Quote:
Imperator Fyron said:
*snip* A few growth hormones here and there that have no credible scientific studies indicating any potential side-effects to humans eating the meat?
*snip*
There is no particular lack of arable land in the country (or the world as a whole), so any argument related to wasted land usage is completely non-sensible. Pretty much all of the high-quality land that can be used to grow crops for humans either is used to do so, or is left fallow due to not enough demand for more.
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I would be more concerned about the large quantities of antibiotics that are fed to livestock, and the increasing number of resistant-strain bacteria that are emerging as a result. What guyofdoom already mentioned of the hormones fed to livestock is serious, but not the main problem. Even if the hormones are not the same as human hormones, and even if they are broken down by our metabolism, it still can (and probably does) cause some fluctuations in body chemistry. Which is minor compared to slowly losing the use of antibiotic drugs.
Also, it is not the case that the world is awash with more arable land than people know what to do with. The US has more than we need, but that is partially due to extensive use of irrigation; a topic you should be very familiar with, being in Riverside. If water from the Colorado River stops, agriculture in southern California stops. In South America, rather than using sustainable farming practices to make use of what arable land is there, people are using up the land and then razing more forests to make up for it.
As for land laying fallow, the only reason that happens in the US is because the Federal Government pays farmers to not grow food. Otherwise, everyone would be trying to grow something to cash in on all the money being thrown around for ethanol development.