Livestock's Long Shadow

[jute gyte]

In 2006, the UN issued a report titled Livestock's Long Shadow. The report details the effects of the meat and dairy industries on the environment. To quote from the page that shall not be named:

In the report, senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reports that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems"[3] and that "urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

Other points the report makes are that the world's livestock industry "generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2" and "that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport."

And some further figures:

According to the USDA, growing crops for farm animals requires nearly half of the U.S. water supply and 80% of its agricultural land. Animals raised for food in the U.S. consume 90% of the soy crop, 80% of the corn crop, and 70% of its grain.[4] In tracking food animal production from the feed through to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. (USDA Report) ("U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat")

To produce 1 pound of feedlot beef requires about 2,400 gallons of water and 7 pounds of grain (42). Considering that the average American consumes 97 pounds of beef (and 273 pounds of meat in all) each year, even modest reductions in meat consumption in such a culture would substantially reduce the burden on our natural resources.(http://www.ehponline.org/members/2002/1 ... .html#sust)

Let's discuss!

[Paco Del Stinko]

Those are disturbing figures to say the least. The current cover story of TIME magazine, which bumps me offline when I try to link to it, is related with a story about the myths of bio fuels. Related in how much planet is either devoted to the production of soy and beef, or razed to grow similar crops. Here is the link to the TIME home page.http://www.time.com/time

[Lunkhead]

Biofuels from food seem like a really bad idea to me. Biofuels from waste, on the other hand, seem like a great idea, as waste is a renewable resource.

I just saw a factoid about how the average American eats 220 pounds of red meat and poultry every year. That's almost 2/3rds of a pound every day. And that's not even including fish and seafood. Whoa! I'm not vegetarian, but I definitely am not eating 2/3rds of a pound of meat every day.

[jimtyrrell]

2/3 of a pound a day. Wow. I don't eat vegetables at all*, and I still might not eat that much meat in a year.

*well okay, cucumbers sometimes on a hot summer day. but that's it.

[jute gyte]

2/3 of a pound a day. Wow. I don't eat vegetables at all*, and I still might not eat that much meat in a year.

*well okay, cucumbers sometimes on a hot summer day. but that's it.

So what do you eat?

[Märk]

I don't understand the intent of this post.
From an environmental standpoint, yes, reduce the amount of meat you eat, not just for your own health, but for the environment and for better food distribution worldwide (instead of letting feedlot cattle eat the grain, feed it to the starving people)

However, the dairy and beef industries, at least the small time ranchers and farmers who raise the cattle and/or dairy cows, run on a shoestring budget to begin with, and a nationwide reduction in meat consumption would have economic repercussions. The real villians here are not the ranchers or the grocery stores who sell meat, it's... wait for it... fuckin McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's/whatever.

It's like the oil industry. Sure, I'd *love* to see oil become obsolete and the big powerful evil corporations fall in shambles, but what about the thousands of ordinary joes who just happen to work for them, to make a living and support their families? This is the main problem I have with capitalism in general; once everything is up and running, you can't easily change the infrastructure of it.

Beside, beef tastes good

[Caravan Ray]

2/3 of a pound a day. Wow. I don't eat vegetables at all*, and I still might not eat that much meat in a year.

*well okay, cucumbers sometimes on a hot summer day. but that's it.

You can eat cucumbers too?!?!

Wow! What a wonderful vegetable!


(acually, a cucumber is probably actually a fruit, but......)

[Märk]

(acually, a cucumber is probably actually a fruit, but......)

A gourd, actually.

[jute gyte]

I don't understand the intent of this post.
From an environmental standpoint, yes, reduce the amount of meat you eat, not just for your own health, but for the environment and for better food distribution worldwide (instead of letting feedlot cattle eat the grain, feed it to the starving people)

However, the dairy and beef industries, at least the small time ranchers and farmers who raise the cattle and/or dairy cows, run on a shoestring budget to begin with, and a nationwide reduction in meat consumption would have economic repercussions. The real villians here are not the ranchers or the grocery stores who sell meat, it's... wait for it... fuckin McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's/whatever.

While I agree that there are unfortunate webs of the dependencies, there really aren't many "small time ranchers" left. From the unnameable site's page on factory farming (and this all seems credibly cited):

"In the 1930s, 24 percent of the American population worked in agriculture compared to 1.5 percent in 2002; in 1940, each farm worker supplied 11 consumers, whereas in 2002, each worker supplied 90 consumers. The number of farms has also decreased, and their ownership is more concentrated. In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens. In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000, with 80 million pigs (out of 95 million) killed each year on factory farms as of 2002, according to the U.S. National Pork Producers Council. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way."

