattle, they can grow other crops.
My buddy is a dairy farmer though he calls himself a grass farmer. They only supplement feed probably 10-20% during the growing season as they can grow enough grass. He cannot produce enough extra and has to buy feed for the 3-4mo he can't pasture them.
I'm not against meat. The truth is it takes more everything (water, fertilizer, land, blah) to cultivate rather than plants. I'm all for reducing our meat consumption. It will be interesting to see how lab grown meat changes the equation.
6GoesInto8 t1_j1t1n5m wrote
I wonder how much meat could be removed from the American diet without needing any replacement but still keeping the person healthy? For me it is at least 50%. At least half of the meat I eat is for pleasure over nutrition.
[deleted] t1_j1t55z1 wrote
[deleted]
6GoesInto8 t1_j1t5zom wrote
Whelp, your logic is clear and irrefutable, off to Cuba. Do they accept bot refugees?
myplushfrog t1_j1t8fzq wrote
Their comment is hilarious lol omg. I don’t need to move to Cuba to eat rice, milk and flour. They are insanely cheap here, far more so than meat.
6GoesInto8 t1_j1ta4rn wrote
I started to write a counter argument to some of their points but it was so easy I was worried it was some sort of trap. Maybe trying to steer the conversation towards sanctions or something? That's probably not true, but their argument feels intentionally absurd.
Tuggerfub t1_j1td64j wrote
You're not making sense.
Have you seen cuban sandwiches? These people love meat.
How about you advocate for the US to stop erroneously sanctioning Cuba and making trade a nightmare for them instead? Think about it in the context of what it took for Russia to receive relatively modest sanctions.
RadialSpline t1_j1u35im wrote
To put some context on that point: when the Communist revolution deposed Bautista in 1959 they [the revolutionaries] nationalized a lot of American business assets, and many of the “upper crust” of people in Bautista’s orbit fled as refugees to the US and they [the refugees] along with the businesses that had assets nationalized lobbied the fuck out of the government to impose those sanctions, and continue to lobby to keep those same sanctions in place until their grievances are “properly addressed” to their liking.
Also totally doesn’t help that the powers that be in the US really don’t want even a semi-functional socialistic/communistic government to exist.
RadialSpline t1_j1u2ixc wrote
For one, Non parle Espagnol.
For two, I don’t exactly have the resources (cash-in-hand) to get to Cuba.
For three, why the fuck would I have to move to Cuba in order to not eat as much meat? I can eat less meat here (and very slightly reduce the demand for meat while doing so) just as well where I currently live.
Four, from an energy transfer standpoint eating plants directly is an order of magnitude more efficient than raising plants for a “middle cow” to eat then I eat the cow.
Doctor_Box t1_j1sqzqd wrote
Why would you replace meat with a single plant source? The point is we can free up so much agricultural land you can grow a variety of plants and still not use as much land (or fertilizer) as what is currently used growing food for cows, pigs, and chickens.
Also nutrient density makes no sense when comparing plants to meat. Plants are generally more nutrient dense but less calorie dense. Maybe calorie density is what you mean, but considering the obesity epidemic I don't think calories are an issue for most people in first world countries.
Tuggerfub t1_j1td9zi wrote
A lot of what you need doesn't come from plants so it's a moot point.
We're an omnivorous species.
Doctor_Box t1_j1telyy wrote
Where do the cows, pigs, and chickens get what they need then? Everything you need comes from plants (except for B12 which is bacteria).
We are omnivorous I agree, but that only tells you what you can eat and not what you have to eat. There are plenty of people thriving on a plant based diet.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1snc4q wrote
This is a lie. The exact crops (soy and corn) fed to the cows with a bit of fermentation to reduce calorie density and create some micronutrients cover most of your bases.
Small quantities of a much less crop intensive animal protein cover the rest.
NewReddit101 t1_j1tev6v wrote
“You can't just grow plants without fertilizer.”
Lol plants couldn’t grow before the industrial revolution; they just didn’t exist
unskilledplay t1_j1tl0gu wrote
There isn't enough arable land to feed 8 billion people without fertilizer.
