(August 12, 2014 at 2:04 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I missed this earlier, I always take the time to correct it - "meat farming" -is not- less efficient than "plant farming". This is propaganda. Don't get me wrong, I'd like for it to be, I really would - then I could feel even better about myself...lol. The only reason we even have feedlots is because they operate more efficiently within our current conditions than free range operations do. Similarly, the reason we added livestock to our small farms is that they up the productivity of the farm in toto (both in their ability to convert nutrients into a usable form, and to store them once converted - they are the original food processing plants). We feed "perfectly good" livestock grade grain to cattle because it not only maximizes the price per head, but also the return on the grain, particularly so when growing a higher quality grain is either environmentally or economically unfeasable-for whatever reason. We also feed them leftover high quality grain (that offers nutrients available to human beings with no or marginal processing) when there is a glut of that grain - we can only eat so much of it, but to make sure we don't starve (and for a list of other reasons too long to mention) we devote a hell of alot of space to it. This also maximizes the return off the high quality stuff (where it can be grown) - and this money is what convinces and enables producers to...you know..produce.
It seems to me that you mean meat is more economically efficient for individual farmers. At a population level a plant based diet would use significantly less natural resources, and is therefore more efficient e.g. Pimentel et al state that "The average fossil energy input for all the animal protein production systems studied is 25 kcal fossil energy input per 1 kcal of protein produced. This energy input is more than 11 times greater than that for grain protein production, which is about 2.2 kcal of fossil energy input per 1 kcal of plant protein produced"
