If there is, this story isn't about that. The US has about 900 million acres of farmland, and this privately funded nature reserve is 450,000 acres, or 0.05% of that.
This is about land used for grazing. Even if there is no meat or diary, you don't have a famine. People starve if you don't have grains and vegetables.
Considering how much land is being used for livestock feed, switching to a plant based diet would be the easiest way to ensure sufficient food production for everybody.
Livestock farming is ruining the soil, the water, a major producer of CO2, the main producer of Methane, and the root cause for the burning of the rainforest.
68% is Burnt for pastures for Cattle Farming.
28% is Burnt for Agriculture, of which 60% is for soybeans, of which 77% are shipped overseas for (you guessed it) livestock feed.
Palm Oil plants are only 12% of those 28%.
That means at least 80% is burned for Livestock or livestock feed. Since part of the palm oil and other plant produce is also used for livestock feed that number probably closer to 85%.
Guess it’s time to start being more aggressive with anti-meat messaging.
A major issue with the less-meat-more-veggies idea is glyphosate, though, as produce treated with it is not vegan: glyphosate mixtures typically contain tallow from animal fat.
Crop farming is ruining the soil way faster than grazing livestock. Livestock grazing the land is a lot closer to how the land was before we came along than a rainforest.
Having this stripe of wild prairie will fight against famine, in fact. And will help farmers.
This are the places where thousands of species of pollinators can breed and multiply. The same that will play a main role in crop production in all the farms around in a radius of several Km
Honey bees are good pollinators. The much smaller wild bees aren't just good, they are fantastic pollinators of lots of crops that honey bees ignore
Agriculture is one of the most heavily subsidized and protected US industries. A not-insignificant amount of a farmer's income is just a federal check to maintain excess capacity in case of a shortage and to stabilize prices.
Food prices the world over are the lowest they have been in history. Grain prices are so low that grain is now fed to meat producing livestock--a new historical development. Food is so historically cheap that most of the western world can afford to be overweight and even the poor are obese.
This small preserve is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of hectares of Amazonian forest that has been cleared for ranching. The trend in most of the world is clearing forest for more agriculture, whether it is palm oil or bananas or livestock.
Whatever nefarious force you think is plotting a famine will not remain in power for long if there is a real famine. The actual people in charge know this and have no intention of asking the peasants to eat cake.
Imagine you have a property and somebody says you that you are forced to buy him/her a tractor and became a farmer
A spanish jury has to explain the last month to farmers that keeping biodiversity has priority over hunting and fishing. Not each inch of territory must be a farm.
If the locals succeed, I wonder what form it will take? For example, maybe a 'must farm' act, which requires landowners to pay a fine if they don't farm their land?
For many people property taxes serve this function. Billionaires can afford the taxes without using the land to produce though.
My family owns some ranch and farmland that we farmed for 150 years. My retired father still has to grow hay and lease grazing land to just make the property tax requirement.
How British Colonizers caused the Bengal Famine. The mass starvation that killed three million Indians during the closing years of the Second World War was no act of nature; it was engineered.
https://newint.org/features/2021/12/07/feature-how-british-c...
> During the 1940s, the colonial government printed extraordinary amounts of money for military expenditure. All this new demand caused prices to soar, particularly for staple goods. The price of rice increased by 300 per cent. But because wages did not rise accordingly, ordinary people were pushed even deeper into poverty, forcing them to dramatically curtail their consumption of food and other goods. Meanwhile, any additional profits that fell into the laps of business owners as a result of the price inflation were taxed by the colonial state.
This sounds scarily similar to USA, except it’s not that extreme yet.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 69.6 ms ] threadConsidering how much land is being used for livestock feed, switching to a plant based diet would be the easiest way to ensure sufficient food production for everybody.
Livestock farming is ruining the soil, the water, a major producer of CO2, the main producer of Methane, and the root cause for the burning of the rainforest.
Palm Oil plants are only 12% of those 28%.
That means at least 80% is burned for Livestock or livestock feed. Since part of the palm oil and other plant produce is also used for livestock feed that number probably closer to 85%.
See: https://www.fern.org/fileadmin/uploads/fern/Documents/Fern%2...
A major issue with the less-meat-more-veggies idea is glyphosate, though, as produce treated with it is not vegan: glyphosate mixtures typically contain tallow from animal fat.
Crop farming is ruining the soil way faster than grazing livestock. Livestock grazing the land is a lot closer to how the land was before we came along than a rainforest.
But what is all that crop used for?
Livestock.
> Livestock grazing the land is a lot closer to how the land was before we came along than a rainforest.
Freudian slip?
This are the places where thousands of species of pollinators can breed and multiply. The same that will play a main role in crop production in all the farms around in a radius of several Km
Honey bees are good pollinators. The much smaller wild bees aren't just good, they are fantastic pollinators of lots of crops that honey bees ignore
Food prices the world over are the lowest they have been in history. Grain prices are so low that grain is now fed to meat producing livestock--a new historical development. Food is so historically cheap that most of the western world can afford to be overweight and even the poor are obese.
This small preserve is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of hectares of Amazonian forest that has been cleared for ranching. The trend in most of the world is clearing forest for more agriculture, whether it is palm oil or bananas or livestock.
Whatever nefarious force you think is plotting a famine will not remain in power for long if there is a real famine. The actual people in charge know this and have no intention of asking the peasants to eat cake.
Seeing someone buy all the farmland around you to not farm it, will kill your business. I can see why you wouldn't be happy.
A spanish jury has to explain the last month to farmers that keeping biodiversity has priority over hunting and fishing. Not each inch of territory must be a farm.
My family owns some ranch and farmland that we farmed for 150 years. My retired father still has to grow hay and lease grazing land to just make the property tax requirement.
This sounds scarily similar to USA, except it’s not that extreme yet.
I can't tell if that's an emergent phenomena, or people are trying to actively hide the sources, but it amounts to the same thing.