this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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No. No. That's completely wrong. That's not what I think, because it doesn't make any sense. There are no crops that can be effectively and cheaply grown in rocky, arid wasteland. If we weren't using it to let cattle graze, it would be wild land being grazed by buffalo instead. Now, maybe you could argue that would still be better, but it wouldn't be growing food for humans any more efficiently. Buffalo aren't actually any more efficient than cattle at producing meat, and nobody's hauling water up to into the high Rockies to irrigate rocks. That's not a real thing that people would be doing if cattle weren't grazing there.
There is a dedicated section for "pasture/range" which is the grazing space you're talking about. I am not talking about that. I'm talking about the section for "livestock feed" which is crop growth.
That's fair. I guess I misunderstood. Sorry. Yeah, it would be nice if that part were smaller. It's still not a perfect one to one comparison. Feed crops do actually tend to use less other resources. Sometimes a lot less, depending on the crop you're comparing them to, but yeah, it's a lot of land that could be growing things for humans, and there's more of it than there needs to be. Sorry. You are right about that.
All good, glad we smoothed that over :)