But what I am talking about IS happening, and the same methods are taking root in other countries where populations are growing and they have the infrastructure and economic means to start into the mass-raising and slaughter business. Unfortunately, this is a case where the bar has been set, and others are actively trying to meet it.
Your statement falls under the logical fallacy of "Irrelevant conclusion".
What you said may be true, but it's not relevant to disproving any point I argued. So the truth or falseness of your conclusion is irrelevant in the context of what you're responding to.
The above paragraph is actually your admittance to there being a MASSIVE amount of food being grown that is being fed to animals.
Your statement again falls under the fallacy of "irrelevant conclusion".
The fact that food is being grown to be fed to animals doesn't disprove any of the points I made.
The main point I made, which you ignored, is the fact that you don't actually need to feed human food to raise livestock successfully - which is why most of the world isn't feeding human food to their livestock.
It's a complete fallacy to claim that the rest of the world is missing out on additional plant nutrition because they are raising livestock.
That belief comes out of an ignorance of how most livestock is raised around the world. Most of the world doesn't feed their livestock their own food unless they have a huge surplus of it. And if they have a huge surplus of it then it's not hurting them to feed it to their animals. But most of the world doesn't have that kind of surplus.
And one of your main objections is that you couldn't feed people on EXACTLY the crops grown to feed the animals
That was never a point I tried to argue.
You did not understand the points I was actually making.
I will re-iterate them for you:
1. That most of the world isn't raising livestock using their own food. So your argument is irrelevant. They aren't missing out on anything by raising livestock. They are only gaining something they otherwise wouldn't have by raising livestock on otherwise unused pasture.
2. That most of the world needs that animal protein to make a nutritionally complete diet. So efficiency isn't even a relevant concern because you still need that nutritional supplement to live, even if it's not efficient to get it. But your argument about efficiency isn't even true because most people around the world aren't feeding their animals with human food to begin with.
3. That those who are feeding human food to animals are producing such a ridiculous surplus of it that their citizens aren't losing out on anything. That's the definition of a surplus. No one in that country is being hurt by giving their surplus to their animals.
Without the animals, other crops could obviously be grown.
Your statement isn't relevant to disproving any of the points I made. Which I re-iterated above for you.
The truth is, that cropland in the USA would likely lay fallow if not given to our animals.
For a few reasons:
1. We already produce a huge surplus of grains for our domestic population. So there's no demand for more to be produced. Therefore, it wouldn't be profitable to cultivate that land with grain crops for human consumption.
2. There's limited international demand from countries that have the capability to pay us enough dollars to make it profitable for us to cultivate that land. Although there are some countries like China that have both the need and the cash because of their unique situation. But if countries like China don't put an increased demand on our farms to produce more then you won't see more land being cultivated to meet that demand.
The fact is that most of the countries around the world that could really use an import of Americans grains don't have enough cash to pay us to make it worth our time and resources to grow and transport those grains.
There are a staggering 9 BILLION chickens slaughtered per year in the U.S. 9 BILLION!!
This statement of yours also doesn't disprove or counter any point I made.
I basically noted this, by stating that B12 is an issue for vegans as it is a very novel nutrient only found where bacteria (mainly gut bacteria) have done the work of breaking down organic materials. And stated that if we were all working together, things like food items rich in B12 (like nutritional yeast, which I also specifically called out) could be traded for, and methods of production shared with everyone throughout the world.
....
I've said multiple times that it would take people working together, trade and sharing
This goes back to your pie in the sky nonsense I called you out for already:
Simply throwing out phrases like "we can all work together" is not an actionable plan about how to change the world.
That's like you trying to say your plan for ending hunger in the world is as simple as saying "let's feed everyone". Yeah that sounds great, but how exactly are you going to do that? Just saying let's do it doesn't make it happen or even mean it's feasible.
Simply saying "they can trade for it", ignores the cold hard realities of why that isn't an option for them.
It would be like you saying the solution to people's hunger around the world is "they should just grow more food". Wow, that's genius. Why didn't they think of that before? You should go be their minister of agriculture.
You're ignoring the economic and logistical realities of the world that not everyone produces an exportable product that would allow them to trade with an industrialized nation.
Just because you can grow bananas doesn't mean you can export it for profit.
Can you produce them cheaper than we can get them from another country? No? Then why should we import yours when we get them cheaper elsewhere?
Do you even have a road/rail/port network that can connect your farm to our coastline? No? Then why should we build it when we are already getting bananas from somewhere else that has that?
You can produce them at the same cost and you have infrastructure to get it to us? Well, you're further away, so it would cost us more to import it. No thanks.
You say you are the same distance away as our other source? Well, we already get enough from our other source, so there's no incentive for us to split our supply chain up across different locations. It's less efficient and more costly to do so. We'll pass on that.
Maybe you could sell your bananas to another poorly developed country for their currency? Ok, but then what's that currency going to get you? Only something that poor country can produce. Which may not be what you need.
And if that poor country does have something you need that a richer country wants? Chances are you aren't getting it. They have no reason to sell you a high value product like macadamia nuts when there's other buyers who are willing to pay a lot more than you can.
If you actually need something from a highly developed nation, you're going to need to produce something that said nation actually wants to import and has an incentive to import from you specifically over other alternatives.
And if you even want something from a poorly developed nation, you're going to have to be able to pay a price competitive with what richer nations are prepared to pay - which you won't be able to do unless you have something significant to export in order to acquire those types of money for yourself.
Which is why I specifically mentioned trade. You just seem to want to sweep everything under the rug. It's ridiculous.
Which is why I pointed out to you that trading for nutritional variety and sufficient quantity, like the west does, isn't a viable option for most of the world.
That's cold hard reality.
You're the one sweeping reality under the rug by trying to pretend the realities of logistics and economics doesn't matter.
People don't gain the ability to trade like western nations do just because you decree it should be so. That's magical thinking.
Just like they don't gain the ability to overproduce food the same way the USA does just because you decree it should be so.
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