Food, environment, justice Today, more meat is consumed than ever before during the existence of man. Since 1950, the actual production of meat has increased fivefold, from 44 million tons in 1950 to 216 million tons in 1998 (Vital Signs 1999: 35). Due to this large-scale production, more than three times more farm animals are raised each year than there are humans. All these animals consume enormous amounts of food, almost half of all that is produced. Furthermore, the 20 billion cows, pigs, hens and goats lead to serious environmental problems. Let us take a closer look at how meat consumption affects the environment and the global food supply. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is the greatest single cause of the greenhouse effect. Since meat production leads to much greater energy strains than do vegetable production, it also causes greater emissions of CO2. According to Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, a systems ecologist at the University of Stockholm, the production of one kilo of pork results in approx. ten times the emission of an equivalent amount of yellow peas. Eating potatoes instead of meat contributes to only one fortieth the amount of CO2 emissions. In Consumption Patterns and Climate Change Carlsson-Kanyama compares various meals’ effects on CO2 emissions - the meals contain the same amount of energy and protein. Meals containing potatoes, carrots and peas rated the best. Meals containing the combination of pork and tomatoes were the worst. Methane is another greenhouse gas. Methane is released when organic material decomposes during the digestion of ruminant animals, among other things. Even though the emission of methane is less than that of CO2, methane has importance in the greenhouse effect, because one kilo of methane has the same effect on the climate as 21 kilo of CO2. Milk cows and other ruminant animals in the food industry are in other words environmental ticking time bombs. An ordinary milking cow releases approx. 154 kilo of methane per year. Nursing cows, calves and bulls release less. In all, there are approx. 450,000 milk cows and an additional million nursing cows, calves and bulls that combined release approx. 133,000 tons of methane per year (Swedish Enrionmental Protection Agency [EPA], interview March 2000). In Sweden, ruminant animals are responsible for 5 to 10 percent of Sweden’s total methane emissions (interview J. Bertilsson, SLU 29/1-02). Nitrogen is a natural component in agriculture. It is an important nutrient that is necessary for crops to grow better in nature. But too much nitrogen can lead to serious environmental problems such as eutrophication of rivers, lakes and streams (which can cause algae blooming, oxygen deficiency and fish death). Agriculture releases 43,300 tons of nitrogen into the Swedish environment each year. This corresponds to approx. 33 percent of the total nitrogen emissions in Sweden. Only ground, air and sea transports produce more emissions - 38 percent of the total (ATL 34/99). Within nitrogen emissions, ammonia is formed - a substance that is produced when animals’ urine and excrement evaporate. Manure piles and wells, in combination with stable manure that has been spread on fields result in the distribution of great amounts of ammonia contributing greatly to acidification. A whole 90 percent of ammonia emissions come from the management of animals and manure (Swedish Enrionmental Protection Agency Källor till kväveutsläpp [transl. “Sources to Nitrogenous Emissions” 1997: 106). Even if animal breeding and agriculture could be integrated more, the main problem remains: the more animals, the greater the nitrogen and ammonia emissions. This relation has been backed in numerous investigations. One of the more current is the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation´s (SNF) report Ekologiskt lantbruk [transl. “Ecological Agriculture”] which states that nitrogen and phosphor emissions increase along with the animal population density. The report criticizes the current legislature in that it does not take into account that a higher animal population density often leads to an increased import of feed, which in turn results in greater releases of nutrients. If nothing is done, SNF fears that the animal population density and nitrogen emissions will increase even more. Agriculture and animal breeding are in no way at all only a Swedish environmental problem. As a result of the emissions of nutrients, the Baltic Sea is greatly eutrophied. Phosphor levels are eight times higher today than they were 100 years ago, and there is four times the amount of nitrogen than there was a decade ago. This has made large portions of the inland sea floor practically lifeless due to oxygen deficiency (and not least the sea floor surrounding Gotland and adjacent to the animal breeding regions Skåne and Halland). Agriculture is also a large problem in the rest of EU. Around 35 percent of the natural environment in EU countries is so overstrained from nutrients like nitrogen and phosphor, that there are great risks of harming the environment. The worst hit are those regions with a high level of strain placed on them by livestock. This was a statement made by European Environment Agency (EEA) in a recent report about how emissions of nutrients affect the European ecosystem. It is difficult to resolve problems concerning agricultural waste. Particularly evident is the problem pertaining to ammonia emissions from animals in agriculture: “Agriculture is without a doubt the largest contributing factor to atmospheric emissions of [ammonia]: estimations show that more than 90 percent of all emissions stem from agricultural activities” (“Nutritients in European Ecosystems”, EEA 2000:29). In Materialräkenskaper och miljöarbetet i Stockholm [transl. ”Material Calculations and Environmental Work in Stockholm”], researchers from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) study emissions of nitrogen and phosphor in Stockholm. Each year 11,600 tons of nitrogen and 1,100 tons of phosphor seep into the city. Despite modern treatment plants, about half of the nitrogen still seeps out into the Baltic Sea. The treatment of phosphor is considerably more effective, approx. 