Discussion

kshahkshah: Not trying to be overly flippant... who cares?The paper opens with "to feed a growing population" without asking is that what we need? want? where we are actually heading to?Is feeding the world a real problem? I've yet to see compelling evidence that it really is except as a secondary effect of logistics, energy supply, and war.edit: I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

choilive: Agreed. The market should decide if beef consumption is viable. Ultimately energy is the basis all food production. Cheap and plentiful energy solves the food production and distribution problem, then its just matter of preferences.

mhurron: > The market should decide if beef consumption is viableThe market has decided, ant it decided that the well off are more important than the rest so they get what they want at everyone elses expense.Maybe we should stop thinking market forces are in any way right or moral. At least saying 'I got mine, fuck you' would be honest.

lkbm: > If excess beef consumption were reduced to healthy quantities, as defined by the EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet, and substituted with chicken in forty-eight higher-income countries, the lost calories avoided would be enough to meet the caloric needs of 850 million people.It's really impressive how efficient chickens are compared to beef. Obviously thinks like legumes are way more efficient, but we've really bred chickens to be meat machines in a way we haven't with cows.

vharuck: They aren't just amazingly efficient in converting calories to protein, they're great at eating things without much other (agricultural) value to us. They eat the invasive spotted lantern fly!

khelavastr: Also them: more adults globally eat too many calories

sergiotapia: > overpopulation, don't have children.> but births are below replacement levels and we must allow a lot of migrants to keep our GDP growing!what a joke!

mikestew: You're using commonly-used chars to indicate quotes, but you're not quoting anything anyone has typed. What are you on about?

synasties: Then can human process grass?

charlesabarnes: Cattle feed is more than grass

skeeter2020: depends on the phase of development. Most beef is pasture fed for a significant period, maybe supplemented with extra feed in the winter, but still grass, etc. It's only near the relatively short end they are consolidated & finished at the feed lot.

BadBadJellyBean: "The market" doesn't work as long as costs to the environment can be externalized. If the cost of climate change and lost living space would be added to the cost of beef it might be fair. But it isn't. Methane released by cows, cutting down rain forests for feed, and all the transporting costs us all dearly. But it doesn't cost the manufacturers anything directly so beef can be cheap.

brightbeige: Actual title: Only half of the calories produced on croplands are available as food for human consumption

whalesalad: This is a really big shocker to most people, especially in America. We see these big huge farmlands with rows and rows of corn. We hear the propaganda that farmers are the backbone of this nation and we can't live without them. Songs sing in our heads, "amber waves of grain, from sea to shining sea". People get a warm and fuzzy feeling. Country music psyop perpetuates this. Meanwhile a substantial portion (as noted here) is garbage. It's genetically modified crap from a fortune 100 company that requires fertilizer and herbicide from the same fortune 100 company and any seeds harvested contractually cannot be re-used so the grower needs to re-buy every year. And it's not for human consumption! A lot of it isn't even for animal consumption, it's for ethanol or other uses. Whole situation just kinda cracks me up.

maerF0x0: Correct, but many lands like parts of Alberta and Texas are not very good for growing foods humans can eat. So you may as well get marginal additional calories out of the non-productive land via cellulose digesters.

hellojimbo: > we need the calories to feed a growing population> population doubles> we need the calories to feed a growing population

eykanal: This is being downvoted, but is raising a serious point.- Nearly 90% of Americans eat red meat [1].- Environmental activity against meat has led a lot of people (26% of Americans) to believe that there is a push to ban red meat. This issue does not poll well [1].- Despite the above, Americans are eating less red meat than we used to [2].- The vast majority of people who choose to reduce their meat intake do so for cost or health reasons, not environmental [3].Putting all that together... studies like this do not help the environmental cause. Sure, they find something that's vaguely interesting, and can possibly be a bullet point on an environmentalist slide. However, a far better research study would be one focusing on human health impacts of red meat, or demonstrating economic benefits to red meat alternatives.tl;ld - This study is not useful, and is probably damaging to it's own cause.[1]: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/nearly-nine-ten-ameri...[2]: https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-survey-reveals-r...[3]: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/two-thirds-of-a...

