Yeah, in a tribal or medieval society. The math is very different in an industrialised society. The point where the equation really starts changing is when there isn’t enough space for all the animals to pasture, so instead of eating grass, the livestock are fed energy dense produce like corn grown on a different farm. Get rid of the cows and feed the corn to the people, and you’ll use a tiny fraction of the amount of land, water, and energy.
Since when Scotland and New Zealand are tribal and medieval societies? Or maybe France and Italy are tribal and medieval? There’s never a point when growing crops is better than growing meat. That’s a myth peddled by the sugar industry.
Australia has roughly the same amount of land as America, and a tenth the population. The Australian meat industry is able to be less subsidized than the American meat industry because of all the extra land. If you want to talk about overpopulation, Australia is one of the last places you should be looking. It has the fourth lowest population density in the world. In America, farmers need to grow corn to feed the cows, and they need extra money from the government to afford to do that. Australia can economically afford to eat meat, but America can’t. And India sure as hell can’t.
Yeah, in a tribal or medieval society. The math is very different in an industrialised society. The point where the equation really starts changing is when there isn’t enough space for all the animals to pasture, so instead of eating grass, the livestock are fed energy dense produce like corn grown on a different farm. Get rid of the cows and feed the corn to the people, and you’ll use a tiny fraction of the amount of land, water, and energy.
Since when Scotland and New Zealand are tribal and medieval societies? Or maybe France and Italy are tribal and medieval? There’s never a point when growing crops is better than growing meat. That’s a myth peddled by the sugar industry.
Australia has roughly the same amount of land as America, and a tenth the population. The Australian meat industry is able to be less subsidized than the American meat industry because of all the extra land. If you want to talk about overpopulation, Australia is one of the last places you should be looking. It has the fourth lowest population density in the world. In America, farmers need to grow corn to feed the cows, and they need extra money from the government to afford to do that. Australia can economically afford to eat meat, but America can’t. And India sure as hell can’t.