Vegans usually compare animal output (meat) in kilograms vs plant output (grains, vegetables, fruit) in kilograms per same amount of land and conclude that plants produce more.
However, they ignore 5 important things.
1. Animals dont produce just meat. One cow can produce over 7000 liters of milk a year, which already puts it on an close to equal ground in terms of food production.
2. The land necessary for farming doesnt include just area where plants grow.
It also includes storage, which must be huge because plants produce huge amounts of food once a year compared to animals which produce food constantly instead of all at once.
It also includes area for processing. You cant exactly eat raw wheat. It must be ground into flour, then flour must also have storage from where it will be taken and made into bread. To make bread, you also need space and resources.
3. Plant farming requires more machines and uses lots of fuel. You cant till soil on large scale without tractor.
4. Animal farming can be combined with tree farming, and animals can even eat leaves provided by trees. Same cannot really be said about plant farming. Tractor which tills soil cannot till near trees, as it would damage roots.
5. Different farm animals can make use of same land. Chickens can eat insects and grass seeds from land and cows wouldnt eat those anyway, and cows can eat grass from same land.
