Changing Diet at Peak Food Time
When grain is fed to animals there is an obvious net loss of food compared to using the grain to feed humans. With beef this can be as high as using 10 kg of grain for each kilo of beef. Pigs are more efficient and chicken better still.
Many people say that the world will have to change to a vegetarian diet to support the 9 billion inhabitants of 2040, but perhaps a compromise would be better.
There are many wet or hilly areas of the world where arable crops are just not feasable, but grazing by cattle, sheep or goats can produce significant amounts of meat. Even in the UK, much land in Wales, Cumbria and western Scotland produces lush grass due to ample rainfall but would struggle as arable land.
Animals are also great at turning food waste in to new food. In the UK we have a massive problem with huge amounts of food waste going in to landfill and then emitting methane gas. Unfortunately, the spread of foot and mouth disease a few years ago was blamed on a pig producer who had fed waste food containing imported, infected meat. The government panicked and stopped the practice of swill feeding instead of tightening up and policing swill feed rules.
Most swill feeders were doing an excellent job of collecting, boiling and safely feeding waste and could do so again under sensible but strict regulations.
So perhaps in the future we should have a diet that has less meat and very little from grain fed animals except chicken.
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