A couple weeks ago, I tossed around a few ideas about how to make meat production sustainable. While there aren’t any solid answers without a whole lot more data, I think we were able to see that there are probably ways to get our meat without using up every single resource at our disposal just by changing up a few things like grazing animals together.

Today, we’ll jump into the numbers surrounding produce production in the United States. Specifically, we’ll look at grains, fruits, and vegetables and try to figure out:

• Just how much land is used in fruit, vegetable, and grain production
• How to efficiently grow the produce we need
• How to minimize produce waste
• How to move from a grain-based diet to a Primal-based diet

How Much Land Is Devoted To Crops?

Crop Production In The United States By Acreage

I’m sure I’m not the only one that noticed that grains are 4 of the top 7 crops produced in this country. In fact, of those top 7 crops, nearly 50% of the total production is grains. Another 25% is soy. And the final two (hay and cotton) are not directly eaten by humans for the most part. Presumably, the hay goes to cattle for meat and dairy and the cotton is mostly used for clothing and home furnishings.

So of the top 7 crops grown in this nation, only hay supports a Primal eating style (and it’s hard to argue against cotton). Of course, this is largely a result of a Food Bill that subsidizes farmers for growing corn, soy, and wheat, along with a USDA Food Pyramid that promotes excessive consumption of grains.

Here are a few interesting tidbits about our major crops:(1)

CORN
Corn grown for grain accounts for almost one quarter of the harvested crop acres in this country…..According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production….About 12% of the U.S. corn crop ends up in foods that are either consumed directly (e.g. corn chips) or indirectly (e.g. high fructose corn syrup).

SOY
According to the United Soybean Board, soybean oil, used in both food manufacturing and frying and sautéing, represents approximately 79 percent of all edible oil consumed in the United States.

WHEAT
The U.S. produces about 13% of the world’s wheat and supplies about 25% of the world’s wheat export market.

RICE
U.S. rice production accounts for just over 1% of the world’s total, but this country is the second leading rice exporter with 18% of the world market. About 60% of the rice consumed in the U.S. is for direct food use; another 20% goes into processed foods, and most of the rest into beer.

Here’s another interesting tidbit. In 2007, there were 406 million acres of cropland in the United States, a number that seems to be shrinking (some going to pasture, most going to other uses like suburban development). The above crops (excluding hay and cotton) add up to 209 million, or just over 50% of the available cropland in the country.(2) Exactly how many sweet potatoes, heads of lettuce, bunches of grapes, tomatoes, cabbages, and other nutritious foods could be produced if this land was put to use growing foods humans are actually made to eat?

Fruit And Vegetable Production

So how much vegetation do we grow in this country? Compared to the amount of grains we grow, the answer is “not much”. I grabbed the top 20 food products by tonnage, removed the animal products (leaving a Top 12), and then looked at the percentage of them that are fruits and vegetables. 11.8%. That’s it. Of the 491 million tons of food that the Top 12 fruits, vegetables, and grains accounts for, only 58.5 million of those aren’t corn (over 50% of the total), soy, wheat, sugar beets, sorghum, or rice. Of those 58.5 million tons, 35% of them are the lowly white potato.

I don’t know the answer, but that data sure brings up a good question: why aren’t we growing more fruits and vegetables, foods meant for humans? That’s barely 5 lbs per person per year, which means we’re importing a ton of produce. I’m sure it’s not all related to a poorly designed Farm Bill. There’s probably some restrictions on what the type of land available will grow, but it can’t be THAT bad.

How Much Produce Can An Acre Of Land Yield?

I did some digging to find out just how much produce (and calories) an acre of land can yield for typical fruits and vegetables.(4) As you can see here, from a poundage standpoint, fruits and vegetables are about on par with grains, but what about from a caloric standpoint? Corn spits out on average 9000 lbs per acre, totaling around 4.4 million calories.

Fruit And Vegetable Production Per Acre

It looks like on all counts, fruits and vegetables compete. We know that they blow those healthy whole grains away when it comes to nutrients and (lack of) antinutrients. So while there are some questions about the types of land available for cropland and what it can produce in terms of fruits and vegetables, I think we can theoretically get the calories we need from meat, fruits, and vegetables. The biggest problem I can think of is one of storage. Grains keep for a long time while fruits and vegetables don’t. Part of the solution to that is a shift to more seasonal eating.

Of course, root vegetables keep much longer than leafies and fruits, so sweet potatoes, winter squashes, onions, carrots, and other roots can fill some of the gap, especially in the winter. Even potatoes are probably a better choice than grains, particularly the gluten grains like wheat and its variants.

How Much Food Is Wasted?

Okay, so we know that we mostly grow non-Primal foods on our land. Of our top 12 crops, less than 12% of the crop produced fits any kind of Primal parameters, and that’s only if you are lenient at allowing white potatoes. (If you don’t, you’re looking at less than 8% of our output.) One final thing to look at today is just how much food we waste. (5)

As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American.

Chalk that up to wasted ready-to-eat foods at supermarkets, like those wonderful food bars at Whole Foods and the rotisserie chickens at your local grocery. Add in waste from all-you-can-eat buffets and leftovers from ginormous portions at your average restaurant. Then there’s the produce we buy that we let go bad and leftovers left uneaten that end up in the garbage at home.

The image above from the NY Times shows just how much food is wasted for your average family of four on a monthly basis. Twenty-four pounds of fruits and vegetables and ten pounds of meat! How many days of eating is that? That’s quite a few Primal meals for all but the biggest appetites.

It’s not just those of us in the US either.

In England, a recent study revealed that Britons toss away a third of the food they purchase, including more than four million whole apples, 1.2 million sausages and 2.8 million tomatoes. In Sweden, families with small children threw out about a quarter of the food they bought, a recent study there found.

How can you waste good sausages? No wonder people complain that eating healthy is expensive. We effectively increase the price of the food we do eat by 37% when we waste 27% of it. It’s hard to argue that there isn’t enough food to feed everyone when so much food is thrown away, much of it still perfectly edible.

Next Time: Putting Together Primal Food Production

Thus far, we’ve looked mainly at monocropping, which might not be the best way to produce the food we need. As we saw with meat production, putting multiple animals together is often more productive than using a single animal on the pasture. Next time, I’m going to take a look at some ways I’ve read about to do the same with plants to possibly increase productivity. It’s going to take a full change in our mindset of healthy eating and food production.

Resources:
(1) Major Crops Grown in the United States
(2) Farm Characteristics
(3) Crops In The United States
(4) Vegetable Yields
(5) One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country’s Meal