cbolton: On the other hand I read chicken is much worse than beef in terms of animal suffering. But that's much more dependent on the producer than the energy calculation and climate impact I guess.

capitainenemo: Yeah, the kurzgesagt episode on meat production did note that overall cows have a pretty good life right up until the final fattening feed lots which is pretty bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVfTPaxRwkThey did note though, that it wouldn't cost that much, relatively, to give chickens pretty good lives. That really we're doing this just to drive the price down by pretty small amounts.

bluefirebrand: Small anecdoteSince about 2019 I have been anemic. My iron levels were just a hair above being low enough to require an immediate infusion, and my doctor kept pushing me to eat more iron. She would often ask if I was a vegetarian or vegan, presumably she was assuming I was bad at it. I would always tell her the same thing. "I don't eat much beef but I do eat it"Last summer I was diagnosed with celiac. Suddenly it all makes sense. I'm low on iron because my gut cannot absorb it.So I start eating gluten free, and I start eating way more red meat than I used to, because building your iron levels takes a lot more iron intake than maintaining it. Now, about 8-9 months later I'm finally starting to feel better and my blood tests are showing my iron slowly creeping out of the danger zoneMy nutritionist tells me that recovering this quickly would have probably been just about impossible for a vegetarian or vegan, without having an iron infusion done.Anyways. Beef is kind of an important thing in our diets, that's all. Now that I'm back to a more normal level I'll go back to eating less of it, but I am now very conscious how important red meat is in a rounded diet.

tracker1: I think we need more ruminant animals raised on grass as a means of regenerative farming... I think beef largely gets a bad rap for a lot of reasons that largely don't hold to grass fed cattle farming.

gradus_ad: "lost calories" as if having people consume animal feed to reduce total caloric loss is a good idea.

zetanor: What's the matter, honey? You've barely touched your corn in canola oil.

sirbutters: And meat is heavily subsidized by the government. It's insanity and corruption.

bryanlarsen: Cows eat grass. Humans use more calories digesting grass than they gain from eating grass, so cows are infinitely more efficient than humans at gaining calories from grass.And there are places in the world where growing human food would destroy the land. Semi-deserts like Texas and Montana. Grazing cattle there is a good idea. Bison would be even better because the native prairie there is adapted to bison, but cattle are a close substitute.But we eat a lot more cattle than Texas & Montana can support.

xvxvx: Stop filtering your nutrition through animals. It’s inefficient.

usrusr: > Is feeding the world a real problem?In light of recent, uhm, "challenges" to fertilizer supply chains?

jvanderbot: Most cows don't eat grass like a wandering herd. Most cows eat stuff we grow on farms that could grow stuff we can eat instead.https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2024/december/ers-data-...andhttps://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feed-gr...

WorkerBee28474: The first link you posted says that 29% of the land is used for pasture and 15% is used for crops (which will include both human and animal).So yes, most cows are eating grass like a wandering herd.

duskwuff: That doesn't follow. The chart is counting the number of acres of land which are used for specific purposes, not the number of cattle being raised on that land. And the category you're counting as "pasture" encompasses rangeland as well, which is used at an extremely low density (often as low as 1 head of cattle per 10 acres).

rayiner: This is stupid thinking indulged in by westerners who were born in the lap of luxury. The market is incredibly moral. When my dad was born in a village in Bangladesh, 1 out of 4 kids didn’t live past age 5. Thanks to market reforms and the resulting economic growth, child mortality in Bangladesh has plummeted. Bangladesh’s under-5 morality rate is better today than America’s was at the same time my dad was born.If India and Bangladesh hadn’t fucked around with socialism for decades after independence, we could have reached the same point many years ago. Millions of children would have been saved. Talk about immorality.

