<story><title>How America Uses Its Land</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass.&lt;p&gt;The real land use from growing meat comes from the land used to grow the corn that feeds the cows. In the article, that’s counted as agricultural land, not pasture.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justinwp</author><text>&amp;gt;Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows...&lt;p&gt;And yet it is an incredibly destructive use of land for so few cows. BLM land is often shrubby desert and is not able to cope with the impacts of the cows and remain a healthy ecosystem.</text></comment>
<story><title>How America Uses Its Land</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass.&lt;p&gt;The real land use from growing meat comes from the land used to grow the corn that feeds the cows. In the article, that’s counted as agricultural land, not pasture.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Shivetya</author><text>I think a better map would be to show how much land is in private hands versus held by Federal and State governments. I bet people would be shocked, see this article from 2016 [1]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;federal-land-ownership&amp;#x2F;422637&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;federal...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>