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Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

economist.com

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Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#271

Post by wyre »

blindmute wrote: post #242
wyre wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no more time left for this kind of pragmatism. It doesn’t matter it people disagree, the truth is supporting meat consumption is supporting industries that are actively killing us and the planet.

It would also help the planet greatly if we stopped sending aid to Africa and other poor nations. Without our help, their populations would decline quite a bit, reducing their meat consumption and emissions by a huge amount. I know this is an unpopular sentiment but we have to be pragmatic.

Western states consume vastly more meat and animal products that poor nations that receive our aid. This is a trash take that will only hurt people.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#272

Post by b112 »

Retric wrote: post #254
b112 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're changing the context of the argument, from "growing stuff people eat" to "growing stuff for grazing, because it makes no sense to grow crops there". Yes, you can grow crops anywhere , on the moon, in shipping containers, in your basement, and yes on terraces and if you spare no expense to change the land. But all of that is silly and absurd , and not part of the context of this discussion. Some of it just is n…

I was responding to how to maximize use of land. Grazing is low investment for low returns, but rarely the only option. I am explicitly not saying significant investment is economically viable, we have a vast surplus of farmland. That said, historically people would improve land because they had a labor surplus and few options for long term investments. We are living in a world where thousands of years of such decisi…

but rarely the only option.

Unless you do crazy things, there is more land suitable for grazing only, than not.

And doing crazy things makes zero sense in the context of this conversation, which was about how cattle are all some land is good for.

Your argument seems to boil down to "well, we could literally move mountains of dirt, or perform massive terraforming projects on useless soil!," well of course, and so what.

It doesn't make you correct, because this sort of discussion is senseless in the context we were discussing.

Take the soil example, yes it would be billions per 100 acres, because on that scale (the Canadian shield) you'd either have to desoil massive amounts of usable farmless, or start grinding rock and creating new topsoil from that... so current market prices are meaningless!

And if you were going to do that, why not just proclaim that the sahara is perfect farmland too, but of course you'd have to dig irrigation ditches, setup trillion dollar desalination plants, but hey I'm sure you'd chime in too, when someone says desert sand isn't good cropland too?!?!?

No buddy, desert isn't good for growing corn.

(I can hear you... But! But, you only have to...)

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#273

Post by amanaplanacanal »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #100
wintermutestwin wrote: post #8

A staggering amount of California's water is used for alfalfa, which gets shipped to China to feed cows. In essence, we are allowing certain farmers to sell CA's water to China.

The water is owned by the farmers, not by California. Probably the state should eminent domain it, but I have no idea what it would cost to do so.

I can't tell if the downvotes mean that I'm wrong about this, and the state could theoretically reallocate that water, or that I'm right but people think it should work differently. Are there any experts on how this works in California that could weigh in here?

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#274

Post by Retric »

b112 wrote: post #272
Retric wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to how to maximize use of land. Grazing is low investment for low returns, but rarely the only option. I am explicitly not saying significant investment is economically viable, we have a vast surplus of farmland. That said, historically people would improve land because they had a labor surplus and few options for long term investments. We are living in a world where thousands of years of such decisi…

but rarely the only option. Unless you do crazy things, there is more land suitable for grazing only, than not. And doing crazy things makes zero sense in the context of this conversation, which was about how cattle are all some land is good for. Your argument seems to boil down to "well, we could literally move mountains of dirt, or perform massive terraforming projects on useless soil!," well of course , and so wha…

Nobody is grazing cattle in the Sahara. They did graze it next to their which is one of the reasons it’s expanded so far. That said, farmers are actually reclaiming land at the borders from the desert which isn’t possible with herding, in other words much of this land is only viable for farming.

Your 50% benchmark in terms of land is really not a function of each individual acre of land on it’s own.

The southwest as a whole needs vastly more irrigation than is available, but which specific bit of land becomes farmland and which but is used to graze cattle is very arbitrary. The parts that do grow crops generally have more to do with water rights and which bits are federal land than the actual land it’s self.

