Vegan land use comparisons are half-truths that equate pastures with plantations. 57% of land used for feed is not even suitable for crops, while the rest is often much less productive.
Grassland can sequester more carbon and has a four times lower rate of soil loss per unit area than cropland.
Vegan infographics always portray beef as a massive water hog by counting the rain that falls on the pasture. 96% of beef's water usage is green and it can even be produced without any blue water at all. The crops leading to the most depletion are wheat (22%), rice (17%), sugar (7%) and cotton (7%).
water footprint is divided into green (sourced from precipitation) and blue (sourced from the surface). Water scarcity is largely dependent on blue water use, which is why experts use lifecycle models.

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 15 points 5 months ago

The sources I talk at looked at cropland usage too. The cropland usage is lower as well per the earlier cited source. Citing a bunch of misleading stats with a straw-man isn't helpful

Blue water usage is quite high for beef. Even an industry funded study found beef used 2000 L/kg of blue water compared to it noting that corn crops only use 3–280 L/kg of blue water and soy at around 36–616 L/kg. That's likely best case numbers for beef due to the conflict of interests

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X18305675