0xbadcafebee: [delayed]

tootie: I know you warned us, but this overly flippant.There's plenty of obvious reasons we shouldn't be wasting land, energy, water and labor on producing things that don't get utilized. Even in the most selfish capitalist sensibility, we are wasting money. Yes the energy issue is much bigger than this but wasted energy utilization is part of that problem. I know this is politically fraught, but that should not have any bearing on scholarship. This is just data to add to our understanding.And also that this study is global, not purely applicable to America. Republicans can exploit outrage with lies to their base, but that isn't such a slam dunk everywhere in the world

margalabargala: It depends I suppose as well whether one counts suffering the same in a cow vs a chicken vs a fish vs an insect.

all2: > Is feeding the world a real problem?Yes, but it is not a production capacity problem. The constraints on food are mostly in the logistics chain, often having to do with corruption or distribution targets (food goes where the money is), or regulation (did you know that cherry growers in the Upper Midwest are required --_by Federal law_-- to destroy unsold crops?).A huge amount of food goes to waste simply because of regulation or subsidies, at least within the United States.

ls612: This is for good reason though. You want to overproduce significantly in ordinary times so that if there is a big negative shock you will still be able to produce enough to feed everyone merely by not destroying the excess anymore.

voxl: There is no reason to obliterate food, you should give it away to those in need.

Alupis: People do not eat tart cherries directly. They are processed into other goods, like pie filling, juice concentrate, etc.Sweet cherries have no such regulation, and are the ones you consume directly as a fruit - without any additional processing.

Dylan16807: That's a nice bit of trivia but it doesn't really affect the comment you're replying to. It's still food, full of flavor and calories, and able to be used by a home cook (by making a pie).

Alupis: If you researched this regulation even a little, you'd see the crops are rarely destroyed. They are far more often exported, diverted to secondary markets, donated, or carried-over into next-season's stock.It's interesting to me how people are quick to comment about things they know nothing about...> It's still food, full of flavor and caloriesTart cherries have about 1-2 calories per cherry, and do not taste good without a lot of sugar. That's why they are used in commercial processing, not generally sold as a fruit in grocery stores.

mhurron: You mean the Socialism that produces higher quality of life in Scandinavia as compared to to say the US where the oh so moral market decides if you weren't born into the upper end of society you deserve to die of disease and conditions that can be treated?The market is not moral, it is amoral and it serves those with the money to direct it.

tracker1: There are absolutely a number of people that would love to ban meat consumption.I eat mostly meat and eggs, because there isn't much else I can eat that doesn't cause a number of digestive or inflammation issues for me.

RhysU: In the US agricultural subsidies for 2024 were overwhelmingly for corn ($3.2B), soybeans ($1.9B), cotton ($998M), and wheat ($960M). Pasture comes in 5th ($741M).https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...Tofu and ethanol may be more price-distorted by the US government than is beef, but I dunno how to quickly support that idea with hard data beyond what I cited above.

datsci_est_2015: Have you been to the Midwest to observe the scale of corn and soybean operations? I would wager the number of calories per dollar subsidy produced by the corn and soybean industries outweighs handily the calories per dollar subsidy produced by cattle operations, especially given the 10% reduction in efficiency per trophic level.Also, how much does beef benefit from cheap feed prices (corn and soy) due to subsidies as well?

selimthegrim: Why don't you ask noted anti-socialism state Pakistan (pre and post-1971) how that's going?

HWR_14: Are the calories used by biofuels and cattle even directly consumable by humans?

kaleinator: Surprised how many people in the replies actually think their beef is grass fed.

tracker1: A large amount of beef is mostly grass fed and finished on a grain feed lot the last month of life.

stvltvs: Depending on how we measure it, either 58% or 75% of that heavily subsidized soy goes to feed animals.https://insideanimalag.org/share-of-soybean-crop-for-feed/

shrubble: There are people who for various ideological reasons hate beef.If the market demands more chicken over beef, producers are perfectly capable of making a switch.Cows are able to make delicious beef from grass and thistles; that they are often fed other things is not a proof that eating cows is bad.

foxyv: Don't forget that cattle agriculture can make rainforests into wastelands.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...

tracker1: That wasn't the cows that did it... it was people. Cows themselves are largely regenerative in terms of soil and land health from grazing.

WorkerBee28474: > To feed a growing population, it is essential that the global agri-food system be managed to efficiently convert crop production into calories for human consumption.It's really not. Efficiency is the enemy of redundancy. Countries want food security, so they must therefore produce excess calories.

ux266478: I think it's important to a point, to be pedantic. But yes, global food production is well over the hurdle of production volume to "feed everyone", even for highly redundant crop yields. The remaining challenge is purely logistical and of course combating unchecked profit motive that's become malignant.

