Reply #34: Comparing "a" factory farm vs "a" sustainable farm's energy consumption

[daylan b]

is as much of a no brainer as factory farms vs enough inefficient small farms to feed as many people as we feed right now.

People like to compare the waste from one CAFO to their chickens in the back yard. It's a b.s. comparison. The land requirement alone to feed everyone running sustainable farms makes the idea of eliminating CAFOs preposterous. The problem is population, CAFOs are a symptom of that problem.

That does NOT mean that a person can't make a difference with their own operation. It just means that in macro terms, 'sustainable' isn't nearly as sustainable as one would presume.

Regarding corn, you are using the same half truth technique that they did in Food Inc. What you say is true yet irrelevant. Corn is fed in the final 90-120 days, called finishing, it's not fed long term. Food Inc pretends that corn is force fed to cattle because of subsidies when I know of no foodstuff that cattle prefer more other than molasses.