some 80%+ of all soy is pressed for oil, but a soybean is only about 20% oil anyway. that leaves 80% of 80% of the total crop as industrial waste. we feed that to livestock. (we call it soymeal or soycake). so no insects are harmed to produce that for livestock: they were harmed to make soybean oil. by feeding the byproduct to livestock, we are conserving resources.
so no insects are harmed to produce that for livestock: they were harmed to make soybean oil.
Sorry, this is an accounting trick. The cows are still eating an agricultural product that killed insects, we can’t decide ‘oh, actually that’s entirely for oil’ if the soy meal is also valuable enough to sell and export as a product (about 65% of production, per the wiki article you linked).
There also aren’t any livestock that live entirely off soybean meal; a huge amount of corn is also fed to livestock. So even if you want to do shoddy accounting, they’re not being raised off waste and sunlight. A lot of crops are grown exclusively for livestock consumption.
take soy, as an example.
some 80%+ of all soy is pressed for oil, but a soybean is only about 20% oil anyway. that leaves 80% of 80% of the total crop as industrial waste. we feed that to livestock. (we call it soymeal or soycake). so no insects are harmed to produce that for livestock: they were harmed to make soybean oil. by feeding the byproduct to livestock, we are conserving resources.
Sorry, this is an accounting trick. The cows are still eating an agricultural product that killed insects, we can’t decide ‘oh, actually that’s entirely for oil’ if the soy meal is also valuable enough to sell and export as a product (about 65% of production, per the wiki article you linked).
There also aren’t any livestock that live entirely off soybean meal; a huge amount of corn is also fed to livestock. So even if you want to do shoddy accounting, they’re not being raised off waste and sunlight. A lot of crops are grown exclusively for livestock consumption.
even the corn plant is a great example. people don’t eat corn leaves, cobs, or stalks, but livestock eat silage made from them.