I doubt it's that high. US grows a ridiculous amount of corn on perverse incentives, only 1.5% of it is edible. Most soy is not eaten, it's processed for oils.

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 7 points 4 days ago

This is looking at global data. Most countries are a lot less wasteful than the US. It also completely disregards waste food, though it says it only makes up 5% of global caloric production.

According to the article, the US produces 14% of all agricultural calories on Earth. 28% of this is spent on non-food purposes, while 17% is spent on food but not animal feed, compared to 15% and 45% globally. This means that while the US produces twice as much calories per acre of farmland than the global average, it can actually feed fewer people per acre than average.

[–] WalleyeWarrior@midwest.social 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The article is all cropland, not just corn. So it includes things like wheat production in the western great plains, fruit and vegetables in the Imperial and Central Valleys in California, apple farms in Washington and Michigan, oranges in Florida and California. But you are correct that most corn, soy, and alfalfa are grown for non-human consumption

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

soy is primarily grown for human consumption. over 4/5 of the global crop is sent to an oil press.

[–] crater2150@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago

Do you have any source for that? In the ones I found, it's more like 4/5 of the soy grown for human consumption is for oil, but human consumption is only 1/5 of the production.

See e.g. here https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation#is-our-appetite-for-soy-driving-deforestation-in-the-amazon, the oil production uses 13.2% of the global soy.

[–] dumnezero@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago

Notice the mean industry apologetics misusing the words like they misuse the lands.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago

the paper says 49% goes to humans, and 52% goes to oil and animal feed... so something doesn't add up