Thread by @DoubleEph

Another excellent piece by ⁦@nonso2⁩ showing how much land you need to dedicate to Nigeria’s estimated 20 million cows.

But guys, let’s test something. nonso2.substack.com/p/random-ruga-…

My theory is that Nigeria only has/needs 20 million cows because the whole thing is unbelievably inefficient. Remember - you cannot Kill a cow in Kano today and eat it in Lagos. The cow has to be in Lagos to be eaten in Lagos.

For comparison, in 19th century America, cows were killed in Chicago and not just eaten all over America, they were eaten across the Atlantic in Britain. So, what we can try to calculate is whether Nigeria is carrying ‘Excess Cows’ due to this gross inefficiency

Here are some numbers on beef consumption per capita. From @nonso2’s piece we see that America carries around 90million cattle. US beef consumption was 100kg in 2009 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c…

Now, let’s say we were to use the same amount of land as the US, you’ll need to dedicate anywhere between 63-80% of the entire land in the country to cows. An impossibility. You don’t need to be a genius to conclude that Nigeria is carrying millions of excess cows

The final proof of this excess cows problem is this - Nigeria has around 22% of the cows in America but consumes only 9% of the beef consumption in America on a per capita basis

That meins, given Nigeria’s beef consumption levels, you really only need less than 10 million cows. But as a result of this gross inefficiency you have to have so many cows just to eat a small amount of beef

There are many reasons for this - Nigerian cows are permanently in recession so they’re too thin and produce a lot less meat per cow than American cows who watch cable TV all day while eating and drinking

There’s also corruption. People steal public money and then launder it through cattle. Next time you see a cow crossing the road in Nigeria, say hi to public funds

/end