This is a strawman. No one is arguing buying beans fixes deforestation. However, if less meat is produced (ie less animals are raised for slaughter), then less deforestation will come as a result of the meat industry. If legume farming was destroying the rainforest, I’d have a problem with that too
This was the case, and is certainly problematic. Take it a step further – who or what is consuming that soy? Animal agriculture, by and large. Therefore this is an argument for veganism, or at least reducing consumption.
the vast majority of the world’s soy (about 85%) is pressed for oil in an oil press for human use. the byproduct of the press is called soy meal or soy cake, and would be a waste product if we didn’t find a use for it. currently, almost all of it goes to feed livestock, (about 70% of the entire crop-weight).
soybeans are used by people, and we feed the trash to livestock.
This seems to reinforce my point. Surely 75% of production is not simply wastage otherwise. This is even ignoring the fact that I provided a source showing that deforestation by soy is far less problematic than it used to be.
that’s bad. buying beans doesn’t fix it though.
This is a strawman. No one is arguing buying beans fixes deforestation. However, if less meat is produced (ie less animals are raised for slaughter), then less deforestation will come as a result of the meat industry. If legume farming was destroying the rainforest, I’d have a problem with that too
turns out, a lot of the the deforested amazon is being used to grow soy.
This was the case, and is certainly problematic. Take it a step further – who or what is consuming that soy? Animal agriculture, by and large. Therefore this is an argument for veganism, or at least reducing consumption.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/victories/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-soy-moratorium-success/
the vast majority of the world’s soy (about 85%) is pressed for oil in an oil press for human use. the byproduct of the press is called soy meal or soy cake, and would be a waste product if we didn’t find a use for it. currently, almost all of it goes to feed livestock, (about 70% of the entire crop-weight).
soybeans are used by people, and we feed the trash to livestock.
Can you supply a source for this please?
https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Global-soy-production-to-end-use.png
This seems to reinforce my point. Surely 75% of production is not simply wastage otherwise. This is even ignoring the fact that I provided a source showing that deforestation by soy is far less problematic than it used to be.
ok. i did “ignore” that. am i supposed to accolade every true statement?
the soybean is only 20% oil. we extract 17% of the global crop as oil. we must find something to do with that waste product.
but just being vegan doesn’t cause this to happen.
It’s simple economics. Less demand, less supply.
that’s not causal.