Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

TaftIsUnderrated t1_ir125xx wrote

Reply to comment by FiveFingerDisco in Global Agricultural Land Use v. Agricultural Production [OC] by rosetechnology

Because cereal grains have lots of calories and are relatively easy to grow and harvest while fruits/vegetables/meats/dairy take way more effort per calorie to produce. Money is an easy way to measure the value of what is produced.

11

Sininenn t1_ir17iwt wrote

It may be easy, but it is also misleading.

It does not take into account price changes in either direction, for example.

It also does not necessarily make it clear whether more food is actually produced, only that the profits from food production have been increasing.

4

TaftIsUnderrated t1_ir18go8 wrote

That's total amount being produced, not profits.

Also if we had to pick a metric to base our agricultural system on, I would rather have a system that tries to maximize production based on money, not one that tries to maximize production based on calories - because then we would only be eating bread and rice.

8