this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2025
482 points (96.3% liked)

Today I Learned

26471 readers
1324 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Of the total area that is used by humans (Agriculture, Urban and Built-up Land),

  • urban and built-up land is 1m km²,
  • agriculture is 48m km²,

so agriculture is 48 of 49 millions km² used, that's 98%. The remaining 2% are all streets and housing and other infrastructure together.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 24 points 6 days ago (6 children)

No, it doesn't.

The entire mid- and western US is largely unable to grow crops - "this land was made for the buffalo, and hates the plow".

See Bowl, Dust.

To make it grow crops, we've been pumping out a massive aquifer since the early 20th century. Subsidence caused by this is a major concern, in addition to the aquifer not refilling as fast as we use it.

In the western portions of CO, basically all of Wyoming, NM, Arizona (arid places), crops simply can't grow at any significant level - but that land can grow crops for grazing animals, especially cows. Sheep and goats destroy such grazing land, which explains the conflict between cattlemen and sheepherders in the 19th century.

Really the entire breadbasket is naturally suited to cows, not crops, as it supported millions of bison.

You should probably read more before pontificating.

[–] VeganBtw@piefed.social 25 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Yes, but you omitted all the croplands we use for feeding non-human animals.

Poore and Nemecek estimate that 50% of croplands are used for human food, 38% is for livestock feed and 12% is for non-food uses.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture

Also, if our goal is to find the truth in all of this, why be mean?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

They didn't really omit that as an oversight, it's just not relevant to their thesis - agricultural land used for animal feed is not super relevant to the disparity in land utilization, as 80% of all agricultural land usage is pasture/grazing. Only 7% of agricultural land is used for growing animal feed.

Agreed about being a little mean though, although I do sympathize with being frustrated about this as AG land use is a very often misunderstood statistic.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago

poore and nemecek did some sloppy work in that 2018 paper, and it's conclusions should not be believed

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You raise some valid points, but I don’t see why it’s necessary to be so rude about it.

How is that rude

Stop farming animals, rewild the pastures, grow human food where animal feed was once grown.

[–] ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

What do you think the buffalo live on genius ?

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

This is true, but personally, I vote that instead of cows we reintroduce the buffalo. Let the herds roam free across the land. Allow people to hunt the buffalo for food if they want - but you must use a bow or blackpowder rifle, and can only mount a horse or a bicycle.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

A death from arrow wounds is absolutely agonizing, especially for a creature as large as a buffalo - it's awful that we still allow it. But black powder is much more humane (relatively), and many states have black powder seasons - including several for buffalo. Though if we're allowing black powder, we really should just let people use proper hunting rounds to minimize the suffering of the animal.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Black powder isn't as humane a round if something goes wrong. Way better to hunt with a semi-auto, just in case you need a quick follow up shot.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

A person concerned about being humane doesn't murder vulnerable individuals in the first place.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Uhh what? I'm assuming you're some militant vegan... people eat meat, that's not going to stop ever.

[–] anarchaos@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

assuming you're some militant vegan

it's worse than that: they're an evangelical vegan