| This is a kind of "wronger than wrong" fallacy [0]. Yes, not all pasture land is suitable for cereal crops. But that doesn't negate the fact that most livestock production does present an inefficient tradeoff when optimizing for nutrition and land/climate impact. This is because a) a large portion of cereal crops are diverted to feed livestock and b) very little livestock comes from natural pasture land. So only a miniscule percent of livestock production represents no land use tradeoff whatsoever. a) 40% of cereal crops go toward animal feed [1] and most modern animal agriculture would be impossible without this. Arable land that could be feeding humans is being used to feed animals which then feed humans. That represents roughly a 90% loss of potential biological productivity [2]. b) Despite the US having some of the largest natural pasture, only 4% of retail beef in the US is grass-fed--meaning only a tiny percent are fed exclusively from pasture [3]. Additionally, most pasture land has been converted from forest. 40% of deforestation overall is due to animal agriculture [4]. This is only a little less than plant-based agriculture which provides sinificantly more food. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cereal-distribution-to-us... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level [3] https://extension.sdstate.edu/grass-fed-beef-market-share-gr... [4] https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/cop26-agricultural-expan... |
I'd imagine a lot of the US' livestock needs could be handled by just re-wilding pasture lands with native plant and animal species (including bison). And just as a guess I'd imagine it'd be more sustainable than trying to raise cows.