|Because it's not independant. In Australia, dairy cattle grazing is responsible for far greater emissions.MishaK said:
Because agriculture feeds more people. That modern cropping techniques can actively fight desertification. Or did you fail to read that Cambridge study again? Don't give me garbage that you're 'willing to research' if you can't be bothered to read a 30 page report on how to improve soil and combat desertification. Hint, it has to do something with crops and plant growth ...Lightknight said:
If overgrazing is the largest problem in the world for soil degradation, then why do you pretend to still have an argument? Cut down livestock numbers, cut down grazing. Why are you arguing my point for me? Also, dairy cattle is not less severe on the environment. Because there are many environments that they are responsible for so much land loss by capita of head. By head of cattle, dairy cattle are worse than beef cattle in Australia, as beef cattle sometimes range on lands as low as 1 beast per 50 hectares ... Dairy cattle do not have that ranging space. Requiring huge amounts of soil treatment to repair the damages.
Dairy cattle need good land. Good land is not a universally shared condition. Pretty shitty land is a far more universal condition. Land that would be better served and serving by crops and orchards .... which would require less fertiliser.
So no you have yet to prove that their impact is 'minor' ... after all, we need to use a third of fertilisers to maintain a measly 1.9M dairy cattle. How is that 'minor'? And the thing is, you won't get better results than Australia in prime locations of the world where food security will need to be drastically improved.
IF we needed to run more dairy cattle to meet food demands, we'd end up in a far more serious situation. That it would literally be impossible to do so in most places of the world. What are you not getting? We need to cut livestock numbers, cut grazing. The reason why the dairy cattle industry is so small and run in so few places in substantial volume is because you can't run dairy cattle everywhere.
Why are you arguing this point? How would we run substantial dairy cattle operations in the Kalahari? Most of the world cannot increase dairy production. In many of the places that dairy cattle are run there is substantial measures needed to be taken to maintain soil integrity. You cannot compare the few places where dairy cattle can be run with relatively minor measures needed to be taken to prevent land loss, and port those models to the rest of the world.
You can, however, port effective agriculture measures to large tracts of places which are suffering major land loss. Overgrazing is the single largest contributor to soil degradation. We need to cut grazing. Not increase it. It is a wasteful way to feed people and will contribute to increased obstacles in the future to meet world food targets. Increasing livestock grazing to meet a growing world population is not the answer. Particularly if we look at regional food security, and providing food security to places that are already suffering major land loss.
To simulate the dairy cattle industry elsewhere as in Australia, not only do you have to convert good land from agricultural potential into grazing land, you would need to radically increase fertiliser and water usage to maintain them. So no ... dare I say you haven't researched a damn thing. Hell, if I had a choice between dairy cattle and beef in high human growth centers like Africa, I might even side with beef.
I would certainly prefer to go with sheep and goat.
I will, however, always side with modern agriculture practices to improve lands, improve vegetative cover and produce more food.
(edit) Look at that map you provided before. Australia exports more grain, vegetable, fruit and nuts (not to mention viticulture and other semi processed goods based on them) than it will ever do livestock and dairy products. How much land loss is attributeable in Australia to crop production? Australia mass exports more green stock than it does livestock and animal products. Not even including the huge amounts we produce simply to FEED livestock and ourselves domestically ... and yet overgrazing is still our greatest environmental challenge. That is an insane amount of damage to simply enjoy a cheap glass of milk or a cheap piece of sirloin.
Most of the world cannot look at cheeses as a future staple.
Sri Lanka... in 1999 Sri Lanka needed to run over half of its current buffalo milk stock on dry lowlands, and according to the Sri Lankan environmental authorities, the situation was; "There is little being done to protect fodder and pasture protection still." And Sri Lanka is considered more responsible in its dairying than India or Pakistan. And yet, despite that fact, the only way that they could effectively price regulate dairy quotas sustainably is 38% of total domestic supply being completely 'informal' (in common parlance, no testing, no regulation, no health status checks of cattle, and no guarantee of future supply on a year to year basis). One third of their entire milk supply is given over to good faith, in other words.
( https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/53143/SriLanka_DairyAppraisal_V1.pdf?sequence=1 )
Another thing for you to not read and research.