In the late 1800s scientists were modeling that after around 2 billion people population growth would have to stop because there wouldn't be any way to feed everyone. In the early 20th century a bunch of methods to mass produce fertilizer appeared. It was one of the biggest events in human history.
Today you can do the math and determine exactly how many calories a shortage of X tons of fertilizer will cause to global food production.
Evipicc t1_j1tq437 wrote
Of all of the arguments that are totally valid to support continuing to eat meat as a species you picked the one that was wrong...
Nashka01 t1_j1twuch wrote
How this would increase the demand for fertiliser since 80% of soya is used to feed animals? Like if we have less animals, we should feed them less, harvest less soya for them and utilise properly the fertiliser for us ? The question is more about how to organise our agriculture with a long term prospect instead of economy prospect
firmakind t1_j1tz6uw wrote
> You can't just grow plants without fertilizer.
Not going to go into the meat vs plant nutrients debate in which I probably don't have enough knowledge to chime in.
But you can grow plants without (synthetic) fertilizer. And it's not about organic farming or whatever, it's just about basic plant biology and requirements. Otherwise how would there be plants anywhere? Plants are over 80% of the world's biomass.
You can't grow plants without fertilizer using current high input intensive agriculture, since there's just enough going on in the ground to properly turn organic matter into usable nutrients by the plants. They just can't do that by themselves. So either you provide them with readily available nutrients through fertilizing, or you help the soil's life do it's freaking job and feed it enough dead stuff so it provides plants with usable nutrients.
But that requires no till farming, green manure crop, and so on to avoid growing on a dead soil and thus being dependent on synthetic fertilizers. And not everyone has the time to do that.
boynamedsue8 t1_j1sn7cj wrote
Tell that to people who suffer from anemia or have A+ blood type where they need protein in their diet.
AspenRiot t1_j1spy5d wrote
Listen I'm not a doctor but I know enough about biology to tell you that plants contain protein.
And the medical needs of a small number of people have no bearing on the fact that Western countries consume waaay more meat than is rational. A country cutting back on meat and dairy isn't going to cause its anemic population to drop dead.
boynamedsue8 t1_j1suz20 wrote
I will continue to eat meat.
Doctor_Box t1_j1sq1dk wrote
Anemia is an iron issue. Plenty of plant sources there. As for protein, all plants have all the essential amino acids in varying amounts. As long as you're eating a variety of plants(not highly processed refined stuff) and getting enough calories, you're getting enough protein. Otherwise focus on beans, lentils, legumes, nuts and seeds for maximum protein. There are also things like Seitan made from wheat that is 75% protein by weight.
boynamedsue8 t1_j1suvol wrote
I’m aware it’s an iron issue. Took iron supplements along with adding hemp to my protein shakes and radically changing my diet and yup I still needed to eat meat.
Doctor_Box t1_j1svyis wrote
I'm not sure what radical changes you made to your diet but meat is not really required and heme iron has some other detrimental effects. I can't argue with your specific case but if you are interested in trying again here are some resources.
Vegan society recommendation: Good plant sources of iron include lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu, cashew nuts, chia seeds, ground linseed, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, kale, dried apricots and figs, raisins, quinoa and fortified breakfast cereal.
A pro tip is to add citrus or a vitamin c source to your meal to help with absorption and avoid caffeine around the meal which can decrease absorption.
MilkshakeBoy78 t1_j1syo9w wrote
Eat some spinach and nuts.
Tuggerfub t1_j1tdgrg wrote
The notion that spinach is loaded with iron was a clerical error.
Some nurse put the decimal in the wrong place, but voila, the myth and the superpowers of Popeye were born. Incidentally it's also the origin of where the idea of 'powerups' in video games comes from (because a Popeye game started the convention).
If someone has a deficiency that impacts how their brain, blood, or other critical functions work, and you're not a specialist, maybe no?
MilkshakeBoy78 t1_j1tf645 wrote
100 grams of spinach has one more milligram of iron compared to 100 grams of beef. 2.7mg vs 2.6mg
if you're arguing for needing meat to survive and properly function than get off your high horse.
pistachios contain 14mg of iron per 100g of pistachios...
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