A bit of a mathematical question here.

Ok. As many know, Steven Davis, an animal scientist once claimed that vegans/ veggies kill 2x the number of animals as meat eaters (this theory has been proven wrong multiple times.)

Now here's what I'm trying to figure out:
Peter Singer disproved this in the case of grass fed beef.
He explained that: Even accepting that number (that 2x die per acre) we need to figure that one acre of crops on average feeds 10x more than an acre of beef, thus, by eating meat you are effectively killing 5x the animals (not to mention the long hours of torture inflicted on the highly intelligent farm animals which I deem to be morally repugnant on a higher level than the death of a field mouse, despite the fact that it is obviously a tragic loss)

But I want to figure out the amount more killed if we figure the study on a grain fed/ crop fed factor farm cow:

Figure that 16 tons of grain yield one ton of beef, and the fact that 2x animals die on an acre of farm land (where the grain is from) than the acre of land allocated for meat. And consider that 10x more people can be fed by an acre of crop than by an acre of land for meat.

I believe It's 30x the number of animals===

My calculations: 250 lbs beef/ acre vs. 2000 lbs grain / acre
multiply 250 x 16 = 4000 = how much grain needed to produce the beef
Acre of grain feeds 10x more people than one of meat so: 2000/ 10 (assuming that the 2000 accounts for killing alone)
Assume in Davis' argument that 200 = 2y animals, x 20 to account for the 4000 lbs. so 41y animals killed as opposed to the 2y for crops

If my calculations are correct: 20.5 x the number of animals are killed due to the meat industry (and as I explained this does not even take into account the massive amounts of more suffering) ALSO, this does not even consider the effects of pollution and deforestation and the like...if anyone can come up with a more accurate calculation- that would be great!!!!!

 

I understand that Davis says that
if VK is the number of animals killed by veg*ans
and MK is the number killed by meateaters,
then
VK = 2 * MK
(Davis' claim has been proven false.)

I don't understand what you mean by "2x die per acre".

 

i have emailed Davis when his report came out, and he sent me a copy of the report. This was a while ago, but I recall that there were some weak support for some of the main premises.


Primary Consumer vs. Secondary Consumer is a very big point.
..Converting plant nutrients into animal muscle will require some lost nutrients.

Yes, cattle can eat grass that people can't, but grow potatoes in that same area, and you'd create much more food.

Cattle on rocky soil might create more meat, for that area since crops won't grow there well.


Here are some figures I'd collected when I was doing a lot of research on this...


http://www.nass.usda.gov:81/ipedb/
5 year average 1998-2002 bushels/acre (b/a)
Oil -food kcalories output :to: kcalories of oil input (2.5 equals 2.5:1)
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/highway/english/energy/live.html


US averages

................................... in pounds ........... Oil

potato......... 383 cwt/a . 38,000 lbs/acre .... 1.2
corn.............. 135 b/a .... 7,560 lbs/a ......... 2.5
med grain rice................. 7,200 lbs/a
short grain rice................ 6,200 lbs/a
long grain rice................. 5,800 lbs/a
soybean......... 59 b/a ..... 3,540 lbs/a
sorghum......... 60 b/a ..... 3,360 lbs/a ......... 4.2
barley............ 58 b/a ..... 2,784 lbs/a
winter wheat... 44 b/a ..... 2,640 lbs/a ......... 2.2
spring wheat... 35 b/a ..... 2,100 lbs/a ......... 2.2
oats.............. 60 b/a ..... 1,920 lbs/a
durum wheat... 31 b/a ..... 1,860 lbs/a ......... 2.2
rye................ 27 b/a ..... 1,512 lbs/a
millet............. 24 b/a ..... 1,200 lbs/a


cwt=100 lbs
http://www.eas.asu.edu/~nfapp/commodities/table/potatoes.htm


how does it compare to pasture cattle...

http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ANSC/Oct2504a.htm
This article from 2004, talks about a great success of cattle gaining 1,060 pounds, per acre of cattle. They mention "in 60 days", but since the technique was to grow the grass 14-16 inches tall, they can't repeat this every 60 days. The grass would need the time to re-grow to 14-16 inches.

The article also mentions that starting weight of the cattle was 650 pounds. It leaves the question of how many pounds/per/acre of food did they require to reach 650 pounds, and how long did the starting phase take.

..................

another factor is the cattle are regularly fed harvested human-edible crops...
especially during "finishing"
.....

So how much human edible and inedible food might be used during finishing?
Here are some numbers..
http://tinyurl.com/2bw4
this is the Daily rationing for an 800 pound steer
Food...Pounds
Corn 14.7
Soybean meal 0.52
Corn silage 10.00
Limestone 0.17

......

and

Not all of the cattle's weight is edible for people.
After the cattle is killed and inedible parts are removed, the edible
portion can be as little as 40% of the original weight
http://tinyurl.com/2bwa
http://tinyurl.com/2bw5 shows it at roughly
60%. It can vary with the cattle and the processing methods.
(lots of food go to create skin, bones, blood, organs, and expended energy
to power the cells&metabolism) Of course, these are turned into leather,
bone meal and blood meal for fertilizers. Conversely plant cloths do
exist, as do plant fertilizers.



.....

And ecology can't be looked at by only 1 aspect... it's a giant web on inter-relating factors.
There is the issue of the 100+Billion pounds of manure generated each year by food animals, which regularly pollutes water sources and our groundwater also. There's also the greater need of water, where water depletion has already eliminated 1.4 million acres of irrigated cropland, just in Texas alone in a 15 year period. And the 20+ times greater use of oil to process animal foods, compared to plant foods. (all the sources for these statistics is in the link below)

True grass-fed cattle and hunted animals do require much less environmental harm, and collateral deaths to other animals... as compared to factory farmed animals.


On OK land, plant crops can produce much more food per acre than cattle can.
Plant crops produce no manure, involve much less oil use (and drilling and transport and processing), and involve less water use.
In terms of collateral deaths to field animals, grass-fed cattle can have differences. But this involves only cattle who are TRULY grass-fed, and not the majority of cattle that are finished on harvested crops.


I collected and present a summary of the largest environmental effects of animals here
http://www.helpusall.com/foodandenvironment.html


here is my page that exlores the field mice and other animals who are killed in food production, and compares it is animal food production
http://helpusall.com/MorePeacefulDiet.html


here is my site on the depletion and pollution of our precious resources. just straight-forward summary and specific numbers.
http://helpusall.com/criticalresources.html

some other info on fuel use, water use, feed:muscle ratios/etc that's either a little out of date, or not yet in the main link, can be found at
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian/msg/373ce8413863fd31?q=info+and+links+group:alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&rnum=3
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian/msg/b055893d66dbcc3f?q=info+and+links+group:alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&rnum=6


Jon
my site is http://www.helpusall.com help us all and it's focus is to explore the effects of lifestyle actions, and present comparisons.... to help people explore which ones enable the most peace and freedom and ability for themself and others... for us all
(all voluntary, i'm not in any group and don't get paid by any source, and the website has no advertising and no way to generate any money and no donations either. i just spend $15 a month for the website, and do my best to help us all

 

Thanks for all the great info!!!!!

 

thanks gratefulvegan




Still, there is to me, a difference in intentional taking of life and unintentional.


i wanted to show that idea again... it goes deep, a lot aspects


My direct harms caused by car use were difficult too...
I now try to avoid driving at night, and drive as slow as i can when there's brush close to the road. My favorite roads are long bridges over rivers... where there is no ability for anybody to run out onto.