Here's how much cropland could be freed up if Americans ate half as much meat
Here's how much cropland could be freed up if Americans ate half as much meat
A national flexitarian diet would reduce the amount of U.S. farmland by roughly the size of South Dakota.
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We already have way more farmland than we need. That's how we can produce cheap beef in the first place. The government pays farmers to grow corn and turn it into ethanol because we grow so much corn that it would tank the market to sell it all.
We should be turning cropland back into prairies and forests. Put some carbon back into the soil and create ecosystems to support biodiversity again.
A well-intentioned thought. There is indeed a lot of corn. Dedicated fields are valuable, and practical. We just need to find better use for them. 🙂
It's far easier said than done, but I would love to see fields of industrial hemp! It would clean the soil, water, and sky. Hemp has so many uses. We can wear it, our clothing would be stronger & last longer...I'm telling you, it would be worth a try.
I'm picturing a field of potatoes, beans and hemp laid out in optimized patterns and never 100% harvested. Throw in patches of natives and flowers and some shading solar panels you'd be really cookin... If feasable to totally no till and if it worked, after season, bring in some cows to clear the dead beans and after a few days, chickens to feast upon the poo-munchin invertabrates. Do soil maintenance if necessary... Add fruit trees for the lullz. Harvesting would have to be really clever... I bet after a decade or so, upkeep costs woild optimize.
Oh hush; it's my naive fantasy and I can do what I want.