Beef needn’t be bad for the environment
Posted on 26 August 2010
I often read that meat-eaters and dairy drinkers are responsible for several million tonnes of CO2 produced by raising livestock, and we all need to become vegetarians to save the planet – writes worried beef lover, Jonathan Green, of Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Bristol team.
Looking at the figures it’s easy to see why:
The damage to the environment of our food production systems has been well documented. Agriculture is heavily reliant on fossil fuels (eg. fertilizers, pesticides, fuel for machinery and distribution) and often causes damage, some of it irreparable, to the environment in the form of fertilizer run-off, loss of bio-diversity, water shortages, deforestation and the release of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). One of the biggest culprits is livestock which accounts for more GHGs (18% in CO2 equivalent), than transport.
As our cities grow and developing countries start to eat more meat and dairy, these pressures on the environment will grow, unless we change something about the way we produce food. For example, in the UK beef consumption totals about 1.04 million tonnes each year. Estimates suggest that producing 1 kg of beef releases 22.1 kg of carbon dioxide. Doing the maths shows that the UK beef (just beef) consumption alone releases as much as 22,984,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.
However, this may all be a moo(t) point if believers of the grass-fed revolution are correct. One believer in Grass Fed is Graham Harvey. He makes a very convincing case about the benefits of raising livestock on pasture in his book “The Carbon Fields”.
The Carbon Fields explains how we can get back on the road to health and prosperity.
Believers in grass fed advocate revolutionising the livestock industry in favour of a return to a less intensive pasture fed methodology to raise livestock. The benefits are numerous ranging from improved animal health, better tasting beef, improved health of beef consumers and environmental benefits too. Here are a few of Graham’s arguments:
Animal health is improved as diverse pastures provide “free-range” conditions that allow the cows to become more healthy and resistant to diseases and ailments such as lameness.
I can personally say that a grass-fed steak is significantly tastier than a conventional steak. In addition scientific tests have also shown it to contain more conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) which can help prevent cancer – so it’s good for me too.
From a sustainability point of view what’s most interesting about Graham’s book is the ability of well maintained pastures to store carbon in the soil and simultaneously reduce agriculture’s reliance on fossils fuels and minimise environmental impacts.
By raising livestock on pastures (as opposed to corn) Graham argues that there is less need for fossil fuel derived products such as petroleum and fertiliser. He claims that the overall carbon footprint per litre of milk is as much as 40% lower on grassland compared to intensive farms.
In addition to reducing the dependence on fossil fuels pasture fed techniques can also help store carbon in the soil by creating more organic matter. This is because annual plants such as corn are entirely removed after harvesting the edible part. The soil is then ploughed, ready to start again, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. Perennial plants such as grass are rarely removed and ploughed. This saves a lot of energy and nutrients in the soil as the “whole plant” need not be grown every year to produce the small edible part. Allowing the plants to stay in the soil allows organic matter to build up. It is this network of roots, fungi and compounds such as humic acid and glomalin that help to store carbon in the soil. Glomalin is a compound made from protein and carbohydrate sub-units. It is believed that these sub-units are comprised of as much as 30-40% carbon. Carbon Farmers of America estimate that that if organic matter in the world’s farmed soils were raised by as little as 1.6% then this would be enough to solve global warming.
An added benefit of all this organic matter is that the risk of soil erosion is also dramatically reduced….so on carbon grounds at least, there’s no need for me to become a vegetarian yet!
See Grass Roots for more information.
1 Response to Beef needn’t be bad for the environment
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Yes its a good book and well worth reading. He does however simplify the argument somewhat – research in this area (carbon impacts of grassland farming) is still ongoing and he is guilty of cherry picking data and not giving the full picture.
There is also no way that 60 million britons could possibly be fed from our grassland pasture on the meat consumption of today.
However the difference in taste from traditionally reared grassland beef left outside all year is incredible. The food we get in supermarkets is literally dumbed down nutrient deficient planet destroying crap.
He also makes some very good points about mixed farmland systems and their exceptional productivity (beef, chickens, pigs etc on one farm) which is interesting.
Personally I think the best thing to do is to buy from local smakk scale responsible producers. The one thing this book really hits home is that industrial agriculture is a big nasty that causes way more problems than it solves.
So lets kill it off.