Conversely a lot of US farmland is more sustainable for grazing, but the giant aquifer is a temporary solution.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#275

Post by Schroedingersat »

strogonoff wrote: post #267
Schroedingersat wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating the gains from theft and destruction isn't some cruel and unusual eye for an eye punishment.

I agree that punishment != punishment, and there seem to be many cases where evidence of intentional harm appears to be substantial enough that the majority would support if something was done about it legally, yet unfortunately nothing is done. That aside, I still doubt it would be a fundamental deterrent (it’ll deter some from doing this particular thing, but they’ll find another workaround).

Well then the key is to align incentives.

If the powerful bear consequences when something bad happens regardless of fault, then power will be wielded to prevent those outcomes rather than enact them. Anyone who does not wish to take that risk can dispose of their power.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#276

Post by jessaustin »

singularity2001 wrote: post #228
csomar wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting the farmers are criminal? Unless they subverted the democratic institutions to benefit from bedrock water, punishing them IS the crime.

under that definition the upper echelons of nestle are pretty certain to be criminals, so yes

You're right about executives of large firms, but you're wrong about farmers. Focusing on punishment for random small powerless people, most of whom are not still alive, while not assassinating every billionaire is what they want you to do.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#277

Post by ncmncm »

photochemsyn wrote: post #152
ncmncm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a "vegan" agenda is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. Not breaking the climate so much is plenty of reason. That reason does not conflict with renewables displacing fossil fuel use. We need to do both.

Crappy science in the name of a decent moral agenda is still crappy science, I'm afraid to say.

You assume that the number of ruminants is invariate. You assume that only North American ruminants participate. You assume that excess from farming to feed livestock, foreign and domestic, does not count. That is crappy science.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#278

Post by zamfi »

tcfhgj wrote: post #207
zamfi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Own” as in “not from a grid” not self-manufactured.

I understood. However this is rather counter productive as it requires more environmentally costly storage as well as solar capacity. Additionally, it totally neglects all other sources of renewable energy.

It is next to impossible to use only renewable electricity from the grid. I agree with you, the statement was meant to illustrate the original poster’s rather unhelpful maximalist stance.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#279

Post by danielheath »

pg314 wrote: post #181
mattashii wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual delta is indeed huge, but there were some mistakes in your calculation that result in an answer that is off by some orders of magnitude. Assuming your initial numbers are correct, the approx 1e10 should be 1e7 (rounding down from 4.5e7), as 1 million sqm equals 1 sqkm (this is different from 1 kilo square meter; see cube square law etc.) You also do not take into account that solar panels have an expected…

The initial number of 1 square kilometer of PV panels produced per year doesn't pass the sniff test. An average home installation is already 10 square meters, and a lot more than 100,000 installations are added in a year. The global production of solar panels was 180 GW in 2020. Assuming around 200 W per square meter, you get 1 billion square meters of solar panels. So their initial number is off by a factor of 1000.

Thanks, that's actually quite close to the method I used but I've clearly dropped a unit somewhere.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#280

Post by danielheath »

danielheath wrote: post #177
ncmncm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Official US agricultural policy and habitual farming practice have made growing maize together with beans and/or squash, tomatoes, and peppers nearly impossible to do competitively. That could be fixed with policy changes that would be fought by the biggest agribusinesses. Corn is among the most efficient natural converters of sunlight into chemical energy useful to the plant (with some left over for the farmer), but…

Global PV cell production is about 1 million square meters per annum. Global farmland is about 45 million square kilometers, approx 1e10 more. Lets say the solar panels cover 10% of the field. That 10% produces 10x as much, so you've approximately doubled your fields overall productivity. We're currently a factor of 1e9 short of producing enough to do so (and it's not like PV cells are not currently produced at scale…

^ As pointed out by others, these numbers are wrong by a factor of 1e3 and disregard the 20-year lifespan of a cell, so the delta is closer to 1e5.
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