> given the amount of energy that is put in the process for producing meat and dairy, it's ridiculously huge compared to what can be done with the land in other way
That's the case for all industrial-age agriculture at today's 7-billion-people scale anyway.
With average mixed diet, it costs 10kcal (whether fossil fuels or renewables) energy expenditure for every 1kcal of food energy.
Isolated (or ancestral) immediate-return hunter-gatherers (roaming anywhere prey game abounds) average 10kcals of food energy gained for 1kcal energy expenditure invested.
So that lifestyle gives 100x better ROI. But it's not for this today's world, because at the top of the food chain "we"'d rather soon feed most/all humans food barely fit for animal feed (grains and soymeal etc) than "guide our reproduction more wisely".
That's the case for all industrial-age agriculture at today's 7-billion-people scale anyway.
With average mixed diet, it costs 10kcal (whether fossil fuels or renewables) energy expenditure for every 1kcal of food energy.
Isolated (or ancestral) immediate-return hunter-gatherers (roaming anywhere prey game abounds) average 10kcals of food energy gained for 1kcal energy expenditure invested.
So that lifestyle gives 100x better ROI. But it's not for this today's world, because at the top of the food chain "we"'d rather soon feed most/all humans food barely fit for animal feed (grains and soymeal etc) than "guide our reproduction more wisely".