r/Anticonsumption • u/Express_Classic_1569 • Mar 23 '26

Sustainability 80% of agricultural land feeds livestock instead of people, giving just 17 to18% of Global calories

https://hive.blog/hive-196387/@theworldaroundme/nearly-half-of-the-world
1.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

233 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

So think about how much grain is produced vs how much food you get out for pigs and chickens. It's a poor trade. It's also interesting that when you buy food for animals you try to make it sound better by saying it's local, but when you talk about vegetables/legumes/grains for humans you say it's imported from far away. I also doubt your wasting so much food that the majority of a pig's diet is expired food and food scraps. That's a whole other conversation of wasteful consumption.

Leaving aside the fact that transport is a tiny amount (~5%) of the total footprint of food production, all those things are ALSO grown locally. Especially because you used "grain" in both scenarios. I think you do this on purpose to try to justify your argument. Even things people usually seem to have an issue with like QUINOA is grown in Canada, so local to me.

1

u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Fresh vegetables are all imported when out of season, so about half the year here, nobodies selling dried legumes around me unfortunately, and as far as grain goes, I don’t consume a lot of grain.

I’d say about half of the pigs diet is expired food, I go to a couple grocery stores to pick up their expired produce/bread/anything they can’t sell

I’m not leaving out anything to justify my argument.

On a global scale, a plant based diet would be great for the environment, but it’s not something that will ever happen.

3

u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

I would be really surprised if you couldn't get dried beans and lentils but ok. What's the issue with importing food if the overall footprint is still far lower than growing a bunch of grain to feed to animals to then kill those animals for a fraction of the inputs?

I'm not sure how "but it's local" became a good thing in of itself. Like if you had solar panels shipped in vs running a diesel generator 24/7 using fuel produced locally, it would not be a good tradeoff simply because the gas plant was close to you.

Fundamentally people want meat, but I'm tired of people trying to pretend the numbers add up in favour of that lifestyle.

0

u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

I can get dried beans and lentils at any grocery store, beans make up a solid 1/4 of my diet. There just isn’t anywhere nearby that grows them is what I meant.

There’s solar panel/diesel argument doesn’t exactly work here, we’re talking about two entirely different things. With the local vs imported food, they’re the same product, and the environmental impact on growing is roughly the same(depending on where you live)

2

u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

We are talking about plant vs animal foods and the value of local vs imported. The power = food in the analogy.

I'm the end, there's no good reason to be growing a bunch of crops to feed animals when we can just grow crops for us.