Since 1999 they still consistently fail to meet domestic demand, and more cattle are being run on smaller holds. Compounded by excess tea production as well as grazing near highly susceptible regions that contribute to severe soil erosion. Despite raising demand, total ruminants have decreased from 2000 to 2007. Sri Lanka now consumes less milk now than it did 30 years ago. If anything, animal product consumption has radically transformed into chicken meat consumption and milk powders (principle, whey). Regardless of 20 years of attempted reform, Sri Lanka still cannot meet its dairy demands, and is simply going backwards in terms of fresh dariy product consumption.
Dairy consumption is dropping worldwide. There are fewer places capable of providing it. By acre, chicken meat and eggs are better than dairy production, and so many countries are simply giving up trying to meet dairy demand domestically, and many countries are focussing on egg production which has higher protein yields for less.
Most of Sri Lanka's buffalo ruminants are used for farm operations. Not as commercial-level milk or meat. Pulling hoes, a source of manure, or merely rounding out a farmer's personal diet and putting them on uncultivated land because ... well, why not? You can always split the milk with the calves, slaughter bull calves, or sell them at markets if you think they look strong and others might be interested at breeding stronger stock. Makes sense if you're poor. But such operations are far and beyond the average living experience of Sri Lankans. They are certainly beyond any large scale commercial enterprise or long term degree of dairy production.
( http://www.academia.edu/11428439/The_dairy_industry_in_Sri_Lanka )
In order to go back to such sustainable widespread dairy consumption, more of us are going to need overalls.
( http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1522e/i1522e02.pdf )
( http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/farmers-forced-to-slaughter-cows-as-el-nino-leaves-no-room-for-passengers-20151023-gkgm2x.html )
They are planning to mass slaughter dairy cattle in Australia and so expect dairy supply to go down again by next year, but not only that .... expect more dairy farms to disappear. Half of them even in Western Europe have disappeared in the last 20 years. But apparently we should just run more and throw more of our money into fires to sustain world demand for dairy products. As dry periods periodically coalesce for longer between ever shortening wet spells with climate change, dairy cattle are going to be consistently looked at as the least productive, most expendable herd type there is. You can turn dairy cattle into meat to avoid increases in the cost of grain when pastures die, after all.
Dairy production is shit at feeding people. Most countries can't achieve milk self-sufficiency, and those that can, most of them are being destroyed for it. And no, you haven't researched a damn thing. If you had, you'd realize a minute handful of countries can actually produce large export quantities of milk products. In fact, due to high consumer price but low global demand from most societies (who either can't afford it or don't want it), a lot of surplus milk, sold as milk, is merely being dumped.
( http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/with-almond-as-the-new-white-milk-dairy-alternatives-make-further-inroads-1608815.htm )
In fact, due to the supply of energy corrected, pasteurized milk (4% fat, 3.3% protein milk), the milk/feed ratio price of producing milk is ridiculously volatile on a year to year basis. Leading to undersupply with undesireable fresh milk at best, and sudden oversupply and crippling shortfalls with minimal price reduction for consumers at worst. The 2015 milk oversupply in February contributed to only a 5% drop in price for consumers, despite massive volumes of unsold milk.
Due to dairy production being so incredibly volatile, it is the least dependable type of herd cattle to run. That most of the 122 million 'milk farms' in the world (remember, the average is a whopping 3 cows per farm to be a 'dairy farm' by International Farm Comparison Network standards) ... most of those farms will barely survive trying to meet commercial volumes, and rather nearly all dairy production relies on intimate trade between farmer and maybe a nearby common market, if not only for familial use.
All in all, dairy production is cost effective in a handful of countries, and prohibitively expensive in nearly all developing nations. Put it this way .... a skilled farmer could milk 12 cows a day prior modern milking machines and rotational feed and milking technologies. In places without consistent power, without feed, or without proper price guarantees and modern veterinarian science, will not meet the demands of establishing competitive dairy production that exceed the yields guaranteed by good agricultural cropping practices ... much less running beef cattle. Part of the reasons why developing countries default to running animals for meat, or as a minor adjunct to crops, to begin with.
You don't need a multimillion dollar milking machine to make a profit with beef, nor do you risk selling something that might be not even be wanted in commercial supply. Most of the world is lactose intolerant, but most of the world can still eat a burger.
Looking at the diets of people beyond the Western sphere, this is also painfully obvious.
http://www.ifcndairy.org/media/downloads/Press-release-IFCN-Dairy-Report-2013.pdf
To put it plainly....