That's not to say that these huge factory farming operations don't employ scores of people, but the fact remains: It's a hell of a lot easier to get a new job than to get a new planet. And perhaps their new job could be more ethical, since, without even considering environmental issues, meat production is one of the most massive wastes of food possible, and, as you mentioned, that grain could feed the starving instead of cattle. In a world where over 25,000 people starve to death every day, to waste 7 pounds of food and 2,400 gallons of water per pound of beef is simply morally indefensible, both for the producer and the end consumer.

[jimtyrrell]

2/3 of a pound a day. Wow. I don't eat vegetables at all*, and I still might not eat that much meat in a year.

*well okay, cucumbers sometimes on a hot summer day. but that's it.

So what do you eat?

[derail]Lots of bread. And pasta. And rice. And beer/wine/Jager, when I have time. I do eat pizza sauce, and hot sauce, and a few things that are like made of veggies, y'know? And I do try to find ways to sneak 'em in when I can: sometimes if a plate of buffalo chicken is particularly hot, I can eat one of those carrot sticks if I chew it up quick.

Back in the late 80s I actually gave up meat for the better part of a year, without adding any veggies to my diet. That didn't work out.[/derail]

[Caravan Ray]

I don't understand the intent of this post.
From an environmental standpoint, yes, reduce the amount of meat you eat, not just for your own health, but for the environment and for better food distribution worldwide (instead of letting feedlot cattle eat the grain, feed it to the starving people)

However, the dairy and beef industries, at least the small time ranchers and farmers who raise the cattle and/or dairy cows, run on a shoestring budget to begin with, and a nationwide reduction in meat consumption would have economic repercussions. The real villians here are not the ranchers or the grocery stores who sell meat, it's... wait for it... fuckin McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's/whatever.

While I agree that there are unfortunate webs of the dependencies, there really aren't many "small time ranchers" left. From the unnameable site's page on factory farming (and this all seems credibly cited):

"In the 1930s, 24 percent of the American population worked in agriculture compared to 1.5 percent in 2002; in 1940, each farm worker supplied 11 consumers, whereas in 2002, each worker supplied 90 consumers. The number of farms has also decreased, and their ownership is more concentrated. In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens. In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000, with 80 million pigs (out of 95 million) killed each year on factory farms as of 2002, according to the U.S. National Pork Producers Council. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way."

That's not to say that these huge factory farming operations don't employ scores of people, but the fact remains: It's a hell of a lot easier to get a new job than to get a new planet. And perhaps their new job could be more ethical, since, without even considering environmental issues, meat production is one of the most massive wastes of food possible, and, as you mentioned, that grain could feed the starving instead of cattle. In a world where over 25,000 people starve to death every day, to waste 7 pounds of food and 2,400 gallons of water per pound of beef is simply morally indefensible, both for the producer and the end consumer.

You are very right Jute.

Much is placed on fossil fuel usage - but there is much more to greenhouse gasses.

I suspect (but have not looked closely) that a large proportion of the number you are quoting actually relate to land clearance - rather than meat production - but I do not argue that GHGs from meat production itself are not significant.

I recall an interview I read with Steve Irwin a few years ago. Steve, the "ecowarrior", said that a paddock of cattle was more "environmentally friendly" than a field of wheat - because birds, and wombats and kangaroos and whatever could live in the paddock with the cattle. Steve, if you may recall was an idiot who was killed while fiddeling about with a stingray. He didn't realise that a field of wheat could feed a hundred times more people than a cow paddock.

Jute - you are quoting a lot of stuff about US consumption of meat, and US production of meat. I don't have a lot of problems with high intensity feed lots in the USA, using grain from the USA, supplying meat to the USA. Americans will get fat and die - no problem. The real problems are when south and central American forests are removed to provide meat for the USA. Or, as happened in sub-Saharan africa in the 1980s - subsistence farmers stopped growing food to grow cash crops to feed Western cattle.

You have highlighted a very valid concern - but right now, it appears that China and India are not copying western meat consumption, as much as they are copying western coal and oil consumption. The meat issue is important - but coal* is the real biggie that needs addressing immediately.

(*DISCLAIMER - this post was written by a man who live in the greatest coal exporting region on the planet, and day by day , indirectly grows richer and richer by its proceeds)

[Paco Del Stinko]

In a world where over 25,000 people starve to death every day, to waste 7 pounds of food and 2,400 gallons of water per pound of beef is simply morally indefensible, both for the producer and the end consumer.

I don't see how this point is even remotely arguable.

I don't eat at McDonalds and the like, and I don't shop at Walmart, or buy gas at Exxon/Mobil. And I also understand that it doesn't mean shit if I'm the only one not doing these things. That is, I believe, Mr.Gytes point/intention.

