[la6472]

FTA “ improvements in crop yields, agricultural productivity, and dietary choices are so important.”

and the biggest one imo is dietary choices. Our meat consumption has lead to pasteurization of forest land to raise and feed the huge amount of livestocks needed to satisfy our meat craving.

[skrbjc]

In the US, at least, we could keep our meat consumption quite high while still grazing lots of cattle. There are around 90 million cows in the US right now, and pre-1800s there were around 60 million bison in the US. Land and pasture management is important, but it can be done well. Check out Alexander Family Farm in CA for a great example.

We're not going to turn marginal grasslands into crops for human consumption, but using cattle to turn inedible grass into calories for human consumption is possible while maintaining that land as it was when bison roamed through it.

I also don't think that the US, for example, has to manage its land the same ways as other countries. If the US can effectively manage pasture and raise lots of cattle to eat, then we should be able to do that, and if other countries can't, then they should manage their land in a way that is optimal for their country. The US has a lot of grass pasture land that evolved over time to support the massive number of ruminants that roamed the US in the not too distant past.

Maybe the US should stop exports of beef and dairy and just focus on feeding its own people from well-managed land. But that would not be very popular, especially with our cattle industry.

[smallerfish]

> pasteurization

You mean pasturization. Pasteurization would also be unfortunate though.

[wiz21c]

Yeah, but done at that scale, it'd be quite a thing to watch :-)

[jahewson]

Once upon a time everything was forest land. The line seems a bit arbitrary.

[criley2]

While the many types of forests (deciduous, coniferous, rain, etc) dominate a lot of land on earth, there is still many types of plains, chaparral/savannah, deserts, mountain, tundras, etc.

[bryanlarsen]

There is more forest in North Dakota today than there was when Columbus landed.

[lupire]

0 forest certainly seems bad.

[Zababa]

> Our meat consumption has lead to pasteurization of forest land to raise and feed the huge amount of livestocks needed to satisfy our meat craving

Where? France has increased its forest surface since 1840, while increasing population and meat consumption.

[cogman10]

Most nations are outsourcing their diets and problems, particularly in the EU.

France, for example, has been pulling a lot of their beef from south america rather than eating locally raised cattle.

https://www.thelocal.fr/20180117/french-farmers-fear-ruin-ov...

[Zababa]

The article isn't supporting your claims:

> The source of his worry is a huge trade deal being negotiated by the European Union and the four Mercosur members Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — an accord whose signature seems closer than ever.

> The new imports would represent just one percent of Europe's total beef production, and 4.5 percent of France's output.

So the deal hasn't been signed and wouldn't represent much.

From another article (https://www.franceagrimer.fr/fam/content/download/66996/docu...)

> Issues à près de 92 % de l’Union européenne, les importations de viande bovine chutent de 16,8 % sur un an, pour atteindre près de 283 milliers de tec en 2020

Which rougly translates to "92% of beef imports are coming from the UE. They fell by 16.8% to 283k tec in 2020".

There's a total in "tableau 2", page 3. 28.4% of the total meat is imported, 18.9% for the beef. The total non EU beef is thus 8% (100% of total beef imported - 92% of UE beef) * 18.9% (percentage of imported beef). Rounded up, it's 1.6%. I would hardly call that "outsourcing their diets and problems" and "pulling a lot of their beef from South America". More than 80% of the cattle eaten is localy raised, less than 2% comes from outside the EU.

South American beef is not a thing in France. We surely have plenty of other issues, but South American beef is not one of them.

[bakuninsbart]

Imports exist, and France is a major importer of meat. Meat production has become less land intensive compared to 200 years ago, but it is by far the worst way of producing food if you compare calory intake to land use.

[Zababa]

> Meat production has become less land intensive compared to 200 years ago, but it is by far the worst way of producing food if you compare calory intake to land use.

Most meat, at least in France, is raised on land that couldn't support other kind of agriculture. The calorie intake of that land, without cows grazing on it, would be 0.

[Glawen]

I doubt so, farmers in my village in France never take their cows out of the barn. They feed them with dry grass and fermented corn (ensilage) they grow.

Cow grazing is a thing of the past unless you do milk for AOP cheese or premium meat. By the way cheap beef in supermarket is actually old milk cow

[wumpus]

France doesn't use feedlots? In the US, half of the meat weight is added to cattle in feedlots, using 1/2 of US corn production.