9rx: Global food production now produces more than enough calories to feed everyone, but still hasn't figured out how to produce enough nutrients to feed everyone.

AlBugdy: > My nutritionist tells me that recovering this quickly would have probably been just about impossible for a vegetarian or vegan, without having an iron infusion done."probably been just about impossible" doesn't mean "impossible", it more likely means changing your eating habits to a point where you'd have to be really conscious and careful of what you eat iron-wise unlike someone without Celiacs (vegan or not) or someone who likes and can afford beef and can eat as much of it as they want.There are lentils, beans, tofu, dark leafy greens and other sources of iron. There are iron-fortified foods. IIRC are other considerations that might prevent careless or food-addicted people like getting enough vitamin C to help with the iron absorption or not eating foods that decrease it.There are plenty of vegans with Celiacs who manage their iron adequately. But even if you're only of those cases where iron needs to be supplemented, even IV - why not? If you disregard all the arguments against beef or animal products in general it's easy to make the argument that beef would be the best solution.This reads like appeal to authority (the nutritionist) but a lot of nutritionists take the easy road ("just eat beef") or aren't good at all (haven't kept up with research). That's true of the majority of doctors and the majority of programmers (something people here will be able to relate to in case they haven't realized how useless most doctors are). I've been in and out of hospitals for several relatives for years and have heard doctors tell me outright falsehoods that show they have a only basic understanding of something. That makes sense since those doctors must know about so much more than the patient (thousands of diseases, lots of scientific knowledge about biology) but with a depth-first search into a topic you can spot how most of them have either stopped reading new studies or have lost their motivation to explore all option or have just stopped caring for providing the best kind of care. I hope people here don't have to go through what I have. That was a bit of a tangent, but I already wrote it so I'll keep it as a mini-rant.> Beef is kind of an important thing in our diets, that's all. Now that I'm back to a more normal level I'll go back to eating less of it, but I am now very conscious how important red meat is in a rounded diet.That's not really true. I'm sure you could ask vegans or vegetarians or Hindus or anyone who doesn't eat beef but has Celiacs and you'd get a whole bunch of options for managing it. Sure, you'll find ignorant people who think eating fruits all the time is enough but that's the same kind of carelessness that leads to non-vegans eating the standard Western died all the time or doing other basic mistakes.The same is true for almost everything. Almost nothing is "an important thing in our diets". People live without nuts or fruits or vegetables or legumes or meat or eggs or dairy (not all at once, of course) and are able to manage pretty much any disease other groups of people can manage.> calories are only part of the picture when it comes to foodTrue, people should care about the macros and micros. But with the internet it's trivial to do so both wrt learning what does what and how much is needed, and to track how much one eats from each.

ErroneousBosh: > Most cows don't eat grass like a wandering herd. Most cows eat stuff we grow on farms that could grow stuff we can eat instead.Most cows do eat grass and other stuff we can't eat."Hard feed" is made from crops grown as part of a rotation cycle, or from things like soya where 80% of it is only suitable for cattle feed.

datsci_est_2015: Amazing that advancements in Bangladeshi quality of life is due to only market forces! What an incredibly unique geopolitical phenomenon.

rayiner: [delayed]

cameldrv: Exactly. The current world population is 8.3 billion and is expected to peak at 10.3 billion in 2080 and then begin declining. Now, there are a number of other reasons we might have food shortages, but population per se I don't think is a significant factor.

capitainenemo: Even if food shortages aren't an issue, reducing the amount of land dedicated to food production is a win for ecosystems.Not saying people have to go vegetarian, but reducing meat consumption or using more efficiently produced meats (in terms of land use) would overall make the world a nicer and more interesting place.And, really, with the whole neu5gc thing, it might be that humans would be better off focusing on chickens and seafood anyway (clams being a pretty good option for seafood that is relatively environmentally friendly).

