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by Robert Jawitz
In our companion article entitled “Meat & Dairy;
A Problem for Sustainability” it was stated by LEAD,
in its report “Livestock’s Long Shadow”,
that “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top
two or three most significant contributors to the most serious
environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” These
problems include land degradation, serious contribution to
global warming (damage to our atmosphere & climate), water
degradation and depletion and damage to biodiversity. All of
these problems are related. Land degradation relates to the
changes of land use to create pasture for livestock at the
expense of arable land and forest. Damage to our atmosphere
and climate relates to the fossil fuel emissions required for
feed production as well as the methane and nitrous oxide emissions
from fertilizers and the animals themselves. Water degradation
relates to increased water use for livestock in the midst of
freshwater shortages and scarcity and to the pollution of water
reserves (“livestock are responsible for an estimated
55 percent of erosion and sediment, 37 percent of pesticide
use, 50 percent of antibiotic use, and a third of the loads
of nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater resources”).
Damage to biodiversity relates to the fact that “it is
the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading
drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing,
sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions
by alien species.”
However, because it is such a major player in the damage
of all these sectors, it becomes an opportunity for us as we
try to repair the damage. If we can reduce the 70 percent of
all agricultural land and 30 percent of the land surface of
the planet devoted to livestock production and restore that
land for more productive and more sustainable uses, then we
can have an effective way on reversing those problems.
One way to do this is to simply stop eating meat and dairy.
However, even if we could do that by force of will, that approach
is very painful to the ranches and dairy farms represented
by the livestock industry. It would mean the gradual economic
strangulation of ranches and farms with no promise that those
lands can be used in a more sustainable way. A better approach
would be to change the land use of these ranches and farms,
with the cooperation of ranchers and farmers, so that they
can participate economically (as well as morally) in the changes
necessary to address the environmental damage of the industry
including global warming and to simultaneously educate the
western populations on dietary alternatives. That way both
producers and consumers can make the required changes with
the minimum of stress.
The land use changes that would be necessary would be #1)
to divert farm land from livestock feed production and #2)
to restore prairies, arable land and forests from the pastures.
Currently, Maize (corn) is the top feedstock for the livestock
industry in the US and more than half of total maize production
is used as feed. The US has the highest share of chemical fertilizer
N utilized in agriculture (51% of the total of the 11 highest
users) and maize is the crop highest in N consumption. 97%
of nitrogen fertilizers are synthetically produced with fossil
fuels (natural gas and coal) with the resulting emissions contaminating
our atmosphere. If we could free up that 50%+ of maize farmland
for other uses (such as more efficient food production and
bioenergy production) we can reduce our dependence on livestock
as a food and replace our fossil fuels with less polluting
alternatives.
We should restore prairie, arable land and forests from our
pastures. This does several things for us: 1) we provide an
economic substitute for producing meat and dairy for the ranchers
and farmers, 2) we increase the arable land for more productive
food production, 3) we increase the biomass potential of the
land so that it can consume more CO2, and 4) assuming some
of those restorations is the restoration of the prairies and
rebuilding of forests, we can reverse damage to biodiversity.
What is an economically viable alternative
for a rancher or dairy farmer to consider? Let’s look at bioenergy.
Bioenergy is based on the concept of the “Closed Carbon
Cycle” (CCC). This concept is that most bioenergy alternatives,
even though they release CO2 during combustion, absorb an equal
amount of CO2 in the growing of the feedstock. What are the
bioenergy alternatives: 1) Biomass is the use of wood to provide
heat or power from combustion of the wood or wood by-products.
The biomass approach would be to grow forests in the pasture
lands (usually with the support of governments). 2) Ethanol
is an alcohol made by distilling grain or cellulose into a
fuel substitute for gasoline. The ethanol approach is simply
to grow distilling feedstock in lieu of grass and either selling
that to distilleries or to make the ethanol oneself. 3) Biodiesel
is diesel fuel made from vegetable oil that has been transesterified
with the addition of an alcohol such as methanol and a catalyst
such as lye to make it suitable for burning in homes and diesel
engines. The biodiesel approach is to plant oil feedstocks
in lieu of grass and selling that or making biodiesel oneself.
and 4) Vegetable Oil Fuel is basically just the oil which new
VOF engines can burn without it being tranesterified.
Why is the conversion of pastureland
particularly important to reducing global warming? The “Closed Carbon Cycle” is
sustainable but it doesn’t reduce net CO2 emissions from
existing farmland. The IPCC is recommending a cross-the-board
80% reduction in CO2 equivalents. If we take an existing corn
field, for example, and use it for biodiesel feedstock instead
of livestock feedstock, we are not increasing CO2 absorption
and not creating a significant gain on the CCC. Converting
pastureland is different for the following reasons:
1) The plants growing on the converted pastureland would
be larger (assuming the water resources were there to support
them) and would absorb more CO2.
2) The animals will have been removed removing the methane
production from the animals and the methane and NOx emissions
from the manure. Since methane has 23 times the Global Warming
Potential (GWP) and NOx has 296 times the GWP of CO2, this
is significant.
3) The animal feedstocks (corn) will be converted for food
(probably soybeans) or bioenergy use (probably switchgrass)
and would use less fertilizer N.
4) Land degradation and the taking of forest habitat can
stop (especially with the help of government policy makers).
The replacement of pastureland back to prairie will not only
support wild habitat but it can be an economic boom to ranchers
(as switchgrass has been shown to produce 1,150 gallons of
ethanol per acre and its output, considering all the energy
inputs, is certainly higher than the raising of beef).
5) Fossil fuel use for animal production, transport, processing
and refrigeration will be attenuated. Removing the fossil fuel
use in these sectors is significant.
And then there is the question of
water. According to the LEAD report, “The availability of water has always been
a limiting factor to human activities, in particular agriculture,
and the increasing demand for water is a growing concern. Excessive
withdrawals, and poor water management, have resulted in lowered
groundwater tables, damaged soils and reduced water quality
worldwide”. “The agriculture sector is the largest
user of freshwater resources. In 2000, agriculture accounted
for 70% of water use and 93% of water depletion worldwide”. “As
a direct consequence of the expected increase in demand for
water,….by 2025, 64% of the world’s population
will live in waterstressed basins (against 38% today)”. “Increasing
water scarcity is likely to compromise food production, as
water will have to be diverted from agricultural use to environmental,
industrial and domestic purposes”. “Summing up
the impacts of all the different segments of the production
chain, the livestock sector has an enormous impact on water
use, water quality, hydrology and aquatic ecosystems”.
The above projections don’t even
take into account the effects of climate change projected by
the IPCC. Higher temperatures will increase the likelihood
of droughts with its concurrent impact on agriculture: “In
some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced
by up to 50% by 2020.” (IPCC AR4, Group2).
Because of the above, the world
and the US in particular must consider more water and energy
efficient food choices. According to the article from the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (9/2003) referenced
in our previous report, meat production took more land (6-17
times as much), water (4.4 to 26 times as much, and biocides
(pesticides and chemicals, 6 times as much) as soy products.
With that in mind, we must reduce the land, energy and water
devoted to the production of meat and dairy and we should
do this in a way that improves the environment and least
impacts the meat and dairy industry and its consumers.
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