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Efficient? A Look at the Importance of Animals in Agriculture

Basic Skills
4.69K subscribers
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1.6K views 5 years ago
So often people talk about how plants are going to save our planet and how inefficient meat production is. They point to the fact that it takes 2-6 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of meat, and draw the conclusion that we should cut animal production and only eat plants. This argument is missing an understanding of how the ecological system works, the inefficiency of animals is what builds fertility. If 100% of the grass a cow eats was turned into meat, the soil would quickly be depleted of all nutrients and stop producing. This type of efficiency would soon starve itself. So what do we need? We need to maintain both plants and animals. The plants to feed the animals, the animals to give nutrients to the plants. One cannot survive without the other.  …...more
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Efficient? A Look at the Importance of Animals in Agriculture
52Likes
1,632Views
2020Mar 29
So often people talk about how plants are going to save our planet and how inefficient meat production is. They point to the fact that it takes 2-6 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of meat, and draw the conclusion that we should cut animal production and only eat plants. This argument is missing an understanding of how the ecological system works, the inefficiency of animals is what builds fertility. If 100% of the grass a cow eats was turned into meat, the soil would quickly be depleted of all nutrients and stop producing. This type of efficiency would soon starve itself. So what do we need? We need to maintain both plants and animals. The plants to feed the animals, the animals to give nutrients to the plants. One cannot survive without the other.
  • Feed to meat ratio was taken from the Noble Research Institute.
  • Percentage of diet that could be made up of grass was taken from You Can Farm by Joel Salatin
  • Erosion facts were taken from Worldwildlife.org.

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Basic Skills

4.69K subscribers