Food land efficiency

Farmers produce more than enough crops to feed the world, but most of it isn't put to good use, and people still go hungry.

If resources were allocated differently, there would be enough food to go around (and also, less crop production would be needed).

Why

On one hand, we need to stop deforestation. On the other hand, we need to end hunger. We don't want these two goals to be pitted against each other.

Agriculture uses more land than all other land usage combined, and it keeps increasing. Forests are destroyed mostly to make room for pasture and/or crop land. We need to reduce the amount of land required to feed the world.

How

• Stop food waste
• Make the food supply more plant-based
  • Plant-based helps a lot because:
    1. Farm animals eat more food than they produce.
    2. While it's true that some land is only good for growing grass to raise animals, there's a limit to how much animal protein can be produced this way.
    3. While it's true that ruminants can eat crop residues that are too fibrous for humans to eat, there's a far more efficient way to convert this fiber into protein: growing mushrooms.

More approaches:

• Improve crop yields (and not just in the short term!)
• Revitalize damaged farmland
• Stop biofuels

NoteNote

Things that won't help:

• Vertical farming - see why
• Insect farming - see why

See also

• End hunger
• Stop habitat loss