Food is grown specifically to feed livestock though, it would be a pretty weird trophic pyramid for them to survive on our waste unless you went back to a time where people killed their one pig for the year and salted it away. In our country, the land degradation from clearing hill country for grazing has led to enormous biodiversity loss and a self-fufilling prophecy of eroded weak topsoil that people claim isn't good for anything else (though it could still be rewilded and in other cultures and times would be terraced and swaled to support plant crops).

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

??? But it's not, we do not grow crops for livestock in any meaningful amounts. It's miniscule what is grown to feed livestock only.

[–] Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Stop making stuff up, please. Idk what you do on your farm but globally we absolutely grow a lot of food for animals.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Please provide a source that shows that we grow crops directly for livestock consumption in a meaningful amount. So far no one has shown anything that states otherwise.

[–] uncertainty@lemmy.nz 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Over a third of crops are grown to feed livestock, and that's if you're not counting pasture as a crop, which it absolutely is - arguably our first solar powered factory floor. Even areas that were grazed in the past have had the relative proportion of native flora and fauna severely reduced to minimal levels through introduced grasses and overgrazing. To get a feel for land use against calorie production, you could have a browse through https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/ for an overview.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013

86% of the global livestock feed intake in dry matter consists of feed materials that are not currently edible for humans

But it also makes an important contribution to food security through the provision of high-quality protein and a variety of micronutrients – e.g. vitamin A, vitamin B-12, riboflavin, calcium, iron and zinc – that can be locally difficult to obtain in adequate quantities from plant-source foods alone

We already make enough food to feed the planet multiple times over, the issue isn't how much we've got, it's how to get it to people. Distribution is the issue.

But no, 1/3rd is not grown for livestock, this isn't true at all.

[–] uncertainty@lemmy.nz 4 points 5 months ago

See page 12 of https://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e01.pdf in terms of feedstock percentages at that time (total production has doubled since then https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/animal-feed-industry-grow-up-due-rising-consumption-aqua-waghmare )

[–] uncertainty@lemmy.nz 3 points 5 months ago

It's a bit of a roundabout way to get your micronutrients https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/animal-feed-additives-market unless you're conflating subsistence farming with the bulk of production and consumption.