One third of California's trees are dead

[Natalie_Frenshen]

Don’t forget ketchup is a vegetable!

[Mister44]

@glenblank

Alfalfa hay commands high prices in China due to growing demand for beef and limited domestic supplies of forage, so farmers could make more money shipping alfalfa in (otherwise-empty) containers to China than they could selling it locally.

Huh - I had no ideas we exported HAY. I mean, it’s basically grass clippings…

One would think given China’s size they would have ample areas to grow hay and raise cattle. Though maybe their climate and soil isn’t as good.

America got sooo fucking lucky with ice age basically dumping all the top soil scraped off from Canada into the mid west.

[avicebenner]

@Mister44

One would think given China’s size they would have ample areas to grow hay and raise cattle

1. population density is much higher than the US - less land per person, even though a lot of it is agricultural land
2. the agricultural land is around the major cities and the major cities are expanding

I’m not sure of they’ve switched to factory farming yet or to what extent but if they had cattle originally getting most of their food from grazing and then started squishing them onto smaller plots of land like we did then they would need another food source.