SOCIAL VEGANS AVOID 'MEET'

American diets (and Western diets in general) tend to lean towards the 'meat lover' on the scale of things (although developing countries are catching up too). 

Where do you think you fit in with the five categories below?

For each of the diets, the results are based on food supply, so it does not take into account the way consumers store and transport the foods. (The methodology for this can be found here.) 

"Reducing the intake of meat and other animal based products can make a valuable contribution to climate change mitigation, other work has demonstrated other environmental and health benefits of a reduced meat diet. National governments that are considering an update of dietary recommendations in order to define a 'healthy, sustainable diet' must incorporate the recommendation to lower the consumption of animal-based products."

Currently, vegetarianism as depicted above, is very high in parts of India with 375 millions of vegetarians. This may be as a direct result of their culture and religion and traditional ideologies in India. On the other hand, those in Western countries like USA and the EU are lagging far behind India with only a few million vegetarians/vegans.

In the average diet animal products make up 60% of emissions despite accounting for just a quarter of food energy.

For the Meat Lover beef consumption causes almost half of emissions from just a tenth of food energy.

In the No Beef diet all the reductions from the Average foodprint come by switching  from beef to chicken.

The difference between the Vegetarian and Vegan diets arises from dairy consumption being switched to a mix of cereals and vegetables.

This data really shocked me, so I thought I had to share it with you! Science shows that becoming vegan is the best way to save our planet and fight global warming. According to the official handbook for Live Earth, reports show that not eating meat is the “single most effective thing you can do.” However, it is very beneficial to precisely lay out the foodprints to get a clearer picture of how one does not have to specifically make the full commitment like those individuals in the Vegucated documentary did. By just substituting a few of the foods you eat most, to foods that produce lower carbon emissions, one can still make a big difference to the environment. The website explains this perfectly;

A Vegetarian’s foodprint is about two thirds of the average American and almost half that of a meat lover. For a Vegan it is even lower. But perhaps most interestingly, eating chicken instead of beef cuts a quarter of emissions in one simple step.

On a happy note, it seems there is definitely a growing portion of the global population who are interested in vegetarian benefits. Below is a chart of page views on Wikipedia for the pages on "Vegetarianism" and "Veganism".

Another incentive to substitute beef with chicken; production of poultry is much cheaper since they take up less space and are more efficient to feed than other livestock. 

So, you will be saving money too!

Happy Meatless Monday! Tune in NEXT MONDAY for THE FINAL POST!

A LITTLE TASTE OF THE OTHER SIDE

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Thought I'd leave a lighter post for you all to read in the New Year's so let's take a look behind the scenes of your favourite meal at your favourite restaurant. What are the responsibilities of chefs and how are they related to improving social awareness of what is 'good' for you and what is 'bad'?

The Social Responsibilities of Chefs:

http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/social-responsibility-chefs-consumers/618763/

GLOBAL WARMING CONCLUSIONS

After our discussion on the main contributors to global warming and environmental change, here is a wrap up of what we can possibly conclude from research and data.

Possible conclusions and predictions:

Overall, the increasing global demand for meat is most likely to negative effect the environment. 

1) Demand

Since the demand for meat is increasing (perhaps even exponentially) through developing countries, increase in incomes, population growth and urbanisation, the amount of livestock would probably increase since suppliers and those in the industry will see this as a profitable opportunity. Predicted by WHO, annual meat production is projected to increase from 218 million tonnes in 1997 - 1999 to 376 million tonnes by 2030.

2) Supply - Large scale production

Since more space will be needed for large scale production of meat, whether it is areas for the livestock to live and graze, but also slaughter houses. This means there are implications for these processes to become more closely located to urban centres. By being in close proximity with urban centres, a range of environmental and health risks will potentially exist, such as those mentioned before. Land and water requirements would lead to a degradation and depletion of resources. 

3) Urbanisation and development

Due to urbanisation, development in certain countries and technological improvements, transportation of meats are becoming more efficient. This has also spurred on a 'taste for meat'  This is evident in city dwellers who have a varied diet rich in animal proteins and fats, and characterized by higher consumption of meat, poultry, milk and other dairy products. This can be seen in the table below. There is a significant increase in meat consumption in Brazil and China. However it can be seen that the consumption in North America and other developed countries remain at a much higher level. 

