A sheep farmer in Wales maintains hillsides that would otherwise be unused. The sheep produce: lamb for meat, wool for clothing, milk for cheese, grazing services keeping vegetation managed, rural employment in areas with few alternatives, and maintained countryside for tourism. Remove the sheep and you get: abandoned hillsides, degrading ecosystems, rural economic collapse, no food production, no employment, and decreased tourism because nobody visits abandoned land. But economics only appear in the calculation when they support the narrative. The economic value of sheep farming includes all those factors. But anti-livestock activists only count direct food output and declare it inefficient. If you only count direct output while ignoring employment, ecosystem services, rural community maintenance, and alternative land use options, you can make anything look inefficient. Using the same logic: Museums are inefficient. They take up valuable real estate that could be office buildings. Museums don't produce anything. Close them all. National parks are inefficient. That land could be turned into housing. Parks don't produce anything economical. Develop them all. Libraries are inefficient. Those buildings could be restaurants. Books are available online anyway. Shut them down. The "inefficiency" argument only works if you ignore everything except the narrowest possible measure of output. Sheep on Welsh hillsides aren't just producing lamb. They're maintaining an entire ecosystem and economy. That's worth considering. But it doesn't support the "livestock is bad" narrative. So we pretend sheep are just inefficient meat production and ignore everything else they provide.

Activist: "Every cow adds carbon to the atmosphere." Farmer: "Only if the total number of cows is increasing." Activist: "What?" Farmer: "Stable populations are carbon neutral. Methane breaks down in twelve years back to CO2. Same CO2 the grass absorbed last year." Activist: "But it's still emissions..." Farmer: "It's a cycle. Carbon goes: grass to cow to methane to CO2 to grass. Round and round." Activist: "That's not how it works." Farmer: "That's exactly how the biogenic carbon cycle works." Activist: "I've never heard of that." Farmer: "Because admitting ruminants are climate neutral doesn't sell plant-based products." Activist: "You're making this up." Farmer: "Published research. Look up 'biogenic carbon cycle.' I'll wait."