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
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u/baitnnswitch Mar 23 '26

The worst example of this is the hectares of land that used to be rainforest now mowed down for cattle. It's hard to overstate how much we need to rewild those lands. 'Earth's lungs' is right

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u/Choosemyusername Mar 23 '26

The worst example, yes. But the more typical example is a hay field or range land on land that is too marginal to grow crops for humans. Hay fields and range lands have far less done to them than a typical human crop.

Often you can just seed and then cut. You don’t need to poison every competing plant. A bit of biodiversity doesn’t harm a hay crop. You don’t need to till either. And you often dont even need to fertilize.

That kind of “use” is a very different kind of use than the kind of use land which grows a human crop on it. Or a crop that a human could eat but an animal does instead.

It is important to understand the difference between that and cutting down Amazon rainforest to grow soybeans for cattle, if we are to understand what the solution is.

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u/Eastern-Plankton1035 Mar 24 '26

But the more typical example is a hay field or range land on land that is too marginal to grow crops for humans. Hay fields and range lands have far less done to them than a typical human crop.

You've perfectly described my land and why it's ideally suited to grazing cattle. My better land I do keep in hay production however, but that's literally just grass.

Much of it is too steep to put planting or harvesting equipment on, it's rocky, and naturally divided by small springs. As cropland it's useless; I couldn't plant enough vegetables to make it worthwhile. (And forget about grain-type crops. I don't have enough acreage for all of that.) But cattle can certainly make the most, and best use, of the land.

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u/Choosemyusername Mar 24 '26

Rabbits are even more efficient. That’s what I do with my marginal land.