Per capita consumption of livestock products

Region	Meat (kg per year)			Milk (kg per year)
	1964 - 1966	1997 - 1999	2030	1964 - 1966	1997 - 1999	2030
World	24.2	36.4	45.3	73.9	78.1	89.5
Developing countries	10.2	25.5	36.7	28.0	44.6	65.8
Near East and North Africa	11.9	21.2	35.0	68.6	72.3	89.9
Sub-Saharan Africaa	9.9	9.4	13.4	28.5	29.1	33.8
Latin America and the Caribbean	31.7	53.8	76.6	80.1	110.2	139.8
East Asia	8.7	37.7	58.5	3.6	10.0	17.8
South Asia	3.9	5.3	11.7	37.0	67.5	106.9
Industrialized countries	61.5	88.2	100.1	185.5	212.2	221.0
Transition countries	42.5	46.2	60.7	156.6	159.1	178.7

^a Excludes South Africa.

Source: Adapted from reference 4 with the permission of the publisher.

As shown, the global demand is increasing in general, but is especially prominent in the BRICS, the five main emerging national economies which represent the trend in growing meat demand within countries with increasing income and wealth. 

The flip side

Although meat consumption can be seen to be increasing in the BRICS, it has actually stagnated in the U.S. according to Business Insider. Perhaps it can be argued that more educated and industrialised the countries are, despite having seen a rapid increase in meat production since 1950s, it has recently stagnated. For example, in the U.S., consumption has dropped by 9% from 2007 to 2012. This could be due to low-meat trends, and more educated consumers who are more concerned with the source of the meats. Furthermore, due to the horse meat scandal which was marketed as beef in early 2013, consumers have become more cautious about what they are eating and the credibility of food labels.

Conclusions:

Perhaps the key conclusion here, is trying to educate consumers on the health risks, environmental risks and the reality of how livestock are treated which can then reduce demand for meat. Although policy measures can be put into place to help reduce the harmful effects, consumers also play a big part too.

According to www.virtualcentre.org, the best way to improve efficiency is to price natural resources with the externalities considered. This is because when public resources are underpriced, it causes overexploitation. As a result, such a pricing strategy is able to allow individuals who use the resources to be mindful of the real cost of its usage.

Efforts here can lead to large and multiple payoffs.

Possible solutions:

To reduce greenhouse gases that have been and will be emitted as a result of the livestock sector, a few solutions have been raised in 'Livestock's Long Shadow':

• Restore historical losses through conservation tillage
• Agroforestry (a more sustainable land use system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops to promote more healthy, sustainable and productive land usage)
• Restoration of desertified pastures
• Methane emissions: improved diets to reduce enteric fermentation, improved manure management, biogas
• Nitrogen emissions: improved diets and manure management
• Use tradable rights for natural resources
• Remove damaging subsidies and alter the price for the resources in order to take into account the environmental externalities

How can we move on from here?

Educate yourself about meat production and consumption. So stay tuned... *wink

 

Happy Meatless Monday! Tune in next Monday for a new post on the consumption patterns by country!

LAND DEGRADATION

The livestock sector is by far the single largest anthropogenic user of land; it accounts for 30% of the land surface of the planet.

After a refreshing weekend, I'm back for a new post on our Meatless Monday's! I hope you had a great weekend too! In today's post, we will be discussing land degradation as a consequence of the livestock sector, so get ready for some important info!

Land degradation is a direct result of the following:

i) Extensive grazing

Extensive grazing leads to a degradation of vast areas of land. Livestock production is shifting geographically, first from rural areas to urban and peri-urban, to get closer to consumers, then towards the sources of feedstuff. Due to convenience and to cut costs, this has expanded the areas affected by extensive grazing. Finally, grazing reduces the fertility of the land. This is important because it means that the quality of the soil is greatly reduced, such that plants would be supplied with less nutrients when grown on this soil. As a result, humans need to turn to other ways of production for good quality produce such as through organic farming.

ii) Deforestation

Since demand for meat production is increasing for various reasons, the land that we have for livestock also needs to be increasing. Countless acres of forest and rainforest land have had to have been cleared as an opportunity cost of raising livestock in large areas. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN has estimated that 70% of previously forested land in South America has been converted for grazing land. As a result, it leads to further problems such as a loss in habitat as well as affecting global warming by reducing the trees available to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen.

Solutions to overgrazing:

If you read the previous post, you would have come across the 'free rider problem'. Again, it pops up here. Grazing is not really priced at... well, anything. Because of this, there is a high chance of exploiting this resource. The best solution to this is to introduce grazing fees. Perhaps removing obstacles to mobility on common property pastures will allow pasture sustainability as pastoralists can rotate the crop areas whilst the degraded land can be regenerated. Finally, soil conservation methods should be put into practise more often, this may be maintained through incentives, and by placing limits to uncontrolled burning by pastoralists.

Solutions to deforestation:

Some possible solutions outlined by Greenpeace include the help from companies who have the power and control to introduce zero deforestation policies. This is where the production of the goods are based on minimalising the negative impacts on forests. Furthermore, more emphasis on the bad environmental impacts created by these companies should be put into light by consumers.