tracker1: Grass fed cattle can use land that is generally not fit for vegetation farming... because of excess rocks, etc. Ruminants that are being naturally (grass) fed are also regenerative in terms of soil health.They don't tend to "bulk up" as much as conventional (grain fed and/or finished) options though, so are more expensive to produce... the gas emissions are another issue that is largely different for grass fed, where the off gases are roughly the same as the grass's natural breakdown would release anyway.In terms of water use, naturally grass fed cattle are mostly using water that fell on the land as rain in terms of how much water they use. It's not much from municipal sources, unlike vegetation farming.Of course there are other ruminant options that are more efficient than cattle, such as goats and sheep, with similar benefits to the soil.It just bugs me that cattle gets such a bad repuation... especially in that it's one of the few things I can eat without issue.

capitainenemo: So, I was saying ecosystems. Filling the world with cows is not the same as natural ecosystems.Also, kurzgesagt did a pretty good episode on meat production (edit - they did several, but one was on the production demands in terms of energy and environment), and if I'm to trust their figures, the "cattle grazing exclusively on the pampas" is far from the majority of world cattle. If it was, that probably would be an improvement, esp if it was done in a way that allowed other species to exist too (maybe bring some buffalo back?). The percentage would be dramatically improved if finishing lots were eliminated though (still a minority though). So maybe that's a simple option. Plus, that's the cruelest part of the cow's existence.https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture (crazy amount of habitable surface of planet is livestock) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01398-4 (study on what percent of production is actually "low-intensity grazing on marginal land")Again, not saying eliminate, just... reduce...

tracker1: I don't think the answer is reduce though... I think it's increase... humans wiped out so many of the ruminant animals (buffalo mainly) that kept the grasslands healthy... we've largely over-farmed in the interim since. We need more ruminants, not less.This means raising much more than we currently do, and probably a reduction in slaughter numbers for the next 50+ years to increase the domestic supply. Can't speak for other nations... but it's literally expanding grasslands as opposed to desert.

capitainenemo: Yes. I saw that TED talk about desertification being reversed by ruminants, and while it got a lot of critics, it had some pretty good points. But, those ruminants would be better off not being beef cattle in terms of biodiversity. Also, if they were beef cattle due to the lack of anything better, hopefully it would be short term, and if you're making a case for use of marginal land, they really shouldn't be finished in a feed lot, since that is using a lot of cropland to support that.... and only some places would (possibly) benefit from that.

balderdash: isn't the obvious answer not to eat less beef but rather not produce beef super fast with grain feed. if the beef we ate came from grass lands + hay in the the winter it would cost more, but would dramatically reduce the crop consumption...

ErroneousBosh: > hay in the the winterHere in the UK, we use silage because the weather is a bit too variable to trust with letting hay dry out. It feels like it's probably more energy-dense and has more nutrition in it, you certainly don't need to feed as much.Other things that work well are sugar beet (grows well as part of a cycle of crop rotation, clears weeds pretty well) and all that barley left over from brewing beer and making whisky.Even soya-based cattle feed is made from the tough cellulosey bits that humans can't eat. If you want to try, I'm sure I can get you some - but maybe have something on hand for the inevitable constipation because it is all fibre.

shafyy: You jabroni, what do you think they use that soybean and corn for? Exactly, to feed liveestock.

_aavaa_: It’s hard for the market to decide on its own when the environmental damage of meat production is left as an unpriced externality and when government subsidies are handed out like candy.

tracker1: "environmental damage" of meat production is largely overblown and misrepresented. Especially for grass (naturally) fed ruminants.

datsci_est_2015: Is the deforestation of the Amazon overblown? What about the draining of American aquifers?

tracker1: In terms of the Amazon... that was done BY humans... the cattle didn't tear down any trees. In terms of aquifers in the US... if the cattle are naturally raised in grassland areas or areas where regeneration is a goal, then it's largely using water for the health of the land, not strictly the cattle.MOST water used by cattle is rain water that would have fallen on the land with or without the cattle there.

