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Here’s How America Uses Its Land (2018)
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Ugh, I accidentally deleted my previous comment when trying to edit, sorry for the double reply.
Original reply:
You think that the amount of land being dedicated to making food for livestock dwarfing the amount of land dedicated to feeding people is not a legitimate complaint?
Edit: eyeballing it, we use twice as much land (and as a result, water, energy, etc used in the farming process) making food for livestock (ie, food for what will become food) as we do making food for us
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.
it's not actually clear how much of that land is exclusively for growing animal feed, and how much of that land is being attributed to animal feed, which is also used for human food. for instance, a soybean is only about 20% oil. about that much is used by humans. The other 80% of the soybean is a byproduct of pressing for oil called soy cake. that soy cake is fed to livestock, but if it weren't fed to livestock, it would be industrial waste. is 80% of soybean land use to grow food for livestock? no. 100% of it is used to grow food for people, and food for livestock. and we feed cottonseed to cattle, but cotton isn't grown for cottonseed: it's grown for textiles. is that land being attributed? I've read the article is carefully as I can, and it doesn't seem to make this nuance at all.
All good, glad we smoothed that over :)