If everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops.

Summary

Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, with most of this used to raise livestock for dairy and meat. Livestock are fed from two sources – lands on which the animals graze and land on which feeding crops, such as soy and cereals, are grown. How much would our agricultural land use decline if the world adopted a plant-based diet?

Research suggests that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops. The research also shows that cutting out beef and dairy (by substituting chicken, eggs, fish or plant-based food) has a much larger impact than eliminating chicken or fish.

  • LostCause
    16•1 year ago

    It‘s not all or nothing, if you had clicked the link actually you would have seen a lot of “it‘s not all or nothing” in there, I‘m not gonna cite it all, but here is one example:

    But importantly large land use reductions would be possible even without a fully vegan diet. Cutting out beef, mutton and dairy makes the biggest difference to agricultural land use as it would free up the land that is used for pastures.

    And fair enough, maybe you won‘t be convinced ever and happily chow down on beef burgers until the bitter end, but if it can convince some people to at least choose chicken instead or even just reduce their beef use as much as they can live with, then it‘s a already a useful study regardless of the holdouts.