From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: California/Desert
Organization: WP Group
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 03:01:50 GMT

From article <1jsl07INNkd0@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, by alexpace@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Alex L. Pace):
> Secondly and more importantly is that those cows are raised for FOOD.  If
> these cows were to vanish as assumed by your simple modle of the world, the
> people depending on them for meat and dairy products would have to start to
> eat lets just say vegetables, this makes the demand for vegetables
> skyrocket and thus their price (initially).  More land will have to be
> dedicated to farming.  Lets just say that this same california desert is
> used.  Surely you dont believe that it will not have to be irrigated?  That
> 25% of the water now being used on cattle wont just be freed, a great
> portion of it will have to be diverted to the production of alternate food
> such as veggies...

According to my almanac, US production of wheat, rice, and corn 
totalled 273 million metric tons in 1986;  298 million metric 
tons in 1985;  and 272 million metric tons in 1984.  I don't have 
the most recent data, but these figures gives us a good idea 
about the general scope of US production.  

The same source tallies US meat production in 1985 at roughly 18 
million metric tons (carcass weight), including animals that 
were raised outside US boundaries but slaughtered here.  
Production for 1987 was estimated to be slightly less, but still 
18 million metric tons (carcass weight).  

According to USDA data (cited in the WorldWatch paper mentioned 
previously), 70% of the 1990 US grain crop was consumed by 
livestock.  Assuming that a similar proportion of grain was 
consumed by livestock in 1985, it's clear that we used 189 
million metric tons of grain to produce 18 million metric tons of 
meat (carcass weight) in that year alone.  (This doesn't include
fodder inputs, BTW.) 

You're apparently unfamiliar with vegan and vegetarian diets, but 
if you were to do your homework, you'd discover that the staple 
item in meatless diets is grain (major item) and beans (minor 
item)...  rather than artichoke hearts or bibb lettuce or carrot 
tops, etc, etc.  On the whole, a vegan requires roughly 200 kilos 
of grain products a year, so five vegans will get by comfortably 
(albeit meatlessly) on one metric ton of cereal input.  After 
doing some arithmetic, you'd see that 189 million metric tons of 
grain would support roughly 945 million vegans for a full year.  

By comparison, how many carnivores could we feed for a year 
on 18 million metric tons of meat -- carcass weight?  Let's give 
your side the benefit of the doubt and assume that this amount 
would dress out to 12.6 million metric tons of edible meat (70% 
rather than the typical 66%), and let's assume that a human carnivore 
would require just 100 kilos of meat a year with no cereals or 
beans to boot.  [good luck].  At this rate, we'd figure that one 
metric ton of meat would feed ten carnivores for a year.  And 
12.6 million metric tons would feed 126 million carnivores vs 
the 945 million vegans discussed previously.  This is roughly
an 8:1 ratio, but in actual practice, I believe the actual
ratio is closer to 16:1.  Why?  Even "carnivores" don't live
on meat --- they consume lots and lots of cereals.

I hope you can see, now, that your original assumptions were 
unfounded.    I hope you don't come back with the argument,
"So what, it doesn't make any difference".

> This conversion will not be easy either if you consider
> that the most fertile land is already being used in veggie production and
> the less fertile land for cattle.  It will surely take more water to bring
> this infertile land up the the quality of the land already in veggie
> production so thus the average gallon/unit food ratio will be higher than
> in the established farms.  That 25% savings isnt quite as clear now is it?

Do your homework, Alex.  If you want some suggestions on reading materials,
let us know.

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals