The Worldwatch Institute reports this week that the production and consumption of meat is continuing to rise. Much of the increase is due to increased income in developing countries, as they aspire to live a life closer to ours. Let’s set a good example and show that eating large amounts of meat and dairy is not something to aspire to; it’s destroying our planet and our health.

The world’s appetite for meat continues to grow—in 2008, meat production topped an estimated 280 million tons and production is expected to exceed 285 million tons by the end of 2009. Meat production has doubled since the mid-1970s and over the last 50 years has increased fivefold. Experts project that by 2050 nearly twice as much meat will be produced as today, at more than 465 million tons. More than half of all meat and dairy products are produced in developing nations.

Meat consumption is also growing worldwide. Currently 42 kilograms of meat are consumed per person worldwide. Consumption varies greatly, however, between countries. In the developing world, people eat about 32 kilograms of meat a year—a 17 percent increase over the last 10 years. But consumers in the industrial world eat more than 81 kilograms each in a year.

Rising meat consumption is the result of several factors, including increased population growth, the movement of people to cities, and growing incomes. The income elasticity of demand for meat products is high; in other words, increases in income are positively correlated with meat consumption.

To read the full report visit: http://vitalsigns.worldwatch.org/vs-trend/meat-production-and-consumption-continues-grow

Everyone’s talking about cows this week. In the US, plans commenced to produce an environmentally friendly cow, which will produce less methane. If they are successful in creating this ‘cow of the future’, I’d be interested to hear what they’re going to do about the other impacts of the dairy industry, such as deforestation to grow soy feeds, water pollution and of course, the male dairy calves – the often forgotten rejects of the trade who end up in veal crates or killed at birth as their flesh in not good enough for human consumption.

Here in the UK, Blade Farming think they may have the solution to the male dairy calf problem. They have launched a breeding scheme with eight of their top Holstein bulls who produce cows suitable for the dairy industry but also bull calves which are suitable to be used for beef. Farmers can buy semen from specially chosen bulls and the offspring will be tagged with an orange tag to identify them. Blade have said they would ‘love to buy the calves’ to raise for beef and their main customers, Tesco and McDonalds, are supporting the scheme. Compassion in World Farming apparently are pleased since the scheme may reduce the number of calves shot at birth.

The whole problem is that we have selectively bred cows for years to create those which produce high quantities of milk and those which produce what we deem to be high quality beef. All our messing with nature has created suffering and waste. Blade Farming’s scheme will only make the unsustainable and environmentally damaging dairy and meat industries more profitable, driving prices down and fuelling higher consumption.

It seems we are always looking for ways we can maintain the status quo and we keep coming up with all these crazy ideas when the answer is staring us in the face; it’s all about consumption. We cannot maintain the status quo, we need to consume less if we are to create sustainable societies. According to a report released by Canadean Ltd, global milk consumption is down 0.5% from last year, so it looks like we’re heading in the right direction at last!

The UK and Europe import vast amount of soy to feed to animals, particularly chicken and pigs, raised for meat. This has led to the destruction of the Amazon as farmers cut down the trees to grow massive soy plantations. The environmental and human rights impacts are well documented.

DEFRA has sponsored a 5 year project to investigate whether lupins could be grown in the UK which could replace soy in animal feeds. Like soy, lupins have a high protein content of around 30-40%.

According to the European Feed Manufacturers Association, the EU livestock industry imports over 75% of it’s protein requirements, much of which is soy. Around 98% of the soy comes from Brazil and Argentina, both of which produce a large percentage of genetically modified soy.

Whilst the efforts to replace soy are commendable, I can’t see how this plan is feasible. We import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of soy every year to feed animals, how can our land-scarce island provide the space and water to produce so much animal feed? If we really want to stop the imports of soy, or any other food imports, we need to look at the foods we consume and ensure we make choices that require the least amount of natural resources so that we can make the most of what is available to us here in the UK; and that means we cannot continue to eat high levels of animal products.

The weakening of the pound against the euro and a strong overseas demand for beef has resulted in an increase in UK beef exports. According to HM Revenue and Customs figures, exports are currently almost double what they were two years ago.

In the period from January to November 2008, the UK exported 73,746 tonnes of beef. The main importers of British beef were the Republic of Ireland, which imported over 28,000 tonnes and the Netherlands, which imported 23,578 tonnes. Most of the beef we exported was from dairy cows, who are slaughtered when they no longer produce adequate quantities of milk.

This is where it really makes no sense. During the same period in 2008, we imported a total of 224,988 tonnes fo beef; including 140,000 tonnes from Ireland and 6,213 tonnes from Brazil. Why are we exporting nearly 74,000 tonnes of beef but then importing around 225,000?

The same applies to other types of meat. Last year we exported 76,000 tonnes of sheep meat whilst importing 105,646 tonnes (80,000 of which from New Zealand). In the first 11 months of last year we exported 253,679 tonnes and imported 300,185. Last year we exported 103,462 tonnes of pork and imported 358,000.

Let us not forget that around 20% of animal feed in the UK is imported from outside the EU - this includes millions of tonnes of soy from North and South America, maize from the USA, cotton seed meal from China and India and palm kernels from Malaysia. This is ‘food miles’ gone completely mad! (More info on animal feeds).

These figures not only reveal the nonsensical practice of sending meat backwards and forwards between nations (using vast amounts of fuel for transportation and energy for refrigeration) but also show that the UK consumes way more meat than it produces. This is simply not sustainable and has to change.

Figures from Scotman article.

Well, nearly… Supplier of KFC and the largest chicken producer in the US, Pilgrim’s Pride, have announced that high animal feed costs have resulted in significant losses in their fourth quarter.

Pilgrim’s Pride share price dropped by 38% earlier in the week but then plummetted another 40% - to prices lower than 2002. They are now attempting to negotiate new terms with their lenders - with the current credit crunch they’ll need a miracle to pull that off  (good luck with that then!!).

Pilgrim’s Pride chickens are fed on soy and corn. Yes, the very same soy that is the cause of rainforest destruction (just ask Greenpeace, who exposed KFC’s secret recipe of ‘of illegal deforestation, land clearing and slavery’ and renamed them Klearing Forest for Chickens).

This is a good example of how unsustainable business practices do not make good business sense. Cheap meat means cheap animal feed and intensive farming which means environmental destruction and human rights abuses and there’s a limit to how long this can go on until the resources run out and more funds are needed to repair the damage and keep the system going. Sustainable business practices, where resources are used efficiently and waste and emissions are reduced, results in lower costs and a far more viable future.

Morningstar equity analyst, Ann Gilpin, pointed out that the entire meat industry is suffering.  She said of Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson and Smithfield Foods, “”if we liken this to a sickness, they’re all sick.”

Well, she got that right. They are all sick. Sick animals, sick people. I hope they are all closed down and replaced with sustainable, ethical and environmentally responsible businesses.

The Metro published a piece yesterday about meat consumption and it’s environmental impacts. Sadly, the article missed a few important points and came to entirely the wrong conclusion!

In the article, Lawrence Alderson of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust made the arguement that ‘the IPCC is discussing places such as Brazil, which doesn’t apply to Britain very well.’ Richard Perkins, of the World Wide Fund for Nature, implied that forest clearing for livestock grazing is responsible for much of the sector’s impact on the environment. However, they both miss a vital point – cattle grazing is not the only cause of forest destruction.

Brazil in the world’s largest exporter of soy; producing 62.4 million tonnes a year using 21.2 million hectares of land (1). It is widely recognised that soy production in Latin America is fuelling forest destruction and the cause of abhorrent human rights abuses. Before anyone starts pointing their fingers at tofu burgers; take note of this startling fact – only 9% of global soy is eaten directly by people, the rest is fed to animals raised for meat and dairy (2). The UK imported 1.9 million tonnes of soy in 2004 (imagine the food miles!), over half of which is genetically modified (3). Genetically modified crops are yet to be proven as safe for consumption and have been linked to life-threatening health impacts as well as disastrous environmental consequences.

The article concludes that we should all buy ‘quality British stuff, particularly rare breeds’. This is totally impossible based on our current consumption of meat. The average Brit consumes 8 cows, 36 sheep, 36 pigs and 550 poultry birds in their lifetime (4). That means our meat habit results in the slaughter of 6,965,018 cows, 31,342,583 sheep, 31,342,583 pigs and 478,845,022 chickens every year. Where is there room for all these animals in Britain? Considering we currently import around 40% of our food (5), how can it be feasible to meet the demands of our current meat consumption by buying only British meat, let alone rare breeds?

And can someone please explain how killing our rare breeds in the name of conservation is not a total oxymoron?

We need to face facts. Meat consumption is bad for the environment and simply not sustainable. Switching to a vegetarian diet reduces our emissions by 50% and going vegan results in a reduction of a whopping 87% (6). Not only that, if we were all to become vegan we would require only 3m hectares of arable land - half the current amount of land we use for food production (5), thus making it far more feasible for Britain to sustain itself. If that’s not enough, if we all became vegan, the 760 million tonnes of grains we feed to animals globally every year could be fed to the 820 million starving people in the world. 760m tonnes would cover the global food shortage 14 times over (7).

The only ethical choice is to go vegan. And if you can’t quite manage that, take a step in the right direction by cutting out meat and dairy one day a week and build from there.

