Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, if you're not going to rear animals there's gonna be more demand for plant foods, although admittedly plant foods need way less space than livestock.

One might imagine so, but one would be wrong. If there were less meat there wouldn't be any reason to grow any more plants (and people wouldn't be looking to buy any more veggies). That market is already so saturated that we had to find something to do with the vast excess we currently produce. At present, that excess is used to feed livestock. Amusingly, if we lessened our livestock operations there would be -less- demand for a wide range of agricultural commodities.

As to the space livestock takes relative to crops - that's far too general a claim to make. Commercial spacing of pumpkins(and many other Cucurbitaceae) is 8foot in-row, 14 foot between rows. That's 112sq feet of space. That footprint extends upwards indefinitely, imagine the cubic feet. Maturation is on the short end 80 days on the long end up to 200. Imagine how many egg laying chickens would fit in a structure 112feet square and as tall as I can soundly build it? Imagine the number of eggs I would produce in two to seven months? Now imagine the useful byproducts, particularly the refuse (which can be processed into fertilizer). I'm going to get alot more out of egg laying hens than I am out of any commensurate space covered in pumpkins (and a wide range of other crops). On the other hand, lettuce, 6sq inches - 50-55 days seed to bolt.

So depending on what sort of livestock we're talking (fish are the big spoiler here, as they can be stocked vertically as high as the walls of their containment can be built or dug) and what sort of crop we're talking about the relative space required for either is going to change dramatically and will most definitely not skew toward crops over livestock as styated so generally in any significant way. This ignores the relative nutrient density between either source or the efficiency of use. Livestock is a very dense storage space for crop sourced nutrients, and when it comes to veggies it's generally only a very small percentage of the total structure of the crop that is consumed or used - single digit land use efficiency percentages when viewed by metrics of market.

After all of that, you have to consider the end product itself. The ease of transportation and preservation, the distance traveled from source to consumer (here livestock has a distinct advantage that we no longer avail ourselves of. As Aract has pointed out, livestock is produced on land not useful for ag - but it can also be produced in time not useful for ag. You can get an egg out of tomato season and from your own backyard.

If we wanted to create a more local and sustainable food production system - we would necessarrily have to include livestock to make best use of all available resources- and as a means of producing the fertility required for all of our other crops. And as regards the forests - little would help to reduce the destruction of those forests (and the further destruction caused by fossil fuel usage in both fertility, transportation, refridgeration, and production) more than greater land use efficiency in food production combined with sustainable alternative fertility sources.


I mention all of this not so that I can dress you down. I don't expect that many people at all would be so familiar with ag as to discuss the relative land use efficiency of any given production model. That's something that would be beyond even those -in the know- to determine without referring to a land use analysis (which is how ag startups and continuing operation are considered in the first place). I mention it so that you might see why no sweeping generalizations are really available in the discussion, and maybe so that I can get you geeked out about food production a little(it's an unbelievable difficult and rewarding subject to have any sort of constructive back and forth on). I'm always looking to lure you folks into my web.

(land use efficiency is the primary concern in my seasonal business plan. I have to arrange for a ratio of high eff crops (judged by gross) to cover the losses incurred by low eff crops that also happen to be all the big veggies, full of nutrients, that bring people to the door. In essence, I have to first produce, and then convince people to buy 10 lbs of lettuce for every lb of tomato - for example - I lose money on the tomatos, no matter how extravagantly priced. I'm actually saving every dime I can to get an integrated system up and running so that I can absorb that loss more effectively by reducing my input requirements and creating a byproduct stream that plugs into an underexploited and lucrative market. Fresh fish -particularly in my landlocked state- that's a bit too hilly and rocky for mixed veggie production, judged against more lucrative locations for the same, Florida, California, Mississippi, Louisiana, Mexico, etc)