Overall, many of us may dismiss overgrazing and deforestation because we are not directly affected by these impacts; the negative knock on effects are gradual such that humans do not see the issues as urgent. However, these issues are affecting the plants, animals and the quality of our lives and future generations. I hope you took something away from this week's post, we will focus on the negative effects on animals next week, so don't forget to come back next Monday!

Happy Meatless Monday! Tune in next Monday for a new post on Biodiversity

WATER'S YOUR PROBLEM?

A new report from FAO says livestock production contributes to the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

This week I was able to cosy up to read 'Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options'; a United Nations report released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. So far we have focused on the issues surrounding greenhouse gas emissions as a result of meat production and the responsibility of the consumers in contributing to the meat consumption and trend. 

Having read the report, it has highlighted a few important things on the correlation between the livestock sector and global environmental change. I will be writing about other vital environmental problems related to meat production in later posts, and will be looking at possible solutions outlined by the report. These solutions are mainly focused on the technical and political levels in reducing the environmental harm that has and will be caused as a result of meat production.

Today we will touch upon water use and the solutions from a political level to cover how global environmental change can be reduced.

The world is slowly opening their eyes to more issues from freshwater shortage, scarcity and depletion. 64% of the world'spopulation is expected to live in water-stressed basins by 2025. Thelivestock sector accounts for up to 8% of the global human water use (mainly through irrigation for feedcrops).

i) Water Overuse

It is estimated that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat (about 5-8 servings of meat). For comparison it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat (enough to make one loaf of whole wheat bread). Irrigation for feed crops contributes significantly to this overuse of water. Soy and corn are heavily irrigated crops in the U.S. and are used extensively for livestock feed. Most of the grain produced in this country is for livestock production.

Since a large proportion of the grain produced is feed for livestock shows precisely how the grains could be instead, directly created into food for humans. Thus the extra step of feeding livestock (along with the negative environmental impacts associated) could be skipped. 

ii) Water Contamination and Pollution:

The main contributors to water pollution include animal waste, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilisers and pesticides used in feed production and sediments from eroded pastures.

Livestock operations overuse water and may lead to water contamination. The large amount of waste pro­duced on factory farms exceeds the capacity of nearby cropland to absorb it. As a result, manure goes from being a valuable agricultural resource to what is essentially toxic waste. Nitrates, heavy metals, and antibiotics present in manure can seep into groundwater and pollute surface water. Furthermore, when manure lagoons leak or burst, again, nitrates become exposed to the water we drink. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned that E. Coli, salmonella, and Giardia found in dairy cattle waste can contaminate drinking water and cause acute gastroenteritis, fever, kidney failure, and even death. It not only affects humans,  but also the sea animals too. There have been numerous instances where this has killed off thousands of fish. No wonder people are saying fish are becoming more scarce!

Water pollution leads to fish death

Water pollution can lead to several undesired results, it contributes to eutrophication; a process where water bodies receive excess nutrients that stimulate excessive plant growth. It could also lead to "dead" zones/hypoxia in coastal areas, this is causes regions of water that lack oxygen necessary to support animal life and as a consequence, become a cause for extinction. Not only does water pollution affect animal life, but also degrades coral reefs. Apart from affecting animals and plants, water pollution causes human health problems due to reusing water in the water cycle and can cause an emergence of antibiotic resistance.

Livestock also affects the replenishment of freshwater by compacting soil, reducing infiltration, degrading the banks of watercourses, drying up floodplains and lowering water tables.

Please save us...

How can water pollution be avoided?

The best way to mitigate water pollution would be to better manage animal waste. This is important as animal waste can cause excess nutrients and pathogens to enter and harm water quality; instead the waste could be reused as a natural fertiliser for crops. Furthermore, better diets for the livestock can improve nutrient absorption.

Possible solutions:

Since water pollution is a problem for not only plants and animals, but humans too, it means humans should put more care into reducing water pollution where possible. I have broken down some possible solutions in improving efficiency of water  use. The first solution is to improve the efficiency of irrigation systems such that there are no unnecessary water losses.

The fact that water is often free and easily available causes the 'free rider effect' used in Economics, where a resource may be over exploited since it is priced at 0. To avoid this, water should be priced at a level that takes the externality into account. Similarly, there should be regulatory quantitative frameworks to limit usage. 

To reduce concentrated areas of livestock rearing especially near cities, zoning regulations and taxes can help to control this. As a result, the harmful effects on human health can be restricted too. 

Happy Meatless Monday!

Tune in next Monday for a new post on Land Degradation.