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Rethinking how the US grows beef
As of now, cattle eat not only local pasture, but also grains, hay, and grass that is grown elsewhere and stored. A recent analysis by an international team of researchers looked into what would change if the US switched to sustainable ranching, in which cattle eat only from local grasslands and agricultural byproducts.
It turns out that the current amount of pastureland in the US could only support 45 percent of our current beef production and consumption. This admittedly narrow definition of sustainability relies on feeding cows more agricultural byproducts, which, as of now, account for only about 10 percent of their diet; the scientists note that, "despite the recent doubling of distillers' grain utilization," these byproducts are still plentiful.
If we were to cut the pastureland that ranchers currently use in half, that would diminish beef availability to... 43 percent of current values, rather than 45. So freeing up about 135 hectares—almost a quarter of our national surface area, and twice the size of France—would decrease beef availability by only two percentage points.
Most of this is not especially productive grassland, and it could be rewilded or conserved. But some of it is high-quality cropland that could be used to grow other food sources, like pork, poultry, grains, legumes, vegetables, and even dairy. All of these utilize less water and fertilizer than beef while emitting fewer greenhouse gases. In addition, they provide us with more calories, fiber, micronutrients, and even protein than the beef they'd supplant. The only thing we'd be missing is vitamin B12, for which the authors of this analysis offer a quick fix: take a pill.
A model for 'sustainable' US beef production (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0390-5) (DX)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Friday December 29 2017, @03:41AM (13 children)
From: https://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm [westernwatersheds.org]
Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are primarily used to feed livestock.
The amount of land used to produce all vegetables in the U.S. is less than 3 million acres.
Range and Pasture Land- Some 788 million acres, or 41.4 percent of the U. S. excluding Alaska, are grazed by livestock. This is an area the size of 8.3 states the size of Montana. Grazed lands include rangeland, pasture and cropland pasture. More than 309 million acres of federal, state and other public lands are grazed by domestic livestock. Another 140 million acres are forested lands that are grazed.
...
The real message here is that we can afford to restore hundreds of millions of acres in the U.S. if we simply shift our diets away from meat. Many organizations spend their time fighting sprawl and championing agriculture as a benign use of the land. If a similar amount of effort were directed toward reducing agricultural production, we would produce far greater protection and restoration for declining species, endangered ecosystems and ecological processes.
When critics suggest that we don't have the money to buy land for wildlands restoration, they are forgetting agricultural subsidies, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. For what we spend to prop up marginal agricultural producers, we could easily buy most of the private farm and ranch land in the country This would be a far more effective way to contain sprawl, restore wildlands, bring back endangered species, clean up water, slow the spread of exotic species and reduce soil erosion.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @03:45AM (4 children)
It all sounds SO reasonable and smart! Let's simply murder all vegetarians and we'll never hear their ridiculous arguments again! That's what we call a win-win.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday December 29 2017, @05:13AM
We could eat vat grown vegetarians.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bobs on Friday December 29 2017, @03:32PM
That is what this research is about: we can eat almost as many vegetarians as we currently do, just feed them more efficiently.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)
It is an odd dichotomy with you libertarians (sorry, I just assumed your political identity) where they desire total freedom because they view themselves as so smart that everything would auto-magically work out. Market evolution and all that.
But, we come across ideas like reducing the amount of meat in our diet and intelligence goes out the window. Turns out people just don't want their personal comforts infringed upon, even if long term their choices will cause their own downfall. Forget that the article even mentions other forms of meat which are more efficient, nope gotta hate on people who make you uncomfortable cause that is what you alt-right fuckwads DO.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 29 2017, @08:25PM
Modded up because, damn it, the truth about what "libertarian" means needs to be put out there.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday December 29 2017, @04:47AM
We don't even need to shift away from meat. Just shift from beef to chicken.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday December 29 2017, @04:49AM (5 children)
It's wool from a particular kind of goat.
