Mark Hammond retweetledi
"Livestock is inefficient use of land" is the most successful propaganda of the 21st century.
Here's what they're not telling you: 70% of global agricultural land is unsuitable for crop production. Too steep, too rocky, too dry, too cold, wrong soil composition.
You cannot grow wheat on a Scottish hillside. You cannot grow soy on Argentine pampas grassland. You cannot farm vegetables in Mongolian steppes.
But you know what thrives on Scottish hillsides? Sheep. On Argentine grasslands? Cattle. On Mongolian steppes? Yaks and sheep.
Ruminants convert grass that humans cannot digest into meat, milk, and cheese that humans can digest. They're not competing with crops. They're utilizing land that would otherwise produce zero human food.
The "inefficient" argument only works if you pretend all land is equally suitable for all purposes. It's not. Most agricultural land is marginal for crops but perfect for grazing.
When you remove livestock from this land, you get: nothing. Not crops. Not forests. Just unused grassland producing zero human nutrition.
But admitting this would require acknowledging that cattle aren't stealing food from humans. They're creating food where crops cannot exist.
Can't have that conversation. Better to show graphics comparing "land used for livestock" vs "land used for crops" while pretending it's the same land.
It's not the same land. It never was. And they know it.
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