_aavaa_: > In terms of the Amazon... that was done BY humans... the cattle didn't tear down any trees.This is a pedantic distinction that accomplishes nothing.The humans did it to grow cattle for food. If the price of that destruction had to be paid by the producers/consumers there would be a lot less people eating meat.

raincole: > it's for ethanol or other uses... and? I read it so far down. Now could you please kindly explain why this is "garbage"?

wield_overhaul: In general, biofuels are a pretty inefficient use of land: https://ourworldindata.org/biofuel-land-solar-electric-vehic...

nh23423fefe: Ok drive to Michigan and haul away 3 tons of cherries.

voxl: Insightful retort, did you forget the slight issue of it being illegal?

irishcoffee: Pretty sure the western US states are in a water shortage because they grow almonds et. al. In places that were not meant to be agricultural, importing water, fucking up the entire ecosystem of the region and causing massive water shortages, and massive environmental damage.But yeah, we can keep focusing on the farting cows, that’s the problem.

Barrin92: >I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.is there a rational argument in here or is this just a cheap psychological reflex to keep eating beef? Because it's not clear to me how solving our energy problems and the consumption of beef even intersect so that we couldn't do both at the same time.You might as well have said "man I really should stop drinking and smoking, but we gotta solve the energy problems first"

irishcoffee: Isn’t that entirely their point? Stop bitching about cows (not a real problem at all) and fix an actual problem. Seems like you nailed it.People aren’t going to stop eating beef, full stop. Won’t happen, full stop. It’s akin to suggesting we need to stop eating eggs, also will never happen.These threads pop up on here every so often and it amuses me in a morose way. Nothing will ever change in the beef industry, not even in places like California, who are actively causing a water shortage in order to grow crops. That is a much bigger problem than farting cows, the whole region is aware of the problem, and no movement has been made to create a fix.Give it up on the cows, there are bigger fish to fry.

victorbjorklund: Aha. All the grass humans could eat instead of the cows. Not all land is great for growing crops at. Other land is just good for growing grass for cattle to graze on.

fallingfrog: Ok but don't cattle often browse on land that is too marginal for farming? And don't they eat grass? I don't know if this argument holds up.

_aavaa_: Ask yourself why they are growing almonds there if it’s such a problem? Because those almond growers have water right contracts that are absurdly cheap and are use it or lose it.Fine by me though, add in the environmental costs for almonds too. Would you support an initiative of pricing these externalities on food, or is it just a snarky comment about cow farts?

ahhhhnoooo: We have 8 billion people. We have enough people to solve both the energy problem and the food efficiency problem.That said, it's very, very funny that you responded to an article about energy inefficiency (calorie -> calorie) and said we should solve our energy problems. Beef is an energy problem! We're putting 30x the energy into the product against the energy we get out! Thats wasted energy!

colechristensen: Eh. Grow beef mostly grazed on marginal land that can't support other agriculture.This is how a LOT of beef is produced and how most of it SHOULD BE.They're not "lost calories" if they're produced on large swaths of semi-arid land that don't support any other kind of agriculture.And on the opposite side... a LOT of those "lost calories" are corn. Corn is substantially more productive than other crops and people don't want to replace large portions of their diet with cereal grains or corn syrup so much of those "lost calories" would also be lost to much less efficient crops.

asdff: I'm starting to see goat herds used a lot for wildfire brush abatement for large business properties on steep hillsides (not sure if I've seen an individual residential lot goat-abated but maybe it happens too). Normally hard and dangerous work for people with power tools, but the goats seem happy and in their element.

darth_avocado: This is the kind of proposal that might fly well when it comes to the discourse over meat. People say “but we could be growing other crops instead of feed for cows”. Well yes, but you need protein in the diet. You can’t grow potatoes and veggies and expect people to survive only on that. Then there’s the question of land utilization. Historically cattle was raised for meat and dairy where agriculture was more difficult as compared to grazing cows, sheep, goats etc. The modern corn, soybean and alpha alpha farms may be able to grow other crops, but would they be able to support the crops that are needed in nutrition? Chicken and other more efficient substitutions may be the answer here.

jshen: You can absolutely survive and thrive on a vegetarian diet, and there is decent evidence suggesting you're health will be better.

heathrow83829: meat uses up enormous quantities of water. potatoes for instance use about 75 gallons to produce 2000 calories compared to say 1500 to 2500 gallons for 2000 calories of beef.

