*banging on pots and pans* Livestock! do! Not! Eat! The! Human! Edible! Portions! Of! Crops!
They still use way more land than necessary, genius.
oh? they use way too much of the land that we literally cannot use for edible human crop production? that land? the land we can’t use for our own crops? the land they naturally graze because the only plants that grow there are inedible to us and we can’t grow any edible plants on? that land? is that the land you’re talking about, genius?
In the UK only around 40% of the agricultural land is suitable for growing crops. The other 60% is pasture and hill country that is only suitable for raising livestock. Taking away livestock would mean importing significantly more food, which is far worse for the environment than locally raised beef and lamb.
Grazed pasture is also an important habitat for many species, particularly insects and some farmland birds that require the short cropped grass for nesting and foraging. Certain traditional breeds of livestock are also used for conservation grazing, which helps to protect rare and vulnerable habitats.
Overgrazing by livestock can also be an issue in some areas (such as in the Lake District) but removing the livestock entirely isn’t necessarily the solution. I’ve herd people say that if the livestock was removed the land could be re-wilded but even then it wouldn’t have to exclude livestock. For example, the Knepp Estate in Sussex uses traditional breed cattle and pigs to help re-wild the land, culling excess animals to sell for meat. This is too small scale to work commercially but is an example of how re-wildling and livestock production can work together.
