Would there still be farm animals and green space left?

Rory17

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Hello đź‘‹,
If the whole world were vegan, would there still be farm animals like cattle, sheep, pigs, farm birds, etc.? Would there still be green spaces, fields and meadows?
Thanks.
 
There have been a number or scientific-like articles that attempted to do the math for crop land necessary food for a world of vegans.

There is a very large range with the studies conclusions, which make you wonder somewhat. But one thing they all have in common is the conclusion that we would need less acreage for a vegan world.

Although many people are surprised to lean this you can actually apply a little common sense and realize that is the case. A fairly nice percentage of the calories an animal eat just goes into her basic metabolism and is not used to produce meat. Also you can't eat the whole animal so there is waste there too.

Some of the land that won't be necessary for animals can't be converted to crop land. (but it can be forests, woodlots, parks, housing developments, orchids...etc. ) Even so we should end up with lots of extra croplands.

I just google it and this was the first thing that came up. Its even more optimistic than I thought.

 
There have been a number or scientific-like articles that attempted to do the math for crop land necessary food for a world of vegans.

There is a very large range with the studies conclusions, which make you wonder somewhat. But one thing they all have in common is the conclusion that we would need less acreage for a vegan world.

Although many people are surprised to lean this you can actually apply a little common sense and realize that is the case. A fairly nice percentage of the calories an animal eat just goes into her basic metabolism and is not used to produce meat. Also you can't eat the whole animal so there is waste there too.

Some of the land that won't be necessary for animals can't be converted to crop land. (but it can be forests, woodlots, parks, housing developments, orchids...etc. ) Even so we should end up with lots of extra croplands.

I just google it and this was the first thing that came up. Its even more optimistic than I thought.

That is a great link! :up:

It doesn't even get into the more advanced farming methods that doesn't even require the farming of land. Vertical farming, hydroponic greenhouses, roof gardens
 
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There have been a number or scientific-like articles that attempted to do the math for crop land necessary food for a world of vegans.

There is a very large range with the studies conclusions, which make you wonder somewhat. But one thing they all have in common is the conclusion that we would need less acreage for a vegan world.

Although many people are surprised to lean this you can actually apply a little common sense and realize that is the case. A fairly nice percentage of the calories an animal eat just goes into her basic metabolism and is not used to produce meat. Also you can't eat the whole animal so there is waste there too.

Some of the land that won't be necessary for animals can't be converted to crop land. (but it can be forests, woodlots, parks, housing developments, orchids...etc. ) Even so we should end up with lots of extra croplands.

I just google it and this was the first thing that came up. Its even more optimistic than I thought.

Wow. Lou, proofread please.

In my defense, I'm typing on my laptop. and I have a hard time with that keyboard
 
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Wow. Lou, proofread please.

In my defense, I'm typing on my laptop. and I have a hard time with that keyboard
I especially liked the "orchids" part :rofl:
I understood it perfectly

I do hate when I write hastily and come across it much later. I don't want to edit because people will wonder what I changed
 
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I especially liked the "orchids" part :rofl:
I understood it perfectly

I do hate when I write hastily and come across it much later. I don't want to edit because people will wonder what I changed
kind of a nice visual.
 
I think Rory is asking a different question. In a world with farming as we have now, much of the land used to raise animals is much less wooded or densely vegetated than in its natural state. As a result, there are meadows, open fields, and generally more open countryside. This is maintained by farmers who clear the land, grow the grasses etc and whose herds help control growth.

Without animal farms, there would be what? Densely wooded regions between cities and towns? Heavily over-grown and pest infested spaces? Who would maintain this land? Croplands would be vistas of crops, not natural vegetation or green fields.

Also, would there remain the many species of farmed animals? Presumably some would be maintained in sanctuaries or whatever, but there is no real necessity to do this.

In terms of the land area under crops, we've talked about that before. It wouldn't be a lot different. But much of the land used to graze ruminants would be used for something else, for example, rewilding, national parks, mining, dams, urban development. Here in Australia, without the land management services of farmers, much more of the countryside would be choked with invasive plant species. Feral pest animals would be a major problem. Bushfires much harder to minimise and manage.
 
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I have no doubt that if everyone were suddenly vegan the repurposing of the available arable land would comfortably be able to meet the current population's food needs. That also means there would be a theoretical surplus of arable land at that point.

Trouble is that, under our current societal model, all that land is "owned" by someone or other. Yes, some land could and probably would be rewilded but, as @Graeme M points out, there is no necessity to maintain sanctuaries for species of farmed animals and so they would most likely die out due to commercial expediency. Of course, their current existence is due to commercial expediency too, so it's understandable, but it does go to show that unpicking what's been done in the past takes more than just not continuing.

Net result, agreeing with @Graeme M, is that any change from the current model needs just as much active human intervention as it took to get us to this point in the first place or we'll just replace one set of problems with another.
 
or we'll just replace one set of problems with another.

