I know that conditions in factory farms are gross and cruel to animals, but I don’t understand how it isn’t sustainable from an environmental perspective. Less cruel and more natural means for raising livestock take up much more land. With all the beef eaten in the United States, could most of it easily be raised on grass pastures, or would that require an unreasonably enormous portion of land be devoted to grazing? As for chickens, I know they’re generally considered carnivores but are fed grains in most farms, which is less healthy for them. They also aren’t given much space to move around inside giant pens.
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With the huge appetite for meat humanity has, and with a growing population, it seems like the means of raising livestock that are the most popular became that way because they were the most efficient. I’m not saying efficient is best for the animals or for the quality of the product, but it seems like it’s designed to use the least amount of land and produce the most output. Are these more efficient methods really worse for the environment than other means?
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Please feel free to point me to sources for more reading on the subject!
In: Planetary Science
It’s efficient in regards to how much meat is produced yes.
But meat is inheretly an inefficient way to feed humans. A calorie of beef first needs 10 calories to feed the cattle. It produces lots of methane wich is a really strong climate killer gas. Factory farms need to feed their animals too. Often the food are cheap imports like soy grown on razed jungle, transported across the globe.
A sustainable solution simple isn’t able to provide billions of humans with so much meat. So the solution is to eat less meat overall
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