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The truth about organic milk: cows are suffering on even the most “humane” dairy farms
(www.theatlantic.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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Mmm I sorta agree with you but soy milk and soy plantations in general (or whatever the proper name is for a farm of soybeans) definitely contribute to deforestation it takes a lot of land to turn out enough product
Here’s a quick mention in a posting I found - I’m sure there are some studies out there if you’re interested
https://bastyr.edu/about/news/which-milk-alternative-most-eco-friendly
The deforestation is to grow soy to feed cows to make milk and beef.
Kinda frustrating when the environmental alternative to dairy milk...is being planted in the former Amazon Rainforest to make dairy milk.
Can’t opt out of capitalism while living under it imo. Especially when it’s as systemic as it is. Not opting for any other governing style or economy really - I’m pretty ignorant on alternatives besides traditonal bartering. I just think it’s pretty obvious to anyone under the boot that this isn’t working.
I’d say the best course would be to beat them at their own game and rewrite the rules yourself I guess
almost all soy, including what is grown in the region formerly occupied by the amazon, is pressed for oil for human use, only about 7% of it is fed directly to animals. after processing the soy forhuman use, the waste product is what is given to animals, and cows get only a fraction of the soy. most of the soy fed to animals goes to poultry and swine.
That's off by an order of magnitude. It's not 7%, it's 77%
https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals
When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal for animal feed (not oil) is the driver of demand
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010
This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87
your seven-year-old research about soy markets is outdated. while the oil has always been worth far more than its weight in the bean, it is now around 50/50, even though beans are only about 20% oil.
i'm so glad you found the OWID link. do you see how the chart shows the vast majority of what is fed to animals is called "soy meal" or "soy cake"? that's the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil. they literally eat our industrial waste. down at the bottom of the chart you can see the 7% that is fed directly to animals
Byproduct that accounts for the majority of the revenue? That's hardly a byproduct?
7%, is feeding of entire soybeans
it's not a majority of the revenue. it's about half of the revenue from beans that are pressed for oil, but there are other uses.
50% of revenue is not a byproduct, that's a core part! I don't see much point continuing these conversation as if we are going to claim that we can just ignore 50% of revenue as a "byproduct". None of these conversations are going to get anywhere if that's the way things are going to go
since soybeans can be fed directly to animals, there is no need to make soy meal first. they are placed in an oil press, and the byproduct of pressing them for oil is soy meal. these are bare facts.
right. which is what i said.
your five-year-old study might seem to be relevant on the surface, but you will find that the data sources for, for instance, biodiesel prices date to 1999. it is not ph.d. level research. i would expect something of this caliber from a rigorous high school.