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counterpoint: industrial agriculture exists mostly to sustain animal products
That's a really good counterpoint.
Crops like soybeans are mostly cultivated for animal consumption, but are you sure it holds for the entirety of the industrial agriculture?
You mean, compared to what goes to the market for people?
I don't eat much of not industrial agriculture products, even local farms only produce fruits, and I would say they are also industrial (not sure where is the line)
Cows and other farm animals need a lot of food:
More than three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world's protein and calories. [...] However, only half of the world’s croplands are used to grow crops that are consumed by humans directly. We use a lot of land to grow crops for biofuels and other industrial products, and an even bigger share is used to feed livestock.
As per the article two thirds of that 'agricultural land' is graze-lands, so like a 12.5% of that agricultural land is actually farmland dedicated to feed livestock.
I see, 25% is still not too little, I expected this to be less than 10% based on how you phrased the first comment. But you're right, it's possible to greatly reduce strain on land
That wasn't me, but I found out about it relatively recently and I'm happy to share it.
Oh, true, sorry I'm a bit sloppy
Thanks for sharing, anyway ❤️
No worries :)
Not only that. But our agriculture is so centered around animals that we also have a huge surplus of manure (the animals' feces, horn shavings, basically anything left of them) that we then use on all kinds of plant crops. It is so baked into the system that it will be a long way before we can really get a animal-free agriculture...
This is certainly true for our modern agriculture today. But is this really true for any possible industrial agriculture? Couldn't we also have a plant based industrial agriculture leaving domesticated animals out of the equation altogether? Sure, we are a far way off from that. But I think it would be achievable and that we should aim for it.
The animal products are also just more industrial scale, subsidized farming, too.