Meat production
Who we are
Coordinator - Elizabeth WANG
Investigator - Maria POURSANIDOU
Text Miner - Frédéric DREYFUSS
Network Analist - Marguerite TIOUNINE
Web designer - Arthur ERMEL
Controversy Description : What is the main climate impact of meat production ?
This question lies at the heart of the controversy of meat production, one that looks not only at the links to economic and social development but also ecology and natural preservation.
Throughout the last centuries, standards of living have greatly improved. As many more people come out of poverty, the standards of living continue to rise. One consequence is the increased consumption of meat.This could be seen as something quite positive, since the presence of animal proteins in someone’s diet has long been defined by scientists and development academics as a critical influence on physical development. Other actors who favour the rise of meat production and its consumption range from local farmers to big corporations. Finally, people generally enjoy eating meat and certain governments, such as France, encourage meat production and consumption.
Contrarily, many NGOs and other influential actors argue that meat consumption, or more specifically, meat production, may pose a great threat to climate change. Land clearances required by meat production have contributed to the rise in carbon dioxide. Also, cows release a second type of greenhouse gas, methane, from their digestive processes. Meat consumption then represents no more than an irresponsible conduct towards the protection of our planet.
Based on the previous arguments, it would seem sensible to reduce meat production and adopt new diets based on vegetables, grain and other alternatives. Perhaps we need new means of meat production, since the current model appears unsustainable.
Like many controversies pertaining to climate change, the question of meat production probes into the ecological, political and social implications of our decisions. Should every nation decrease its meat production? Or should developing countries be allowed to catch up with developed countries in terms of meat production and consumption? Or, should we simply do as we please, i.e. nothing at all?
The questions introduced by this controversy can be roughly summarized below: - Are the means of meat production sustainable? - If not, what changes need to be made? - Finally, how do we implement the proposed models of sustainable meat production?
These questions will lead us through our mapping and we hope that, when this controversy will have been mapped, we will know what answer each of its actors give to each of these questions.
Key Actors
Opponents to meat production
Governmental bodies
The United Nations
- The United Nations has an intergovernmental panel on climate change: UNEP (United Nation Environmental Programme) who won the Nobel prize. Rajendra Pachauri as the head of the panel urges people around the world to cut back on meat. He says reducing meat production is the best opportunity to combat climate change in terms of how quickly changes can be made.
- Report of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) in 2006: Worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions, whereas all the world’s cars, trains, planes and boats account for only 13% of greenhouse gas emissions. The causes of livestock’s contribution to global warming are: the deforestation that occurs to make space for pasture or farmland to grow animal feed. The manure from animals that produces nitrous oxide, 296 times more potent than CO2. The methane produced by cattle
Advocacy Organizations in favour of a reduction of meat consumption
Advocacy organisations often use the FAO 2006 report to educate the public of industrial meat production effect on our planet. Most people believe that transportation is the biggest contributing factor of climate change so many organizations are working to show that meat production (converting land for grazing/ feed production and methane gas production) are huge contributors.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) Although seen as an extreme animal rights advocacy organisation, PETA advocates for vegan diets as a way to combat climate change. It is a very powerful organization. “According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off U.S. roads.”
Meatless Mondays (http://www.meatlessmonday.com/) Meatless Mondays is a non-profit initiative whose goal is to help reduce meat consumption by 15% to improve personal health and the health of the planet. It provides information to start each week with healthy, environmentally friendly meat-free alternatives.
L214 & Viande.info L214 is a French association of defense of the animals rights. With PETA France and other associations they have created the website viande.info on the eve of the 2009 Copenhagen summit, to make public opinion aware of the risks of an "hyperconsumption" of meat.
Advocacy Organizations in favour of a reduction of meat production
Some organizations are less interested in changing eating habits, and more interested in enacting policy changes, i.e. supporting small farmers, attacking government policies that help agribusiness become stronger and richer.
GRAIN GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems.
