> Sure, that's obvious. But we don't need those calories to sustain ourselves.
This is completely different topic. You won't change people's habits. I for one would be in great favour of large-scale insect farming as they are way more efficient sources of protein but you are not going to change anybody's habit just by arguing from such a perspective.
> Sources?
On the one hand, most models fail to capture carbon sequestration and purely assess carbon exhaust. This is a fair approximation if your source of feed is based upon the deforestation of the Amazon.
However, for grazing animals decomposing gras will just emit the carbon it has captured throughout its lifetime. And most of all, it will regrow rather swiftly.
A recent paper which I could find that took this into account is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965262...
Quote: "However, although the environmental impacts are well defined in LCAs, most of them do not include carbon sequestration, which is an important limitation when studying real emissions in more sustainable animal production systems. In this context, compensated CF -including carbon sequestration-implies a greater reduction in those systems that are more linked to the territory."
> EU is one of the largest importers of soy from deforested Amazon.
Again, there is a categoric difference between typical highly processed industrial agriculture and organic. Especially Spain has a powerful agriculture lobby with vast lands which only produce crops and meat. Certainly, a lot of things are going wrong and due to subsidies there is so much overproduction that European products are dumping the African market. Destroying the local competition.
On the other hand, the US loves to make people fat by subsidising big Corn. In fact, it is subsidised so much that creating high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than buying sugar canes from abroad. Too bad that the sugar in corn is fructose, which promotes fatty liver disease.
> What part of EU grown beef is organic & exclusively fed with grass?
There is the official EU organic label, which has hard criteria. However, there are many other labels which go even further.
This is completely different topic. You won't change people's habits. I for one would be in great favour of large-scale insect farming as they are way more efficient sources of protein but you are not going to change anybody's habit just by arguing from such a perspective.
> Sources?
On the one hand, most models fail to capture carbon sequestration and purely assess carbon exhaust. This is a fair approximation if your source of feed is based upon the deforestation of the Amazon.
However, for grazing animals decomposing gras will just emit the carbon it has captured throughout its lifetime. And most of all, it will regrow rather swiftly. A recent paper which I could find that took this into account is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965262...
Quote: "However, although the environmental impacts are well defined in LCAs, most of them do not include carbon sequestration, which is an important limitation when studying real emissions in more sustainable animal production systems. In this context, compensated CF -including carbon sequestration-implies a greater reduction in those systems that are more linked to the territory."
> EU is one of the largest importers of soy from deforested Amazon.
Again, there is a categoric difference between typical highly processed industrial agriculture and organic. Especially Spain has a powerful agriculture lobby with vast lands which only produce crops and meat. Certainly, a lot of things are going wrong and due to subsidies there is so much overproduction that European products are dumping the African market. Destroying the local competition.
On the other hand, the US loves to make people fat by subsidising big Corn. In fact, it is subsidised so much that creating high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than buying sugar canes from abroad. Too bad that the sugar in corn is fructose, which promotes fatty liver disease.
> What part of EU grown beef is organic & exclusively fed with grass?
There is the official EU organic label, which has hard criteria. However, there are many other labels which go even further.
Base EU guidelines: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/farming/organic-farming/org...