Not all problems are created equal. In fact, now with football starting up I can't resist using an example from that. Say a team has too many good players and will have to cut some. That is a problem most teams wish they had.

So you have all this grass land without cows to graze on it. What a good problem to have. Some grass lands will naturally turn back into woods and forests. Or we could turn them into wildlife refuges and parks. . Some of this land might be acquired by the government for parks or forests. Some ranchers may want to keep their land and become foresters ( probably need to modify the tax policy) And of course some of the land will be suitable for repurposing like orchards and homes.
 
Not all problems are created equal. In fact, now with football starting up I can't resist using an example from that. Say a team has too many good players and will have to cut some. That is a problem most teams wish they had.

So you have all this grass land without cows to graze on it. What a good problem to have. Some grass lands will naturally turn back into woods and forests. Or we could turn them into wildlife refuges and parks. . Some of this land might be acquired by the government for parks or forests. Some ranchers may want to keep their land and become foresters ( probably need to modify the tax policy) And of course some of the land will be suitable for repurposing like orchards and homes.
Couldn't agree more.

However, to turn that "might" you're talking about into practice, we would need a significant amount of active intervention rather than just stopping doing what we've done before and seeing what happens.
 
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Oh, and as far as farm animals go.
Presently there are 30 m cows, 70 m pigs, and 500 m chickens. There is no reason to keep so many alive.

As long as the world doesn't go vegan overnight and it takes a few years, marketing pressure should eliminate most of the excess. Farmers should stop breeding livestock as soon as they can't sell the ones they have. A 20% reduction in demand per year for beef would work. it could even be higher for the other animals.

All of our livestock has been modified by selective breeding so its not like they are natural organisms anymore. We could keep a few in demonstration farms or sanctuaries. There might be some cultural or educational advantage for school kids to see what grandpa used to do or eat. No wait. we don't want to give them nightmares.

In these kind of discussions, Forest Nymph would usually saw a few words about subsistence farmers. So since she is not here any longer I'll go ahead and take her lines. Some farmers around the world need to keep animals because their land is not suitable for farming - like the ranchers in Africa. Or they just keep a goat or two for milk or a dozen chickens for the eggs. I believe those people and lifestyles should/can/will be preserved.

Also, the OP didn't say how or why or how fast the world goes vegan. and that info will change what problems we have and how we have to deal with it

I've been imagining a little science fiction story in my head. A galactic armada is heading for the earth. They wish for us to peacefully join their Federation. However when they transmit visuals we discover they look just like cows, chickens and pigs.
 
I think the greed from the meatpackers and dairy companies are doing the most to kill off the meat and dairy industries. The meatpackers are posting record profits while the ranchers and dairy farms are paid next to nothing. The ranches are being abandoned as their owners die or retire, and future generations refuse to work for almost no profit.

Non profits are moving in to these areas and rewilding the land. Many of these areas are close to federal lands that were leased for cattle grazing. As these ranches are removed, the overgrazing stops, and the land starts to heal.

Building an American Serengeti in Montana​



The destruction, however, was not total. Harsh winters and scant rainfall drove out many of the homesteaders, and the hardy few who remained primarily inhabited small towns and big ranches that left native prairie grasses—the ecosystem's foundation—largely intact. The Nature Conservancy identified the area in 1999 as the "Northern Great Plains Steppe ecoregion." In 2010, the International Union for Conservation of Nature chose it as one of four remaining temperate grassland ecosystems on Earth with the potential for large-scale conservation.

Curt Freese, a former World Wildlife Fund biologist, envisioned an alliance of conservation groups to create a reserve in eastern Montana. Two crucial building blocks were already in place: the million-acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and the 375,000-acre Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Surrounding them are the Fort Belknap Reservation, the more distant Fort Peck Reservation, and seemingly unending private ranchland interlocked with Bureau of Land Management parcels through long-term grazing leases.

In 2001, the two men launched an audacious plan. Their nonprofit organization would raise funds to buy area ranches as they came on the market. Using the refuge and the monument as anchors, they would gradually assemble a 3.2-million-acre wildlife reserve, half again as large as Yellowstone National Park. They would call it the American Prairie Reserve.

Biologists on the reserve's staff of 40, headquartered in Bozeman, are working to do just that: They're removing or modifying wildlife-blocking fences on former ranchlands and meticulously restoring habitat to attract species like swift foxes and prairie dogs. And they're reintroducing bison, with a vision of eventually hosting every species that once roamed those plains. Numerous ecological studies are being conducted across the landscape, aided by partnerships with field scientists from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society, creating one of the world's most dynamic biological laboratories.

By most measures, the ongoing project has been a brilliant success. As of this writing, the reserve had purchased 28 ranch properties encompassing more than 400,000 acres in eight noncontiguous parcels. It had reintroduced 800 genetically pure bison. Now one of the largest conservation projects in North America, the reserve is well on its way to restoring the biggest grassland ecosystem on the planet.
 
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