Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
> If the bisons get 24 years old, or let it be only 10, so that means 2.4
> million bisons per year. Steaks for some (few) millions people everyday.
Only the mother cows would be allowed to grow so old. Age of slaughter
would be 1-3 years, a little longer than modern beef breeds. There is
no need to eat a steer at 20 years age! Not too many people would want
to, except maybe in a hamburger.
Since land that is not very good for farming can be used for bison or
range cattle without harming it, there would be an increase in
available land.
>
> But what is the cost?
> The cost for 2 million square *miles* of land.
> Economically the price for such good quality meat must be very high.
> The "high" prices for good quality meat (at eatwild etc) is probably
> more on the low side.
I think this can only happen as a slow process, as crop farming is on
fewer acres, range farming can increase. If peoples taste for fatty
soft meat does not change, it will not hapen at all.
>
> The USA are very sparsely populated with only 250 million people in this big
> country. European countries are much denser populated.
It is the US that is typical of the world, not Western Europe. Africa
and North America are almost identical in population density, much of
the world is less densly populated. People are concentrated in a few
densly populated areas. Most of the world is more or less empty.
> There are 80 million in the small Germany for example.
> That's 10 times as much, per square mile.
Germany is atypical. Due to it's climate and soils much of Germany is
ideal for intensive crop agriculture, like the midwest where I grew
up. I doubt that this land will ever be anything but intensive crop land.
>
> Then there's the actual wild game from the sea, fish.
I don't know much about fish.
> I think it's a good idea to re-naturalize some areas.
> In a system driven by money it would only work out if the
> funds were there.
It is being driven by money, those farmers in less fertile areas are
being bankrupted by farmers in more ideal locations. No money needs to
be "added". Concentration will continue, I expect, though the
politicions are fighting it.
>
> >Any grass can be made into silage, haylage we call it in the US. But I
> >am not suggesting this either.
>
> Why are they using predominately maize then? Maybe because it's easier to
> harvest, only one time per year.
I think so. Corn is also very tough, it is reliable. Hay varies a lot
depending on rain patterns, a rain at the wrong time can ruin a hay
crop, but corn is very easy to harvest. In my home area, most farmers
rotate corn, soybeans, oats, and alfalfa hay. The rotation varies a
lot depending on the needs/whims of the farmer. If the insects are bad
one year, the farmer may plant something other than what he had
planned, or the price of corn might suddenly rise or fall, changing
his plans, etc.. Also, corn does not have to be made into silage. If
the market changes during the growing season, the farmer can choose to
let it ripen and sell as grain, or cut it for silage. It allows him
some alternatives if conditions change. Hay is less easily marketable.
>
> I hope not. I think this very intense system must stop after some decades.
> Just like the oil supply will end some day.
I don't think so, obviously. The ag people are already working on the
next phases, working to reduce nitrogen needs, reduce fertiliser
losses, improve fuel efficiency, making it easier and easier to farm
intensively. The differences from when I was a kid and now are great,
and it isn't slowing.
Just one example, the new corn varieties (that Europeans love to
hate). My Dad planted some last time I was home. It was very dry that
year, and close to the critical pollination period. I asked him if he
wasn't worried about the corn. He said that just 10 years ago he would
have been worried, but not now. The new corn is so much tougher, that
a drought that would have severely reduced harvest, just didn't matter
any more. The corn was fine.
These changes are not going to go away.
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