95 percent of the phosphor is removed. This makes the concentrations of nutrients in Stockholm’s archipelago very high and the risk for eutrophication a fact. According to the study, nitrogen and phosphor emissions are as high as 80 and 90 percent respectively for a typical Swedish meat dominated diet. Substantial decreases in especially nitrogen emissions are therefore important environmental goals for Stockholm city’s environmental program Miljö2000. KTH researchers are discussing possible models of nitrogen emissions in the future. One of the scenarios prescribes a cut in the consumption of beef, poultry, fish and eggs by 50 percent. The other scenarios suggest that Stockholmers also cut their consumption of dairy products by 50 percent. According to the report, the prior scenario would lead to a decrease in nitrogen emissions by 15 percent. If Stockholmers also would cut their milk consumption, nitrogen emissions would decrease by one third. Maybe this and similar studies will lead to animal consumption being seen as the severe environmental problem that it really is. Discussions concerning the community citizens’ consumption of foodstuffs should have a natural place in Agenda-21 affairs and community environmental plans. In 1999, the world’s population passed the 6 billion mark. Its population will with all probability continue to rise, during the coming decades in any case. Within 40 years time, the world’s population may reach twice that of today (Pimentel & Pimentel 1996: 286). At over 10 billion inhabitants, the issue of the global food supply will undoubtedly be even more in the spotlight. How much and which food should be produced so that the world’s entire population can be satisfied? Measuring by the grain, today’s food supplies have not been this low since the 1970’s (Vital Signs 1999: 39). According to Worldwatch Institute, there is today a grain surplus that would only be enough to support the world’s population for 60 days. The institute submits 70 days as the “Food Security Treshold ” - which stands for the minimum surplus of food that should exist in order to keep prices steady so that certain countries of the world wont be vulnerable to sustenance problems. Reduced grain surpluses have also caused prices of, for example, wheat and corn to double between 1995 and 1996. Until recently, there have been three different measures to take when the demand for food has increased: to utilize unexploited land, to use grain reserves and to redistribute grain that was designated for animals as food for humans instead. According to Worldwatch Institute, the two first mentioned measures are principally no longer possible now that grain reserves have diminished so much and unexploited land has been put into use. The consequences are therefore, according to the institute chairman Lester R. Brown, that the rich must eat less meat: ”In case of a world food crisis today there is only one food reserve to utilize: the grain intended for animal feed. That reserve is very hard to access, but higher food prices would force the rich world to eat less meat.” (translated from the Swedish version of State of the World 1997: 53). The answer to how much should be produced is thus that it is not possible to increase production to match the population growth. One of the more absurd examples of imbalance in the global production of grain is the large export of soybeans from for example Brazil to western Europe. Sweden alone buys 332,000 tons of soybeans each year from Brazil, intended as livestock feed. In addition, 86,000 tons of palm flour and palm oil cookies from Malaysia and Indonesia and 21,000 tons of additional vegetable products intended as livestock feed were imported as well (Gregow 2000). In each of these countries there is a large proportion of poor people that would benefit more from these commodities. But since Swedish pigs and milk cows attain greater buying power than Brazilian farmers do, the former will win the deal. The great demand of livestock feed has caused the world’s total production of soybean to increase ninefold from 17 million to 155 million between 1950 and 1998. In 1999, soybeans surpassed corn as USA’s most abundant crop. During the 1970’s in Brazil, the area of soybean producing land increased by more than a factor of three, and between 1960 and 1998 it increased from 0.5 million tons to 31 million tons (Pimentel & Pimentel 1996: 248 och Gregow 2000). The biggest reason for this is the domestic and foreign demand for soybeans as livestock feed. The foreign demand is so great that foreign companies have set up mills in Brazil that grind the soybeans to fodder, ready for export. In all, soybean plantations in Brazil cover an area of 10 million hectares. Soybean farming is in general a serious problem in Brazil. For one thing large amounts of pesticides are used and many important natural environments, for example one of the world’s florally richest savannas “the Cerrado”, have been partially destroyed to give room for soybean plantation (Gregow 2000). Freshwater shortages are one of our time’s great environmental and human survival issues. Today, more than 80 countries suffer from water shortage and one billion people lack access to clean water. According to Jan Lundqvist, human geographer and professor of Tema vatten i natur och samhälle [Theme: “Water and Nature in Society”] at the University of Linköping, three fourths of water is used up in producing different kinds of foodstuffs. Households and industry stand for the rest (Lundqvist, conversation March 2000). Among food production, it is meat that requires the greatest amounts of water. How much water that is required depends on which creature that produces the meat, which types of meat and vegetables that are used as feed and which climate zone the feed is produced. But the fact that meat production implies a great water consumption is clear no matter which study one consults. David Pimentel, professor in ecology at Cornell University in USA, claims that 100,000 liters of water are required in order to produce one kilo of beef, and 3,500 litres of water for one kilo of chicken. One kilo of potatoes requires 500 litres of water, wheat requires 900 and rice 1900 litres of water (Pimentel et al 1997). Jan Lundqvist thinks that we through our choices of food can affect the total consumption of water: ”In the future, animal