There’s a shitload of literature on food security, why don’t you go read.
The energy relationships will always remain the same, matching trophic levels. We can get more food by eating straight from the primary producers: plants. No, marginal grasslands will not do.
Even going down for collapse, keeping the animal farming sector translates to more famine. And if you keep the luxury, that translates to more social conflict over luxuries, more mafia, more “leather underground”, more secret animal farming and detouring of food.
There’s a shitload of literature on food security, why don’t you go read.
The energy relationships will always remain the same, matching trophic levels. We can get more food by eating straight from the primary producers: plants. No, marginal grasslands will not do.
Even going down for collapse, keeping the animal farming sector translates to more famine. And if you keep the luxury, that translates to more social conflict over luxuries, more mafia, more “leather underground”, more secret animal farming and detouring of food.
Again, this has been known for a long time with history, not just theory. Here’s a fun example from Germany: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/troy-vettese-do-not-let-them-eat-meat/
That example is pre-Haber-Bosch.
The relationship remains the same even before industrial agriculture, probably more than with all the nitrogen cycle hacking.
Talking about collapse, I assumed a lot of deaths are involved. To avoid the collapse, a maintained N cycle hack is mandatory.
There are ways to adapt, perhaps enough to avoid collapse just from that.
Here’s a good intro:
https://www.tabledebates.org/building-blocks/nitrogen-food-system