Planting something that you can eat directly for the calories on that land area would be better (or don't touch it and let it sequester carbon, and plant somewhere else that's more suited).

If you feed the goat 100 calories, there is no way you get back 100 calories.

Many areas can sustain goats but can't sustain agriculture. Goats can also eat stuff that is inedible to humans, for example the parts of wheat an corn that are not the grains. A lot of plant matter that has zero calories for humans has >0 calories for ruminants.

Commercial grazing tends to overgraze which is worse in the long run.

Sustainable meat production is probably extremely far from commercially viable.

@adrianN: You are talking about what is called marginal land in agriculture and environmental science. Recent research shows that even marginal land has a better GHG balance when left untouched and not grazed by livestock

It's always better plant and eat the food directly than to feed it to an animal.

Of course, if you're in a scenario where you live on a small island with no connection to the outside world, and you only have marginal land, yes, you need might need to have livestock to survive. But that's not what we're talking about here.

Of course marginal land which is left untouched has no monetary or food value. What is the value of the difference between grazed and ungrazed? Is it enough to justify paying people to leave it fallow?

That is interesting. Do you have a link to that research?

Here's a good study on carbon opportunity cost of land: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4.epdf?shar...

Thank you!