this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Many of those types of crops used for feed aren't really aligned all that well. Corn for instance isn't going used so heavily in a plant-based diet as it is subsidized (corn is the most subsidized crop in the US). There is also separate food-grade and feed-grade soybeans. 90% of US soy production is going to feed (and not to mention a good portion of the other 10% is going to soybean oil which is not super helpful for a plant-based meat)
https://soygrowers.com/key-issues-initiatives/key-issues/other/animal-ag/
Further, they are still getting massive amounts of direct subsidies
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestock-subsidies-near-50-billion-ewg-analysis-finds
Also worth mentioning that beans are not particularly highly subsidized unless you are counting soybeans mentioned earlier.
as much corn is turned into ethanol as is fed to American livestock.
a soybean is only about 20% oil. if 10% of the end uses of American soybeans is oil that means a total of 50% of it is crushed for oil. The remaining 40% is turned into "soy meal" that would otherwise be wasted if we didn't feed it to animals.