Is raising meat more harmful to the environment than raising vegetables?

I grew up on a farm and we had some scrub land and sloughs that we never touched. They were kind of sanctuaries for wild life. Coyotes, deer, antelope, badgers, gophers ducks geese snipes are only a partial list of birds and animals that lived near the small ponds. Trees grew all around them and the wild life found shelter food and water there. We would turn our cattle into that area and the year after year there was harmony as we would harvest the cows every year producing hundreds of pounds of beef every year with zero impact on the environment. Not far from the sloughs we would grow grain. Early in the spring we would turn all the soil killing all the native grasses of course that required using a huge diesel tractor to do it. Then we would go over the land planting seed. As we planted we would add chemical fertilizer and some very powerful mercury based poison to kill the worms that would eat our crop. It was not unusual to run over a ducks nest or see baby hares running in fear of the noisy machinery. Late in the spring we would spray the land with dangerous chemicals to control the weeds. Some time later we would spray with another deadly chemical to control the grass hoppers or other blight. Finally in the fall we would fire up the massive combine and burn hundreds of gallons of diesel as we took off the wheat which we hoped was of adequate quality to feed to humans. It often wasn't due to lack of rain or early frost or early snow. What did we do with substandard grain? Fed it to the cows. Now which one of these food sources had the greater impact on the environment? Hers is a hint. It wasn't the cows.

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QuixoticSoul · 41-45, M

Altogether it's pretty bad, yeah.

A 212-page online report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says 26 percent of the earth’s terrestrial surface is used for livestock grazing. One-third of the planet’s arable land is occupied by livestock feed crop cultivation. Seventy percent of Brazil’s deforested land is used as pasture, with feed crop cultivation occupying much of the remainder. And in Botswana, the livestock industry consumes 23 percent of all water used. Globally, 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the livestock industry—more than is produced by transportation-related sources. And in the United States, livestock production is responsible for 55 percent of erosion, 37 percent of all applied pesticides and 50 percent of antibiotics consumed, while the animals themselves directly consume 95 percent of our oat production and 80 percent of our corn

kayoshin · 41-45, M

@QuixoticSoul yes but it's funny how they omit some details like: even without livestock humans can only process 20% of corn because we are NOT herbivores we only eat the seeds, while the cows turn the 80% that is garbage to us into food.
Same with oats. So your complaint is that animals make agriculture efficient instead of inefficient.
Also it's interesting how they don't mention that livestock grazing while occupying vast surfaces has an inverse proportionally effect on environment to the pasture area (meaning the bigger the pasture area the smaller the effect on land and vegetation).
The world is not Brazil. Just saying.
Question how much water does Botswana have and how would their life be without livestock? Throwing alarmist numbers without analyzing them is just fools propaganda.
Other question: what would you use for fertilizer without livestock?
How much land do you think you would need without livestock to feed the humans remembering that agriculture without livestock is as low as 5% efficiency as your own example study shows.
What happens when you have a simple event like a bad season? (Google Irish potato famine for the answer).
18% of greenhouse gases produced by animals AND logistics not excluding the logisics and even so the numbers seem inflated as they take numbers of animals per year Into account but most animals registered do not live the whole year to produce gas cause they are on someone's plate so even if a farm produces 3000 heads a year it might only have 1500 alive at a time.
How much greenhouse gases would agriculture produce to substitute meat products realistically considering a large portion of the globe gives poor yelds and many countries have poor agricultural practices and top all that with logistics and storage energetic costs.
Throwing numbers is silly when you don't present the alternative too. It's like only telling a pacient The side effects of the medicine but forgetting to tell them it saves their life. Sure there are consequences to livestock keeping but the alternative is far worse for humans and for the environment (also most life stock perhaps except pigs and sheep in remote areas with no predators, would go extinct)

QuixoticSoul · 41-45, M

@kayoshin

even without livestock humans can only process 20% of corn because we are NOT herbivores we only eat the seeds, while the cows turn the 80% that is garbage to us into food.
Same with oats. So your complaint is that animals make agriculture efficient instead of inefficient.

No, this isn't what they're talking about here. We feed grains to livestock as supplement or finishing feed - and a lot of it. That isn't a reference to the byproducts, but to the grains itself. Looking around, a cow will consume about 2800 pounds of corn (seed) in the feedlot - often as part of an all-grain diet.

This is done to rapidly speed up growth - it used to be that an animal had to mature for a few years before slaughter, now we have it down to 14 months. The crowded environment and rich diet of the feedlot isn't all that healthy for the cows - the rumen is evolved to digest forage, not straight grain. But this can be managed with antibiotics, with yet more side effects for society as a whole.

The world is not Brazil. Just saying.

This is a blurb about worldwide impact, Brazil is part of the world.

Question how much water does Botswana have and how would their life be without livestock?

Botswana has problems with water, they don't have a lot. They export beef, so it's not a subsistence situation. The agricultural sector isn't as important as it used to be due to the current mining boom, but there is a strong traditional aspect to things.

Other question: what would you use for fertilizer without livestock?

We have an overabundance of animal manure, we waste a ton of it, and are forced to burn or dump it - with corresponding environmental damage. And it's far from the only source or method of obtaining fertilizer.

How much land do you think you would need without livestock to feed the humans remembering that agriculture without livestock is as low as 5% efficiency as your own example study shows.

You misunderstood that example. And this is also a strawman because nobody is actually suggesting the whole world go vegan. But actually table-destined agriculture is far more efficient for the calories it produces, which is why most plans for a sustainable future as the population breaks 10 billion has us eating a more plant-based diet, with less meat. The meat-based diet is far less efficient in terms of land/water use, greenhouse gases, etc. Ironically, we know this by studying areas of the world that you accuse of having poor agricultural yields. Surprisingly, it's still an improvement in efficiency.

18% of greenhouse gases produced by animals AND logistics not excluding the logisics and even so the numbers seem inflated as they take numbers of animals per year Into account but most animals registered do not live the whole year to produce gas cause they are on someone's plate so even if a farm produces 3000 heads a year it might only have 1500 alive at a time.

There have been a lot of studies done on this subject. The numbers vary a bit, but they're generally quite high.

How much greenhouse gases would agriculture produce to substitute meat products realistically considering a large portion of the globe gives poor yelds and many countries have poor agricultural practices and top all that with logistics and storage energetic costs.

Less.

Throwing numbers is silly when you don't present the alternative too.

This wasn't a question about solutions, tbh.

But here is a solution, and an answer to the rest of your questions: the answer is not to go vegan. It's to eat less meat. Certainly, Americans especially, will only benefit. It's pretty obvious that while some people in the world can use a bit more meat in their diet - whole swaths of it could use way, way less.