[0]: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bloomberg-illustrates-how-...
People don’t seem to grok this.
On land with little rain you can raise animals where you give a huge expanse per animal. They eat grass and fertilize and participate in the ecosystem.
If you wanted to do anything else with the land you would have to irrigate nearly every drop of water and many places you can’t actually do that at all.
There aren’t just easy equivalents like you’re trying to pose.
I highly doubt all 781 million acres can only be used for animal grazing.
I doubt this. The "think of the farmers" argument against increasing plant food production often goes a little something like "farmers don't want to change from what they've already specialized in". The market is never as efficient as people want it to be.
You also suggest that what is currently used as rangeland is rangeland because it can only be used as such. The truth is that neither of us really knows the true capabilities of the 654 million acres of rangeland. The difference here is that I don't suggest all of that land should have a single use. Rather, I argued that it's unlikely that all 654 million acres can only be used for grazing.
>But it's misleading to just point out how much land gets used for what without considering the capability of the land in question.
There is nothing misleading about what I've said. I said we use a lot of land for animal agriculture and that I doubt all of it can only be used for rangeland.
>Ending the corn and soy subsidy regime would help a lot right off the top.
Sure sounds good. You know we subsidize meat and dairy too? How does that factor into the incentive to allocate more cropland?