But just like I've sniveled about elsewhere, it all comes down to money. Money equals power and people with power employ force to continue to make money to retain their power to blah blah blah...But why would you feed a sheep halfway around the world when you can fatten many in your own backyard, and make a bigger profit?

[Caravan Ray]

In a world where over 25,000 people starve to death every day, to waste 7 pounds of food and 2,400 gallons of water per pound of beef is simply morally indefensible, both for the producer and the end consumer.

I don't see how this point is even remotely arguable.

I don't eat at McDonalds and the like, and I don't shop at Walmart, or buy gas at Exxon/Mobil. And I also understand that it doesn't mean shit if I'm the only one not doing these things. That is, I believe, Mr.Gytes point/intention.

But just like I've sniveled about elsewhere, it all comes down to money. Money equals power and people with power employ force to continue to make money to retain their power to blah blah blah...But why would you feed a sheep halfway around the world when you can fatten many in your own backyard, and make a bigger profit?

Capitalism is a failure. The free market will not fix things. And stop the arseholes who say "nothing can be done about climate change". They are nothing but complete cunts.

They may be right - but as Jute has pointed out - there is far more to the climate change issue than just fossil fuel useage.
Question everything labled "eco"
Question everything labled "green"

I am a 40ish man who is really fucking angry about how this planet has moved in the last 20 or so years. It does my heart good to see Jute start a thread like this.

Keep fighting the good fight.

[Paco Del Stinko]

Capitalism is a failure. The free market will not fix things. And stop the arseholes who say "nothing can be done about climate change". They are nothing but complete cunts

Agreed. I don't watch Larry King (I mean, c'mon!) but I saw him with Jesse Ventura on as a guest so I watched for a bit. He said something like "you don't have to believe all of the facts about global warming to agree that less or fewer emissions is a good thing." simplistic, perhaps, but even a weaker attitude such as that is a huge step up from where we are now.

Say what you will about Ventura, the guy was spot on about that and our current political state in the U.S. We'll deserve everything that's coming to us, sadly. Reaping what you sow, and all that.

[melvin]

Capitalism is a failure.

With a few exceptions (i.e. the steam engine, the cinema, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the novel, the automobile, the symphony, the airplane, the radio, the television, the personal computer, the Internet, Gibson guitars, countless medical cures, the end of slavery, the advent of leisure time, my excellent standard of living, etc), I agree.

[Märk]

In a world where over 25,000 people starve to death every day, to waste 7 pounds of food and 2,400 gallons of water per pound of beef is simply morally indefensible, both for the producer and the end consumer.

I'll reply to this in two ways.

Compassionate Liberal: It is, indeed, morally indefensible. Not only is raising sentient animals for the sole purpose of becoming food kind of fucked up, it does all the things mentioned above. If people would just stop being so greedy, the whole world would be able to eat 3 square meals a day and animals would be considered one of mother nature's wonders, instead of just part of a balanced diet. Boycott the bastards into submission.

Realist, perhaps Brutally Honest: People are not going to stop being greedy. For every 1000 people who take a moral stance against the staus quo, there will be a million who... like meat too much. Human beings are, as a rule, greedy and selfish creatures. 25K people starve to death every day because they are unfortunately on the wrong side of the 'survival of the fittest' coin. Less than 1% of the population controls 99% of the world's wealth and resources, and it's a position that they really would rather keep. They will never starve to death, and they care not if others do. Yes, this is a bleak outlook, but it's unfortunately the one I'd wager on.

[Caravan Ray]

Capitalism is a failure.

With a few exceptions (i.e. the steam engine, the cinema, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the novel, the automobile, the symphony, the airplane, the radio, the television, the personal computer, the Internet, Gibson guitars, countless medical cures, the end of slavery, the advent of leisure time, my excellent standard of living, etc), I agree.

Well, yes...obviously - but apart from the steam engine, the cinema, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the novel, the automobile, the symphony, the airplane, the radio, the television, the personal computer, the Internet, Gibson guitars, countless medical cures, the end of slavery, the advent of leisure time, your excellent standard of living and ....aquaducts - what has capitalism ever done for us? Nothing.

[Lunkhead]

People are not going to stop being greedy.

People can change, it might just take thousands of years. If you had told someone a thousand years ago that the Vatican would some day not be that powerful and that the monarchies of Europe would ultimately fall out of power, they'd have thought you were nuts. Not that long ago people would have thought you were nuts if you'd said that slavery would some day be passe. If you'd told people the world was round and that it orbited the sun you would have been a heretic (and it didn't take capitalism to produce ideas like that, thank you very much). Obviously these are reductions of really complicated vast issues, but I don't want to argue the details. The point is that, slowly, painfully, people can change.

