this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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2/3 of crop calories go to humans
Source?
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf
The paper is from 2013. The number of animals in factory farming were ramped up since then.
Then: She says crops not crop calories.
"From the 41 crops analyzed in this study, 9.46 × 1015 calories available in plant form are produced by crops globally, of which 55% directly feed humans. However, 36% of these produced calories go to animal feed, of which 89% is lost, such that only 4% of crop-produced calories are available to humans in the form of animal products. Another 9% of crop-produced calories are used for industrial uses and biofuels[...]"
55% + 9% = 64% = 2/3
So you're correct with the 2/3 crop calories(!) if we count the 9% biofuel/industrial stuff with it.
But why is the following?
"According to a 2011 analysis, 75% of all agricultural land (including crop and pasture land) is dedicated to animal production."
I'd suppose it's because of this reasons: A. Pastures need a lot of space which for which often woods or rainforest are burned and biomes are destroyed. B. Probably the most eaten vegetable (potatoe) is very energy dense and has a lot less waste by-product and therefore needs a lot less space than animal feed like soy, wheat or corn.
This is everything I need to know from your paper to say that the system of animal agriculture is fucked, wasteful and destroys nature and our health (not only because of the pandemics it causes):
"Put another way, shifting the crops used for feed and other uses towards direct human food consumption could increase calories in the food system by 3.89 × 1015 calories, from 5.57 × 1015 to 9.46 × 1015 calories, or a ∼70% increase. A quadrillion (1 × 1015) food calories is enough to feed just over 1 billion people a 2700 calories per day diet for a year (which is 985 500 calories per year) [1]. Therefore, shifting the crop calories used for feed and other uses to direct human consumption could potentially feed an additional ∼4 billion people."
Pastures can be regenerated, btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/farming/comments/1ds3fvh/how_to_turn_pasture_into_a_garden/
Edit: The latter is what the "Vegan Land Movement" is doing very successfully by rewilding pastures to wild lands again where a wide variety of wild life is finding a refugium now.
what I'm reading is that I'm right, and you would like to shift the discussion to land use
Nope. I'm not shifting anything. You were by changing the subject from crops to crop calories without taking into account humans can grow calorie dense foods on relatively small space opposed to animal feed which needs a lot crops, land and produces a lot of plant waste and in addition is inefficient because only a fraction of calories come out of the slaughtered being compared to the initial calories in plants.
All that while we cull millions of feeling beings in the worst possible way right now because of H5N1 (add that to the polycrisis) waste enormous amounts of resources for little protein and calories and destroy nature.
Here have a look at some frail vegans, while the world burns, mate:
💪 💪 💪 💪 💪 💪 💪 💪 💪 💪
your dunk-brained links to Reddit are not getting clicked
the same crops that feed animals feed people. they eat fodder and industrial waste from the same fields that produce food that people eat. it's a conservation of resources.
Animal ag is fucking up the planet. Deforastation, killing wild-life, pollution, GHGs, destruction of soils via plant mono cultures and water via run offs causing eutrophication and dead-zones, pandemics, eviction of indigenics. Not to speak of the constant suffering. It conserves nothing.
The study you posted states a logical conclusion in the sense of the self preservation our livelihood. See the last quote in my last post.
I understand that peoples jobs depend on it, that 2% vegans aren't making a big impact and that rich as fuck capitalist pricks can accumulate billions and exploit low-wage workers and even immigrant children because of it.
You're free to call it misinfo or propaganda but it's the stuff I researched for 3 years I'm vegan now. Feel free to abstain from answering if you only want to beat a vegan. I probably won't engage anyway bc it was all I have to say about it.
none of what you said addresses the facts that I raised. you are attacking things I didn't say and positions I don't hold.
Partially true and I know it but I don't give a F anymore now the world has a government that'll only speed up ecological demise. I feel veganism (or at least reducturianism) is a (albeit very small) chance to slow that down. Thanks for giving me the forum to spew my propaganda.
Partly true because you wrote the system is conserving resources where it really doesn't. Most of the energy is transformed into non-conserving but destructive forces: GHGs, manure run-off, pollution. A whole lot of energy is used to grow the miserable animal and only a fraction of it is coming out in form of quickly perishable food.
I addressed the 2/3 crop calorie argument already in my previous post. That's not what the original video was addressing. It was addressing the amount of crops (therefore land use, therefore number of rodents dying on harvest). Again your paper states we could ramp up the production of calories from plants just for humans and could feed some billion more people.
I can't eat corncobs or stalks. feeding it to cattle so I can eat cheese and beef is a conservation of resources
Oh and I know that I derailed any possible discussion about "Plants feel pain" before it ever came up. Because it doesn't make sense even if it were true as the most number of plants get brutally murdered for a net negative system that if changed would murder a whole lot less of them.
it seems you strongly prefer to attack things I haven't said than to deal with what I do say
how do you measure crops if not by crop calories?