some_random: Water is not equally scarce everywhere, this is a simple matter of producing things only in places where the production thereof makes sense

asdff: The farmer wants the gmo crop. They see the yields they get and go hell yeah. They can't use the seeds next year because these are often hybrids taking advantage of hybrid vigor. These crops get more out of existing fertilizer applications. This is the whole point of them: inputs cost less, yields go up, more profit.Look at this figure of corn yields per acre (1). Yellow is the "old age" where yields were stagnant. Red is when fertilizer began to be used. Now the huge slope change, has been in exploiting genetic hybrids. GMO allows protection of desirable hybrid traits that might be lost in breeding, introduction of traits to to other strains. Traits of interest are primarily around lessening usage of fertilizer, lessening usage of insecticides, as these are all input costs the farmer would rather not pay especially if they can get the same yield without paying. Thank you GMOs for keeping this linear change in yield even over the last 15 years! Could you believe we improved our corn yields substantially over these 15 years? Remarkable the work biologists do in the quiet of their field.But of course, lay people just think it is a big conspiracy. They don't understand any of this. They think GMOs are copyright but that belies a lack of education of the last century of agriculture development, since that doesn't make sense as farmers have been using hybrids and ordering new seed some 70 years now in certain crops. It is the nations who have to resort to reusing seed and these inferior strains that are suffering poor yields and food insecurity. Over here, we feed far more with far less land under the plow every year. Their yields are still stagnant at historical levels. And climate change is coming for them, while we are understanding the very genetic basis of our yield improvement. They will be using seeds we engineer for them to be high yield in their changing environment to survive widespread famine in the coming decades.1. https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/newsletters/pestandcrop/wp...

krater23: Yes, we could concreting this land and build housings and streets.

jamespo: or could eat something less likely to give you bowel cancer

some_random: >Another reason people starve is economics and market forces. The market decides it wants to use up more water and grain to feed cows. That grain and water is now not available for purchase as human food. That means it is more scarce on the human-feeding market. Scarcity drives up prices. So livestock feed makes grain more expensive, making it harder to purchase, for people to eat.None of these are logistics, energy supply, or war. The paper is specifically talking about increasing efficiency in food production, the originally commenter is saying that efficiency of production is not the main driver for undernourishment and your comment doesn't address that.

jamespo: This is the first I've heard of a lot of beef produced on semi-arid land incapable of supporting anything else, any source on that?

Barrin92: >and fix an actual problem.but it is an actual problem. The beef industry has a large ecological impact. You yourself bring up the water shortages as a result of crop production... who do you think are the crops grown for?You're just yelling "lalala I'm not listening" basically. The world doesn't consist of "real" and "fake" problems depending on how much you're offended by the topic, the world has a million problems, the more we tackle of them the better.Sure you can say nothing will ever change, I don't care, but that's not an actual argument, that's just screaming like a kid who doesn't want his toys taken away, how is that an adult conversation. If you can't even tackle the cows how are you going to tackle bigger fish? Are the bigger fish being dealt with?The only people who ever pretend you can ignore an ostensibly small regional problem, to fix the world are people who literally fix neither because in reality they're nihilists who don't want to solve anything because they never want to take any personal responsibility.

irishcoffee: Clearly I struck a nerve, this isn’t a genuine conversation. I gave up reading your reply at paragraph 2.Have a nice day!

maxglute: Conversion efficiency is slippery slope to vegetarianism.

dmitrygr: > "needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal"The calories cows eat are ... useless to humans. We cannot digest cullulose (grass) and most of the rest of the things we feed to cows. Anyone throwing this number around has an agenda, and is not objective

joaohaas: The grass most cows eat also need to be planted. The point of this post is that we could be planting stuff we can eat so you don't have to 'pay' the conversion cost.

victorbjorklund: No, not all land isn’t the same. It is far more profitable to grow a high value crop vs plain grass. But some land just isn’t great for other things than grass. You have large cattle farms in Australia where you can’t grow anything other than grass and other wild plants.

idle_zealot: > edit: I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.There's no "first." There's not a queue of problems that the people of the world work on one by one. It's not a matter of limited labor/money either, we're talking about policies to change allocation. If anything is limited here it's political will, but that doesn't really work like money or physical limitations, it's more abstract and nonlinear. It's quite possible that a platform containing more changes earns more will than one with fewer, so budgeting is the wrong impulse.