World News

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[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The deforestation is to grow soy to feed cows to make milk and beef.

Kinda frustrating when the environmental alternative to dairy milk...is being planted in the former Amazon Rainforest to make dairy milk.

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[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 1 point 2 years ago

Can’t opt out of capitalism while living under it imo. Especially when it’s as systemic as it is. Not opting for any other governing style or economy really - I’m pretty ignorant on alternatives besides traditonal bartering. I just think it’s pretty obvious to anyone under the boot that this isn’t working.

I’d say the best course would be to beat them at their own game and rewrite the rules yourself I guess

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

almost all soy, including what is grown in the region formerly occupied by the amazon, is pressed for oil for human use, only about 7% of it is fed directly to animals. after processing the soy forhuman use, the waste product is what is given to animals, and cows get only a fraction of the soy. most of the soy fed to animals goes to poultry and swine.

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https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

That's off by an order of magnitude. It's not 7%, it's 77%

But, only a small percentage of global soy is used for these products. More than three-quarters (77%) of soy is used as feed for livestock.

When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal for animal feed (not oil) is the driver of demand

However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues

[...]

soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010

This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used

Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago

your five-year-old study might seem to be relevant on the surface, but you will find that the data sources for, for instance, biodiesel prices date to 1999. it is not ph.d. level research. i would expect something of this caliber from a rigorous high school.

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

i'm so glad you found the OWID link. do you see how the chart shows the vast majority of what is fed to animals is called "soy meal" or "soy cake"? that's the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil. they literally eat our industrial waste. down at the bottom of the chart you can see the 7% that is fed directly to animals

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[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

Byproduct that accounts for the majority of the revenue? That's hardly a byproduct?

7%, is feeding of entire soybeans

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

it's not a majority of the revenue. it's about half of the revenue from beans that are pressed for oil, but there are other uses.

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[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

50% of revenue is not a byproduct, that's a core part! I don't see much point continuing these conversation as if we are going to claim that we can just ignore 50% of revenue as a "byproduct". None of these conversations are going to get anywhere if that's the way things are going to go

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago

since soybeans can be fed directly to animals, there is no need to make soy meal first. they are placed in an oil press, and the byproduct of pressing them for oil is soy meal. these are bare facts.

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago

7%, is feeding of entire soybeans

right. which is what i said.

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[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago

your seven-year-old research about soy markets is outdated. while the oil has always been worth far more than its weight in the bean, it is now around 50/50, even though beans are only about 20% oil.