How many domesticated livestock would even exist if they weren't scheduled for eating?

Question

Would landowners allow livestock on their land if they weren't going to make a profit?

If the world turned veggie, would that actually decrease the numbers of animals alive?

please try and answer my question

Answer 1

Very, very few. The second farmers couldn't sell their livestock, the second they couldn't make a profit, they wouldn't keep them any more. Keeping animals isn't cheap, and to keep them, without profit, would be hugely expensive to any farmer. How many do you reckon would be prepared to make that kind of loss?
Now, what'd happen then? Maybe a few wild pigs or goats would stay alive, but for the most part it would be impossible to release them into the wild. The vast majority would have to be slaughtered.

Dart, your philosophy is very idyllic, but not, I think, quite workable.

- Not keeping animals wouldn't be able to solve world hunger, even though more food could be grown on that land. The thing is there is already enough food to feed the world several times over, and huge amounts go to waste every day. The reason world hunger exists is that people can't afford it. Also, giving a country free food would destroy their economy. No one would buy the locally grown stuff, if there was free food around, and the food industry and the millions employed by it would all go bankrupt with no one buying their stock.

- Runoff of the pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that are used on crops are a hugely worse source of pollution than animal waste, the two aren't on the same scale at all. Those chemicals get into rivers and water supplies and are potentially dangerous to humans. Not to mention all the wildlife chemicals sprayed on plants kill; small animals eat the plants and get contaminated, and the carnivores who eat many of those animals get a larger dose, and as such it kills animals all the way up the food chain.
I realise you said organic, but that would mean so much more land would be needed to be used to grow that way, as it is so much less efficient.

Answer 2

I love your question of if the world turned veggie! but then you added- would that decrease the numbers of animals alive?

What are you thinking?

Domesticated livestock is mass produced to meet the demand of the consumer. If the consumer were not to have a demand for the livestock anymore, then they would not mass produce it anymore. After awhile it would be not profitable to have livestock on the land. Now vegetables and grains and legumes seem to be in demand, and now we can start to grow crops again. Maybe organically so we can enrich the soil and keep the land profitable for many generations. And all that grain that we use to feed to animals, can now go to feed people! and all that water we had to use for the animals, can now go for the crops and people. And that runoff of fecal contamination in the rivers won't happen (no more E.coli from animals on our vegetables like spinach). And maybe we will be able to grow so many more crops that we can feed the world, and do away with hunger.

Answer 3

Wild cows do well in India where they are considered sacred and are not eaten. In England and other parts of Europe you can find wild pigs and boars so you would definitely have some around as lond as there is some kind of habitat to support them; but they would become a lot shyer and would avoid man - as most successful species have to. But you only need to look at what happened to the buffalo in North America to see how drastically the numbers would be reduced

Answer 4

What is more important that the specie's is free to live and not be slaughtered or that some day in the far future it may become endangered?
Me, I think I'd rather see the animals wild that on the plate! Besides all farm animals were originally wild and than domesticated!
BYE.

Answer 5

I would rather a species go endangered than what we are doing now.

If these animals can live a natural life and have natural babies and can actually enjoy being on this planet, then it's worth it to have much fewer of them.

I do not see the point of even comparing apples to oranges. What would you rather? A painful horrible tortured life followed by an even worst death to feed a greedy and ungrateful being? Or to not exist at all and have fewer of your species around? DUH!