[kickout]

Fair comments.

I'm mulling whether we have enough land (at 100% regen practices). I almost think we do.

From a system-level, we're over saturated because of ethanol and other things that realistically could disappear and society would be better off. Just need to recalibrate our acres a bit

[zachware]

I don't know the number but I suspect some material % of corn production could go away if we stopped subsidizing that industry for insane things like making gasoline for electoral reasons. :-)

[snark42]

I think a material % would go away if we stopped feeding it to cows as well, a la regenerative ag.

[neuromancer2701]

make all the corn fields back into grasslands that they were and the cows will help rebuild the soil.

[kbenson]

Should we be worried about how many more ruminants this would require, and their impact on the climate? I just saw some estimates of 90 million acres used to grow corn in the U.S., and a cow calf pair needs 1.5-2 acres to feed itself. I know we probably wouldn't maximize cows to the area for the type of growing we're talking about, but that's 45 million cows (with calfs) at the low end if we were, and I'm seeing reports we currently have ~95 million head of cattle in the U.S.

Those are all napkin numbers, or poorly sourced, and worst case, but I would love to see some good numbers on what it means to the climate to have a lot more ruminants in the farming process. (If much of current beef cattle production was moved to be dispersed along these lands, that seems like it might be a good idea for all involved though).

[andscoop]

I think these numbers are from the more traditional way of farming.

At least one practitioner of regenerative agriculture, Gabe Brown, uses super dense grazing and frequent movement of the cattle to actually restore his soil health.

http://brownsranch.us/grazing/

If this sort of stuff interest you, I highly suggest his book, Dirt To Soil. It’s a light read with a lot of great information on regen ag.

[kickout]

its about 33% of acres of corn that go to ethanol.....this should go away even before electric cars MAKE them go away