Unfortunately, we're risking a lot with global warming, since we're playing around with the habitability of our currently one and only planet. We might not be able to change enough soon enough now.

[erik]

That's not to say that these huge factory farming operations don't employ scores of people, but the fact remains: It's a hell of a lot easier to get a new job than to get a new planet. And perhaps their new job could be more ethical, since, without even considering environmental issues, meat production is one of the most massive wastes of food possible, and, as you mentioned, that grain could feed the starving instead of cattle. In a world where over 25,000 people starve to death every day, to waste 7 pounds of food and 2,400 gallons of water per pound of beef is simply morally indefensible, both for the producer and the end consumer.

I know I'm a jerk, and not the most educated person around, but how is a reduction in eating meat going to save lives? People raise cattle for money. It's not like people who are starving to death are going to be able to pay for that grain.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Capitalism is a failure.

With a few exceptions (i.e. the steam engine, the cinema, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the novel, the automobile, the symphony, the airplane, the radio, the television, the personal computer, the Internet, Gibson guitars, countless medical cures, the end of slavery, the advent of leisure time, my excellent standard of living, etc), I agree.

Let's update a few: Global warming, the extinction of the steam engine, vehicles that only run on fossil fuels, factories to make the above products adding the destruction of the ozone layer, etc. But other than that, capitalism is just alright with me.

[Lunkhead]

know I'm a jerk, and not the most educated person around, but how is a reduction in eating meat going to save lives? People raise cattle for money. It's not like people who are starving to death are going to be able to pay for that grain.

I think eating less meat could help starving people by lowering the greenhouse footprint of the US (which might keep us all from biting the big one), and by lowering demand for grain-fed beef/etc. here (which may divert some supply to other markets).

The "long shadow" issue is about the possibly less obvious role that high meat consumption plays in global warming, considering the cost of deforestation to create land for cattle to graze on, the greenhouse gases emitted by the cattle, and the high energy cost of meat when you take into account all the resources that are needed to produce and transport it (water, land, huge quantities of grains, which require water, land, and likely pesticides based on petroleum and fertilizers based on natural gas, not to mention the other side effects of having huge masses of cows, such as the fact that they're all generally unhealthy and require for example lots of antibiotics to keep them alive, then you've got your transportation and refrigeration costs, which require more petroleum, etc.).

Also, you can look at it in terms of markets and supply and demand. If there is an inordinately high demand for some resource in a big rich country, people all over will scramble to try to meet that demand. In this case, the the disproportionately high demand for meat in the rich US leads to the diversion of grain output to feed animals rather than people. Look into the recent rise in corn costs due to an increase just in -interest- (not even use) in corn-based biofuels in the US, to get an idea of how demand for things here affects people all over. Another example on a different subject is China's demands for wood (met by nearby countries clear cutting their forests), coal (see Caravan Ray's comments), and metal (which caused things like theft of manhole covers to sell as scrap to China on the black market).

So, if we wanted the some of the grains to go to the starving people, rather than the rich people, the rich people would have to lower their demand by eating less meat, possibly by increasing the cost of eating meat through removal of subsidies and raising of levies. On a larger scale we could try to increase the profitability of selling grains to starving people by providing subsidies for doing so somehow, and by increasing the buying power of the starving people through grants/loans/etc. These are international level things, so they'd maybe have to happen through the UN or some other international outfit. These are all big things that seem like they're beyond the reach of an individual to effect or accomplish, but we can try to be part of a trend toward these goals by acting individually.

By the way, I highly recommend "Fast Food Nation" (the book, not the movie) for anyone who hasn't read it. It's very accessible, and it's a major eye opener. The author takes a pretty dry, not inflammatory look at things, and doesn't write in a holier than thou, preachy style at all. It's really more about how fast food has effected our culture and world than about trashing fast food, but the facts wind up speaking for themselves.

[erik]

So, if we wanted the some of the grains to go to the starving people, rather than the rich people, the rich people would have to lower their demand by eating less meat, possibly by increasing the cost of eating meat through removal of subsidies and raising of levies. On a larger scale we could try to increase the profitability of selling grains to starving people by providing subsidies for doing so somehow, and by increasing the buying power of the starving people through grants/loans/etc. These are international level things, so they'd maybe have to happen through the UN or some other international outfit. These are all big things that seem like they're beyond the reach of an individual to effect or accomplish, but we can try to be part of a trend toward these goals by acting individually.

How big are American corn surpluses right now? I was under the impression that we already had craploads of corn just sitting around, and we're not doing anything with it. It seems that a reduction in the need for meat would just add to that surplus, and that larger scale subsidies of starving people are what's needed to actually get the food into their stomachs.