Re: TRP: Hail Marys And False Hopes
me too!!!
what if you murder a tomacco plant?
seriously, I can tolerate you if we have different political views. I can handle that. But veggies? Please. All they do is read back word for word the *t they read in PETA publications (which is one of the worst charities on the planet, according to a charity survey) and not try to convince you, they demand that you change your ways for whatever reason (health, global warming, War in Iraq, gun control, whatever). They will make up some sort of bull*t to tell you you're a bad person. Do they realize that to feed 100 people with meat, it takes roughly 300 acres of land? Conversely, it would take in the thousands of acres to do the same thing with just plants? BBDL, can you back me up on that one?
I think there are too many variables to just say how much land it takes to feed people with meat vs. plants. It is entirely possible that the 300 acres for meat is accurate, but I guarantee that if it is, that number is for grass-fed beef or possibly for chicken/turkey. For the majority of the beef and pork on the market, and all of the beef and pork that actually tastes good (not that free-range, grass fed crap), that number would be higher. Most beef and pork produced is done so in feedlots, where steers and hogs are fed corn, which in turn takes land to produce, alot of land because steers and hogs eat tons of corn. The argument for chicken is probably better, I don't have facts, but I would guess that the amount of chicken produced for the corn fed is quite a bit higher.
On the plant side it isn't clear either. In the US, due to genetic manipulation, advancements in chemicals, hybridization and smarter farming the corn yield has absolutely skyrocketed. For example, on our farm we have a John Deere precision farming GPS computer on our equipment, this computer is able to tell us everything we want to know about the crop, the most basic being yield. We know that over the last 2-3 years, we can expect corn yields right around 200 bushels/acre average for our entire crop. Just this past weekend, we were going through an old neighbors stuff (helping him get organized for an auction), and we came across crop records from ~1900, for the same land we currently own. Back then, instead of having a precision farming computer, they did a bunch of hand calculations. The yield of corn at that time was 30 bushels/acre. You don't have to be a mathematician to figure out that's a huge increase.
Unfortunately, people can't live by eating only corn, otherwise we'd be able to feed 1000's of people on 300 acres of corn. People need other nutrients found in small grains (oats, barley, rye, wheat), beans, fruits, veggies and nuts, all of which have yields that are significantly less than corn.
This is getting long, I'm going to continue in another post...
