I do tire of explaining to vegans that differences in soil quality mean that crops fit for human consumption cannot be grown everywhere and that making the best use of the land available often involves turning it into food via an intermediary
It absolutely could. Not with the current diet but if there was a shift to less meat then we could substantially reduce the amount of land used in food production.
If we switched to a 100% plant based diet, there would be a strict decrease in the amount of available food. Animals eat things besides food that could have gone to humans. Land that could be used for growing crops is rarely used for raising livestock.
animals eat lots of our crops eg 80% of the worlds soy.
the vast majority of the soy eaten by animals is the waste product from soybean oil production. that’s a conservation of resources, and it’s a good thing.
I do tire of explaining to vegans that differences in soil quality mean that crops fit for human consumption cannot be grown everywhere and that making the best use of the land available often involves turning it into food via an intermediary
This is probably where we disagree
What do you propose we do with inarable land then?
There are a lot of uses for land that can’t grow food crops. It could be renaturalized for example.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the current human population cannot be sustained using only food grown on arable land
It absolutely could. Not with the current diet but if there was a shift to less meat then we could substantially reduce the amount of land used in food production.
If we switched to a 100% plant based diet, there would be a strict decrease in the amount of available food. Animals eat things besides food that could have gone to humans. Land that could be used for growing crops is rarely used for raising livestock.
Straight out not the case. lots of animals are on farmable land. Also animals eat lots of our crops eg 80% of the worlds soy. Here’s one (of many possible ones) reference stating that we would only need 25% of the current agricultural land if the world went vegan. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/28/if-everyone-were-vegan-only-a-quarter-of-current-farmland-would-be-needed
your economist article obviously relies on poore-nemecek 2018, which is a paper i wouldn’t trust to tell me the CO2E of CO2
the vast majority of the soy eaten by animals is the waste product from soybean oil production. that’s a conservation of resources, and it’s a good thing.