Beyond Factory Farming A Canadian national association whose alternative to industrial livestock operations is to promote livestock production that is safe, fair and healthy for the environment.
Greenpeace Greenpeace – a worldwide and well-known NGO defending the planet we are living on, through various campaigns focusing on climate change, deforestation and GMOs (among other topics). Although they don't have a particular campaign focusing on meat production an climate change, they are aware of the risks of livestock production (and particularly its links to deforestation).
Individual activists
Mark Bitman- NY Times Food Writer In his newest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating With More Than 75 Recipes, Mark explains how increasing fruit and vegetable consumption and reducing dependence on processed foods will lead to better health not only for the body, but also for the planet.
Author Michael Pollan has been very successful in educating the American public on the effects of our current food system, including meat’s contribution to global warming. The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) traces the food journey from the soil to the plate. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/vegan-before-dinnertime/
Advocates of meat production
The meat industry has a capital influence on defending meat production and is usually represented by key institutions and lobbies.
In France, the Centre d’Information des Viances (CIV) has played a key role in meat consumption, even though the initial aim is the communication. Created in response to Interbev’s demand, it is mostly sponsored by meat industry and distribution actors, also contributing to counterbalance the speech about meat production exposed by the FAO. In the United States, both on legislative and regulatory aspects, meat industry is represented by meat trade and lobbying organizations, such as the American Meat Institute, and thus have a strong voice on decision making in Washisgton but also over the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Countries with high meat production:
India, China, Brazil are leaders in meat production in the world with a number followed by United States and Russia. Even if there’s a little decrease since 2009 (except for Brazil) of production due to the price, the numbers are higher if compared to 2001. Meat produced in developing countries, specifically in South America, is becoming more expensive which has contributed to a slight decrease of meat consumption in UE.
The FNSEA - Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants agricoles (in English the National Federation of Farmers’ trade unions) is the major French farmers’ trade union, created in 1946. Their main concern is the efficiency of French farmers when compared with other countries especially the EU. This is why they are opposed to measures such as a national carbon tax, dangerous for the French competitiveness.
Opinion leadership (doctors, scientists) advocates of meat consumption
Frank Mitloehner – internationally known authority for environmental engineering, animal-environment interactions and agricultural air quality. He is an Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist at the Department of Animal Science (University of California). Since he joined UC Davis in 2002 he focused his research on the impact of livestock’s GHG emissions on the environment.
He strongly disagreed with the FAO 2006 report, publishing his own conclusions in Clearing the Air – Livestock’s contribution to climate change (2009). For Mitloehner, FAO’s comparison between the transportation and the meat production sectors is flawed. Indeed, although the FAO uses a full life cycle methodology to obtain the 18% figure, it only focuses on direct emissions of the transportation sector: only emissions from the vehicles themselves are accounted whereas the manufacturing of the cars is not taken into account as indirect emissions.
Thus, he argues thus in favour of comparable assessment tools when comparing two sectors such as transportation and livestock production.
The political field
Among the political field, only few parties consider meat production a critical issue. Among them, the French EELV (Europe Ecologie les Verts) promotes the idea of a reduction of meat consumption and meat production.
In France, isolated political personalities such as the senate deputee Gérard Bailly or the parliamentary speakers R. Rouquet, Y. Cochet and G. Urvoas raises the issue in their reports and weekly questions to the government.
Key Issues
The opponents of meat productionargue that GHG emissions are in every part of the meat production cycle:
- Burning fossil fuel to produce mineral fertilizers used in feed production. 100 million tons of nitrogen fertilizers are produced every year for crop production, of which a significant amount goes to feed livestock. Of the 100 million tons of nitrogen fertilizers produced, 14 million tons are linked to livestock. Maize, in particular, is widely used to feed livestock and is grown in temperate, tropical areas while demanding intensive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer. The burning of fossil fuels in the production of nitrogen fertilizers, with varying levels of energy efficiency depending on the machinery, contributes 41 million tons of carbon dioxide per year worldwide (FAO, 2006).
