If there is, this story isn't about that. The US has about 900 million acres of farmland, and this privately funded nature reserve is 450,000 acres, or 0.05% of that.

Agriculture is one of the most heavily subsidized and protected US industries. A not-insignificant amount of a farmer's income is just a federal check to maintain excess capacity in case of a shortage and to stabilize prices.

Food prices the world over are the lowest they have been in history. Grain prices are so low that grain is now fed to meat producing livestock--a new historical development. Food is so historically cheap that most of the western world can afford to be overweight and even the poor are obese.

This small preserve is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of hectares of Amazonian forest that has been cleared for ranching. The trend in most of the world is clearing forest for more agriculture, whether it is palm oil or bananas or livestock.

Whatever nefarious force you think is plotting a famine will not remain in power for long if there is a real famine. The actual people in charge know this and have no intention of asking the peasants to eat cake.

This is about land used for grazing. Even if there is no meat or diary, you don't have a famine. People starve if you don't have grains and vegetables.

Considering how much land is being used for livestock feed, switching to a plant based diet would be the easiest way to ensure sufficient food production for everybody.

I do believe there are forces looking to cause a worldwide famine, but this particular case is being presented to us as a red herring.

Having this stripe of wild prairie will fight against famine, in fact. And will help farmers.

This are the places where thousands of species of pollinators can breed and multiply. The same that will play a main role in crop production in all the farms around in a radius of several Km

Honey bees are good pollinators. The much smaller wild bees aren't just good, they are fantastic pollinators of lots of crops that honey bees ignore

I’m expecting more famines from (government level) incompetence than from malice (of all sources combined) in this regard.

Most of the government level famine work is not incompetence. It is part of the faminites'program.

No need to put sustainable in quotes.

Livestock farming is ruining the soil, the water, a major producer of CO2, the main producer of Methane, and the root cause for the burning of the rainforest.

Pretty sure we would still be burning rain forests to plant oil palms.

68% is Burnt for pastures for Cattle Farming. 28% is Burnt for Agriculture, of which 60% is for soybeans, of which 77% are shipped overseas for (you guessed it) livestock feed.

Palm Oil plants are only 12% of those 28%.

That means at least 80% is burned for Livestock or livestock feed. Since part of the palm oil and other plant produce is also used for livestock feed that number probably closer to 85%.

See: https://www.fern.org/fileadmin/uploads/fern/Documents/Fern%2...

Guess it’s time to start being more aggressive with anti-meat messaging.

A major issue with the less-meat-more-veggies idea is glyphosate, though, as produce treated with it is not vegan: glyphosate mixtures typically contain tallow from animal fat.

> Livestock farming is ruining the soil

Crop farming is ruining the soil way faster than grazing livestock. Livestock grazing the land is a lot closer to how the land was before we came along than a rainforest.

> Crop farming is ruining the soil way faster than grazing livestock.

But what is all that crop used for?

Livestock.

> Livestock grazing the land is a lot closer to how the land was before we came along than a rainforest.

Freudian slip?

You're charging at windmills when there's a perfectly good actual dragon snoozing on the next hilltop.