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(1) Crop Tour “Rally da Safra” 2008. Agroconsult 2008.
(2) Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to save civilization. 2008. Earth Policy Institute http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm
(3) Genetically Modified Animal Feed. 2006. Friends of the Earth. http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/gm_animal_feeds.pdf
(4) Meat by numbers, Observer 7 September 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.beef
(5) Can Britain feed itself, The Land. Winter 2007/2008
(6) Report on conventional and organic agriculture and their greenhouse gas emissions. 2008. Foodwatch and Institute for Ecological Economy Research. http://www.deutschewildtierstiftung.de/_downloads/aktuell/foodwatch-Report_Klimaretter-Bio_20080825.pdf
(7) Credit crunch? The real crisis is global hunger. And if you care, eat less meat. Guardian. 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/food.biofuels

The Office for National Statistics has revealed new figures which show meat, dairy and eggs are driving inflation.

Foods such as bacon, sausages, ham, chicken and dairy now cost around 14% more than a year ago and drove the annual rate of inflation in July to 4.4%; economists predict that this could rise to 5% by the end of the year. The result is that the Bank of England is unlikely to reduce interest rates.

The ONS calculated that retail meat prices had risen 16% and milk, cheese and eggs by a staggering 19%. Other foods such as bread and cereals and vegetables have also risen, to a lesser extent.

So why particularly have the prices of animal produce risen more than any others? The answer is simple, animal produce is unsustainable, requiring far more resources than plant-based foods. First of all, whatever resources that are used to produce crops such as soy (land, water, fertilisers, herbicides, fuel for machinery, fuel for transporting the grain from around the world to feed the animals etc) have to be multiplied by around 8 since it takes around 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of meat. Then there is the water the animals need, energy for lighting and heating of barns, anti-biotics etc and finally all the water and energy used to slaughter the animals and the fuel required to transport the meat around the world whilst being refridgerated.

By choosing a plant-based diet, you can be both signicantly more sustainable and ethical.

Here is a chart using the figures from Waterfootprint.org to show you how much water is used for animal products. The chart shows how many litres of water are used for every 1kg of product.

16,600 litres = 1 kg of leather
15,500 litres = 1 kg of beef
5,000 litres = 1 kg of cheese
4,800 litres = 1 kg of pork

Let’s compare this to water usage when we eat foods directly:-

1,300 litres = 1 kg of wheat
1,300 litres = 1kg barley
1,800 litres = 1 kg of soybeans
900 litres = 1kg maize
700 litres = 1kg apples
500 litres = 1kg oranges

The figures speak for themselves; if we are to provide enough fresh water for the world, we need to be sustainable by using it as efficiently as possible, and that means moving towards a plant based diet.

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The Environment Agency has discovered that our excessive use of water has resulted in severe damage of our rivers and wetlands, at the expense of protected habitats for water voles and other endangered species. As a result, water companies have been asked to drastically reduce the amount of water they take from rivers and to find alternative supplies.

So where has all our water gone? When it comes to food choices, it is clear, yet again, that the most unsustainable and environmentally damaging foods are meat and dairy. Consider that a cow will drink around 127 litres of water every day of her life; that cleaning, processing and slaughtering a chicken can amount to 60 litres… Perhaps the most startling statistic is that it takes 1,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of wheat, yet it takes 100,000 litres to produce the same amount of beef (ref 38).

Water scarcity will be the next great crisis, in some parts of the world it already is. As if climate change, the energy and food crises are not enough to make us rethink our consumption habits, here’s another disaster on the horizon. Eat sustainably, eat for the future of the planet - go vegan.

The government’s announcement that there would not be a badger cull was received with great relief last week; at least to all those who recognise that the trapping and killing of these innocent, protected animals is not only ineffective in reducing bovine TB but also totally inhumane.

As you can imagine, the National Farmers Union (NFU) are not happy about the decision and plan to do all they can to over turn it. Last year 28,000 cows were killed because they were infected with bovine TB. However, we know from past experience and extensive research that a badger cull is not the solution to this problem. The cull would have resulted in the suffering and death of around 20,000 badgers; for absolutely nothing.

The NFU have announced that they will not take part in a new government partnership group which will work on a new TB strategy, despite the fact that Hilary Benn has committed an extra £20 million to fund the development of vaccines for both badgers and cattle. It seems the NFU are determined to kill all the badgers, even when other, more effective, solutions are offered!

Peter Kendall, president of the NFU, even had the cheek to challenge Gordon Brown about his earlier announcements about food waste, claiming that the government is responsible for the waste of milk and beef and thousands of cattle because the badger cull will not go ahead.

If the NFU was really concerned about the efficient use of food, they wouldn’t be farming dairy and beef at all, since we all know animal agriculture requires huge amounts more feed, land, energy and water than any other form of farming. Feeding 956 million tonnes of grain and soy to animals every year is the biggest waste of food there is.