products will probably become a lot more expensive than today and there will likely be more vegetable foods to eat. From a world household perspective, an animal diet is more demanding in resources than a vegetable one” (Lundqvist, conversation March 2000). Some would say that animals eat matter that humans can’t eat anyway and convert indigestible biological matter to protein-rich meat. This is true for certain grazing animals. However it is more so that meat-producing animals consume food that, to a great extent, humans could eat instead, and use land that crops could be grown upon as well. Milk cows, which are somewhat of an icon for grazing animals that keep the countryside open, receive nowadays as much as half of their sustenance from fodder such as imported soybeans and domestic grains. Various estimations have been made concerning how much of the world’s grain resources and areas are used for meat production. According to State of the World 1999, feeding cattle consumes 38 percent of the world’s grain resources. In the industrialized countries, which represent a considerably higher level of meat consumption, approx. two thirds of all grain goes to feeding livestock (State of the World 1999 and Seager, Världens miljöatlas 1995: 17). The Swedish physicist Stefan Wirsenius in his dissertation Human Use of Land and Organic Materials states that 70 percent of the world’s organic material goes to the feeding of livestock and producing meat. This means that enormous areas of agricultural land is used today for producing feed or for pasture. In Sweden, like the rest of the western world, approx. two thirds of cultivated land is reserved for producing feed for cattle (Gregow 2000). Part of the solution to the global environmental problem and the global food supply problem would thus be for more people to cut down on their consumption of meat products, or stop eating meat altogether. In Sweden there are - fortunately enough - several clear indications that more people are becoming aware of the relevant problems. Approx. five percent of Sweden’s population are vegetarians of some kind. When the statistics institute Sifo in 1998 investigated the interest for vegetarian eating, they found that more than one fifth of Swedes wanted to cut down on their meat consumption. These and other facts indicate that a critical opinion towards meat consumption is on the rise in Sweden. In many schools around the country, battles are being fought between vegetarians and vegans on the one side, and school management and kitchen personnel on the other. Several schools have chosen always to offer vegetarian food, which has often led to economical savings due to less wastage. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has performed several investigations where the effect on the environment is in focus. The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences together with the Swedish National Food Administration studied the effects on the environment resulting from different choices of foods. In their report ”Vegan, vegetarian, omnivore”, it was the vegan and vegetarian diet that required the smallest area of land and least amount of energy to produce. Several political parties discussed the meat issue in their political agenda and motions to parliament. When the parliamental “Committee of the 15 Environmental Quality Objectives” presented its major report the spring 2000, it was suggested that Swedes in the future will eat more fruit and vegetables and cut down on their consumption of meat (in SOU: 2000:52, pages 854 & 881-883). This 15 environmental objectives are now to be implemented in Sweden. An appeal for a reduction in the meat consumtion was also launched from the EU funded conference Food Chain 2001 in Uppsala, March 2001. The negative impact of intensive livestock breeding was pinpointed in specially one of the seminaries working-groups and in the final conclusion it was stated: “A lower human consumption of animal products, leading to a lower live-stock production, will decrease the demand for nitrogen in agriculture and, thus, lower emissions of nitrous oxide and methane as well as ammonia”. Whether this will be our future or not remains to be seen. It is certain though that our meat consumption has started an important ethical debate in Sweden about animal protection and what our future environment will look like. If it was for these reasons Prime Minister Göran Persson at the end of 2000 stated his “scepticism about meat consumption” and that he in the future would refuse to eat many forms of meat is yet to be analysed. In spite of Mr. Persson´s scepticism Sweden and EU still support obsolete and irrational economical benefits to the meat industry. Each year the EU pays over 80 billion Swedish crowns [approx. 90 million Euro] in subsidies to the animal industry (support to feed/grain-production not counted). Included in this is also marketing subventions to persuade people to eat more meat. The least we should expect from our politicians is the abolishment of these subsidies and a consideration of some form of environmental taxes on meat so that it will carry its own weight in costs. With the right political measures and a continuing debate about meat consumtion we could perhaps achive a future as predicted in the Brittish socio-anthropologist Nick Fiddes ”Meat. A Natural Symbol” from 1991. Fiddes claims that meat consumption in the future will have the same low status as smoking or drinking alcohol and thus the consumption will be at a very low level. That would be a big step forward. But in order to achieve that we need much more of a pressure from not only animal rights and vegetarian groups, but also from a modern environment movement and Third World solidarity groups. We would all have a lot to gain from that! Jens Holm Translation: Jens Holm is a journalist for the magazine Djurens Rätt [“Animal´s Rights”] in Sweden. He is also the author of the report mat, miljö, rättvisa [”food, environment, justice”] that deals with meat consumption’s negative effects on the environment and the global food supply and was published year 2000. A complete translation of the report will be ready by end of 2002. If you have any questions or comments, please contact Jens Holm on: holmjens@hotmail.com or, phone: +46 8 555 914 14. |