- On-farm fossil fuel use includes: herbicides/pesticides, diesel for machinery (land preparation, harvesting, transport), electricity (irrigation pumps, drying, heating, etc). Some livestock farms also directly produce their own feed, which, like other on-farm fossil fuel use, contribute significant amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. (FAO, 2006)
- Livestock related land use varies from occupying land as pasture to occupying arable land for feed-crops. Carbon dioxide emissions from land-use are a bit more ambiguous than fossil fuel use, but livestock is a driving force behind deforestation. Clearing forests “releases considerable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, particularly when the area is not logged but simply burned” (FAO, 2006). Livestock induced emissions from deforestation are estimated to be roughly 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year.
- Livestock-related releases from cultivated soils. Manure management and use of nitrate fertilizers (for feed production) contribute to the release of nitrous oxide. And the nitrous oxide is 296 times more potent than C02.
- Methane is produced as part of the normal digestive processes in animals. Depending on the management of manure storage, the level of methane can vary, as does nitrous oxide in manure management.
Advocates of meat production argue:
- Exaggeration of meat production’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions. A study, Clearing the Air – Livestock’s Contributions to Climate Change, conducted by Frank Mitloehner and his colleagues counters the claims made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) regarding livestock’s impact on climate change. While it is true that agriculture and livestock do emit greenhouse gases, the all-inclusive methodology of quantifying livestock-induced emission of greenhouse gases exaggerates livestock’s impact compared to the impact of the transport sector. In other words, the transport sector did not receive attention to its full life cycle of greenhouse gas emission whereas the livestock sector was granted that attention.
- Media makes salient and validates reports that meat production increases greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of livestock on climate change is under constant scrutiny by the media. Conveniently, this scrutiny also urges further studies validating the considerable emission of greenhouse gases through livestock processes. The paradox of the mutual dependence between meat production’s negative impact on climate change and validating reports is akin to the paradox introduced by Theodore Porter in his excerpt, “How Social Numbers Are Made Valid” – that validating data can ultimately guide and intervene with how we interpret the impact of meat production on climate change.
- Grazing can actually help lessen nitrous oxide, which is another form of GHG. A new study found that in certain circumstances, it could be good for cattle to graze on grassland. The research conducted in China discovered greater emissions of nitrous oxide during the spring thaw when greenhouse gas emitting microbes were combined with the moisture of the snow. Because the cattle did not graze on the grass during the spring thaw, the microbes were kept warm and alive. However, when grazing animals shortened the grass, the microbes were unable to survive the cold; this, of course, hindered the microbes’ ability to release nitrous oxide.
- On-farm fossil fuel use induced emissions are low given that there are large areas in developing countries where animals are an important source of draught power. On-farm fossil fuel use induced emissions in systems sourcing their feed mainly from natural grasslands or crop residues can be expected to be low. In fact, large areas in developing countries, particularly Africa and Asia, still use animals as an important source of draught power, a practice considered to be less harmful to the atmosphere in its emission of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, draught animal power continues to be an important form of energy, substituting for fossil fuel combustion in many parts of the world and is on the increase particularly in West Africa. (FAO, 2006)
- Decreasing meat production will increase hunger in developing countries. With world population reaching 7 billion people, and with issues of starvation in developing countries, decreasing meat production would only exacerbate the disconnect between supply and demand.
- Meat is necessary and vital to our well-being. It contains many of the nutrients essential to our well-being: proteins, iron, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin B. Meat production cannot be simply done away with even if studies show that production impacts climate change – humans need meat to be healthy. Meat may very well be the reason people live longer lives than any other primates.
Interviews (recordings/transcriptions)
- Frank Mitloehner - scientist, author of Clearing the Air - Livestock's impact on climate change
- Brigitte Gothière - Spokesperson for L214 and coordinator of the website viande.info
- Sarah Feuillette - member of the EELV
- Frédéric Amiel - Grennpeace France
- Caroline Guinot - Environment project manager at CIV (Centre d'Information des Viandes)