The subsidy was established to ensure that there would be enough wool for uniforms in times of war
A good use of taxpayer dollars? Uniforms have been synthetic since 1960
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tibman on Friday December 29 2017, @06:20AM (3 children)
Most synthetic fibers melt. Having your sleeve melt to your skin because you brushed up against a hot barrel would really suck. Most uniforms these days seem to have around 50% cotton or wool. 100% cotton is best, imo. There are some synthetic materials that work better than cotton (for fire resistance), like nomex ($$$). Fire departments might do nomex but a military won't. Specific roles might get secondary uniforms made of nomex though (flight suit, tanker suit).
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @09:47AM (2 children)
Yeah but cotton is crap in cold wet. Dying of hypothermia sucks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @08:15PM (1 child)
Alright - so, can you name those synthetics which are good in cold and wet conditions?
Let me talk about wool for a moment. When wool is saturated with water - that is, it is dripping wet, it still retains about 30% of it's insulation value. As you have already observed, cotton retains just about zero insulation value under those conditions. Goose down ranks right up there with wool - dripping wet, it still has insulation value.
Back to synthetics - DuPont holofil is equal to wool. That is because the holofil fibers are hollow, and it is difficult to fill those fibers with water. Holofil is an excellent insulator for cold weather, but it is bulky. A jacket with holofil is about four times thicker than a wool jacket, for the same insulation value. Which is about the same as goose down.
Now, I'll be honest - I haven't searched for any newer synthetic fibers that equal or exceed holofil, wool, or down. Maybe there are some good synthetics out there that can be soaked with water, and still keep you warm. Do you know of any? I guess if you like foamed neoprene, you could use that. Scuba divers like it when the water gets cold.
Of course, I'm not being entirely fair in this post, so far. People who live in cold wet conditions usually learn about layering.
Next to body, a layer of cotton.
Then a layer of wool
Then a layer of wool, down, holofil
And, finally, a good water repellant such as ripstop nylon.
There is gortex, which in effect combines an insulating layer with a water repellant layer. I've been impressed with gortex - both good and bad. I don't like it in boots - felt packs do the job equally well, without any risk of tearing the boots up when your feet/legs are cold and wet.
https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/layering-basics.html [rei.com]
https://www.lhsfna.org/index.cfm/lifelines/january-2005/the-right-stuff-for-cold-weather/ [lhsfna.org]
I disagree with both of those links. I beieve that T-shirts and boxers provide good wicking, to move moisture away from the body. I really don't want polypro fabric against my skin . . .
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:47AM
Unrefined wool, which still contains all its lanolin, is quite water-repellant. It's the basis of authentic Aran knitting, traditionally done by fishermen to keep themselves warm at sea.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @07:24AM
No, they have not. Every sailor to have gone to boot camp up through the eighties at least, has been issued cotton and wool uniforms, with some leather for the boots.
Sailors are at risk of unexpected fires breaking out, anytime, any place aboard ship. As Tibman has already pointed out, almost all synthetic fibers melt. You do NOT want your clothing to melt into your skin. Natural fibers get warm, then hot, then smolder, and finally burst into flame. Even after a cotton or wool garment has burst into flame, it can be pulled off and discarded. Your plastics grow warm, then without warning, melt into your skin. You can't remove them after that, without removing swathes of your flesh. Nasty.
My son joined the Army instead of the Navy. There are synthetics in his duffel bag, but MOST of the stuff is natural fiber. Maybe the Army isn't as fearful of fire as the Navy is - but they still have reason to use natural fiber uniforms.
This page says that a lot of the Army's uniform items are wool/poly blend, or wool/cotton blend, or cotton/poly blend - http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/3046/military-uniform?page=3 [fibre2fashion.com]
I don't know how those blends compare to the fire resistance of pure wool or pure cotton. Probably better than synthetics alone, and probably not as good as natural fibre alone.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @02:18PM
I thought the real message was that we don't actually need to reduce meat consumption at all, just shift the mode of production to be more feedstock based and we can free up the rangeland for other uses.
Doesn't do much for my wife, who strongly prefers "grass fed" beef, but for the majority of the world who just care about the cost per pound and maybe the fat content of their burger, the proposal could work well - without any dietary changes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]