Michael Percy wrote in message
...
Oz wrote:

Michael Percy writes

I do not mean Sahel, but a good part of Sahel must be arid.
By all means post how much beef is produced from it if you know.

I've been to parts of it, and similar areas round kenya-Tanzania.
They
are almost all pastoralists (like the masai) although in wetter
areas
some grain is grown.

It's not the sort of place that does government records, and even if
they did I wouldn;t believe them.

Of course livestock must be of extreme importance to people living
from arid
land. They can't grow a crop! My point is if the land is arid, it
will
carry only a low density of people and livestock. If as I suspect only
a
few % of all beef cattle feed is produced from arid land, it seems
silly
to seek justification THERE for the use of ressources for beef
production.
One does that much better by pointing to the quite efficient use of
ressources in mixed farming livestocking system in more rainfed
areas.

check with the Israeli's, the Negev and much of Israel is arid but it
doesn't stop them growing an awful lot of crops on it.
Indeed the whole of the top end of the Persian Gulf is arid but
civilisation developed in Mesopotamia

Arid never stopped anyone provided you could ship water in somehow.

--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'


Mike