Very Commonly Unknown Fact

[Mikecarol_32]

Vegans often eat farmed products that exclude meat/dairy products because they care about animals. However, fields growing the crop that they do eat, is the biggest contributer to habitat destruction in the world.

[Lay Vegan]

Welcome, Mikecarol_32! Have you made an introductory post?

It is common knowledge that intensive farming practices are key contributing factors to habitat destruction and climate change.

What you may not be aware of is that habitats are destroyed largely to create pasture for livestock (especially for countries in Latin America).

http://www.fao.org/3/a-a0262e.pdf

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php

As you mentioned, strips of habitat are also cleared away to produce crops, but a fair percentage (and in some cases more) of these crops are fed to food animals.

In fact, 55% of the world’s crop calories are consumed by humans, and 36% is used for animal feed. Figures are far worse in industrialized countries like the United States, where more than 67% of crops (soy, corn, wheat etc) is fed to animals, and only 27% is fed to humans. https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed

Yes, most of that animal feed becomes food, (through the process of a slaughtered animal) but there is still a large net loss of calories and energy (thanks to thermodynamics).https://globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/energyflow/highertrophic/trophic2.html In meat, caloric efficiencies range from 7%–8% (beef is by far the least efficient resting at 3% conversion efficiency).
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002 It would be much more efficient to eat these crops directly, rather than cycling them through animals, then eating the animals.

With a steep enough decline in just beef, fields can be converted into either farmlands for more efficient animals (like chickens) or turned back into forrest land. At the least we could help stem the tide of deforestation (while feeding more people).

[PsYcHo]

fields growing the crop that they do eat, is the biggest contributer to habitat destruction in the world.

I have to agree with Lay Vegan here, more area is destroyed to provide for grazing land for animals. Not to mention, if you consider how much feed a cow eats, and combine that with how much land is needed to both feed the cow, and allow it to graze, animal consumption is far worse for the environment. Not to mention the amount of water and waste disposal that goes into preparing "food" animals.

Nice to meet you, maybe you can make an intro.

[brimstoneSalad]

Great response Lay Vegan,

There's also a really great new study on the issue. LA times reports on it here:
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-more-food-vegan-20180326-story.html

It puts in perspective how big the savings actually is and how much is wasted on animal agriculture, even in our current super-efficient (in global terms) systems.

[goodwolffarmer710]

so many people struggle to understand this lol...
People commonly come up with an idea and just grab it as an ideological stand point instead of testing it or researching!

I am new to the channel, and I am a farmer, mushroom cultivator, and commercial heat, cool and refrigeration tech, nice to meet you all!!

[invincibleIJIN]

Vegans often eat farmed products that exclude meat/dairy products because they care about animals. However, fields growing the crop that they do eat, is the biggest contributer to habitat destruction in the world.

The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into protein varies widely. With cattle in feedlots, it takes roughly 7 kilograms of grain to produce a 1-kilogram gain in live weight. For pork, the figure is close to 4 kilograms of grain per kilogram of weight gain, for poultry, it is just over 2, and for herbivorous species of farmed fish (such as carp, tilapia, and catfish), it is less than 2.
So why can't we directly consume grains ??

[Teichu]

It is hard now to give up suppliers from large farms. It's hard to find small farms, even harder small shops (at least for me, almost everything is monopolized).
However, let us remember the law of supply and demand. The more Vegans and Vegetarians will be, the bigger the niche will be on the market.