Cassidy et al. / Environmental Research Letters
Shifting crops grown for animal feed and biofuel to food for direct human consumption can feed an additional 4 billion people with existing cropland, a study says.
Posted on 08/06/2013 9:11:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The lab-grown burger taste-tested Monday in London is billed as one way to avert a looming food crisis by freeing up the agricultural resources used to feed billions of cattle each year. Another way to avert the crisis is to stop eating animal products altogether, according to a recent study.
In fact, "we find that doing a complete radical shift away from grain-fed animals, and stop producing biofuels, that you can increase calorie availability enough for 4 billion people," Emily Cassidy, a researcher at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, told NBC News.
She and colleagues examined 41 major crops grown around the world, which account for more than 90 percent of global crop production, to find out how much food is being produced and how it is being used.
They found that 36 percent of the calories produced are used for animal feed. Of those, 12 percent wend their way to the human diet as meat and animal products. Another 4 percent of human-edible calories are used to produce biofuels.
Growing all those crops for direct human consumption instead increases available food calories by up to 70 percent, Cassidy and colleagues report in the Aug. 1 issue of Environmental Research Letters.
When those additional calories are translated to the number of people who can be fed a 2,700-calorie-a-day diet, the team's math shows an additional 4 billion people can be fed with food grown on existing farmland.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Let the Insects for Food movement go back to hunting and gathering roaches and roots. Just leave we meat-eaters alone with our “right to choose” what we will eat.
South Korea:
38,691 square miles
50,004,441 people
Less land. More people. Wealthy.
Large scale food shortages in modern times are always caused by politics.
I just bought an 8 lb pork butt. Awesome. Borscht, pulled pork, pork with vegies over rice....
Maybe the earth can, but certainly not the human population on an individual level.
And those diets can make you “windy”.
Stop putting alcohol in fuel. Stop growing governments, and start growing economies and jobs.
Or my spare ribs, rib-eye steaks, fried chicken, or hamburgers.
Besides, why do we want 4 billion more people? The ones already here make enough trouble as it is.
It was a POTATO FAMINE. Not a Corned Beef Famine.
No kidding. I’m 5’11” and 175 lbs — larger than much of the world’s population — and my equilibrium intake is about 1950 calories per day. 2700 is a made up number.
Additionally, the idea of exchanging animal for crop calories is a red herring. Vegetables are hard to grow. You need a good year, good soil, good climate, good weather, good everything. Failing that, you have to supplement with pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, greenhouses, etc.
In contrast, animals can be productively grown on land that could not support crops. Rabbits come to mind first - they are amazingly efficient at turning weeds into meat. Likewise, chickens can do very well in situations where crops are marginal. Beef can range on non-crop producing land.
The next level of food production will be obtained only by the transition of seasonal farm lands into year round production. This will require the use of high tunnels / green houses and will require a significant investment in one time capital.
However, once done, land that was previously not crop worthy due to poor soil, lack of water, or cold will open up to farm production. This will also likely increase the production per acre of near 4 fold and will see a shrinkage in the size of farm tools and equipment.
Imagine the amount of food and bio-diesel that could be produced in western Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern Colorado and New Mexico alone. We could not only feed this nation but produce enough bio-diesel from algae to power all of the cars and trucks on the road in America.
Thanks!
Just why are some so enthralled with this wealthy racist ignorant sow? Is white guilt so pervasive?
It's crazy that people in the United States want to take money from citizens - or beg for it - and use it to replace fathers. Sick.
If nothing else, we can increase global warming so that we have more land available for planting. ;)
This is typical liberal science by faulty numbers. They fail to account for many “human” factors such as the need to a balanced diet. This would lead to malnutrition...and you’d never be able to implement it anyway. That wouldn’t stop the leftists from trying to implement as policy however...because they have good intentions of course. Complete idiocy!
Yeah, and population is gonna peak by 2020 at under 8 billion people. This is all unnecessary.
When are you gonna commit suicide, since you believe there are too many people. Oh wait, that’s not what you believe. You believe there are too many ‘other’ people.
Good luck with that btw.
Wow, I would have expected the sentiment from a man. More significant coming from a woman! Thank you ma’am.
Eliminate protein from the world’s diet. A universe of vegans, walking cadavers.
Except the ruling class, of course.
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