[barry-cotter]

No European country does really. Nor do Australia and New Zealand to my knowledge. That’s why the beef tastes so much better. Cattle that are grass fed taste very different.

[wumpus]

https://idele.fr/?eID=cmis_download&oID=workspace://SpacesSt...

French beef and dairy-cattle-finally-eaten-as-beef eat 2/3 grass.

[dotsam]

> Forest replacement by cattle is most prevalent in Brazil and Paraguay

> Forest area replaced by cattle accounts for 36 percent of all agriculture-linked tree cover loss worldwide

https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/defore...

[samatman]

The lifecycle is more complex than this. Slash and burn agriculture is used to squeeze a few cash soybean crops out, this requires specific GMO soy, and these are 90% sold to China to fatten pigs.

When the land is only suitable for grass, it's grazed for awhile, after which it's basically desert.

South America also has some of the richest cattle land in the world in the Pampas, which has sustained beef production for hundreds of years on land which is otherwise unsuitable to food production.

Pressure on one company could stop the conversion of rainforest into soybeans. This doesn't solve the problem in a single stroke, nothing can, but it would help, and it doesn't require influence over the government of Brazil.

[DANK_YACHT]

> and the biggest one imo is dietary choices.

Yes, let's blame the consumer. First of all, the consumer has no idea how their specific spending habits contribute to an issue. For instance, an educated consumer (many consumers are not educated btw) might understand that eating meat causes deforestation, but they have no way of knowing if their specific purchase is contributing to that. Second, blaming the consumer makes any solution almost impossible because organizing a very large group of disinterested people is very hard. It would be much more effective to regulate the relatively small number of meat producers that are perpetuating deforestation and let the market work out decreasing consumption through increased costs.

[wklauss]

> Yes, let's blame the consumer.

Yes, let's. I don't think an argument can be held against this. As a meat eater, I understand I'm the driving force of this issue. It's an inconvenient truth, but it is the truth nonetheless. I'm rooting for alternatives like lab-grown meat to thrive, but no amount of wishful thinking allows me to skirt the fact that eating less meat would probably be not only good for the planet, but specifically for my own health.

> the consumer has no idea how their specific spending habits contribute to an issue

Let me point it out: in the developed world it's almost 100% guaranteed that it contributes significantly. You have to go to pretty far edge cases to find really sustainably produced meat. A case can be made that not all industrial farms contribute to deforestation per se, but they are all part of a system that has a high cost for our environment. Deforestation is bad, but it's not –and should not be– the only issue.

[DANK_YACHT]

> As a meat eater, I understand I'm the driving force of this issue.

How did you come to that understanding? Did you dedicate your free time to studying the impact of meat eating, or was it part of your legally mandated education? A lot of people scrape by, barely able to make ends meet. They have children that require attention, or problems that require immediate action. They may have debts to pay, and no social safety net to help. At a fundamental level, they may have poor critical thinking skills. It's not realistic to expect every consumer to take the time to understand the consequences of every purchasing decision.

> A case can be made that not all industrial farms contribute to deforestation per se, but they are all part of a system that has a high cost for our environment.

But the package says it was humanely raised by family farms? Your trips to the grocery store are going to take a very long time if you need to do a supply chain analysis of every purchase.

If a person cuts down a tree for profit, and the removal of that tree is problematic, then that person is to blame. It doesn't make sense to blame someone many steps removed from the crime just because they, in a very indirect way, provided a very small incentive to commit the crime. The impact of the individual's consumption on the entirety of the industrial farming system is so small that, even if the individual consumer were to blame, they would be guilty of nothing more than the tiniest infraction. The issue with industrial farming arrises from the collective sum of demand, and thus requires a collective solution, i.e. centralized regulation.

[fleddr]

You're right, technically and morally.

But the parent commenter has an important point that should not be dismissed. It is far more effective to regulate/improve centrally at the producer side rather than "wait" for the goodwill of consumers.

You can't flood the world with cheap unsustainable meat (or other products), next put a far more expensive sustainable option next to it and think all of this will just magically play out.

Ideally, there should be no unsustainable goods being offered at all. The very word unsustainable pretty strongly suggests that ending the practice is a must.