The Financial Times today reports on a new United Nations report, The State of Food and Agriculture, which recommends a tax on livestock emissions.

The novel suggestion by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation to use taxation comes as campaigners focus on the impact on climate change of emissions of methane from cattle, sheep and pigs.

“Market-based policies, such as taxes and fees for natural resource use, should cause [livestock] producers to internalise the costs of environmental damages,” the FAO said in its annual report, The State of Food and Agriculture .

“The sector is consuming a large share of the world’s resources and is contributing a significant portion of global greenhouse gases emissions,” the report adds.

The proposal, if supported by governments, could hit companies such as JBS of Brazil, the world’s largest meat producer, and large US-based businesses such as Tyson Foods, Cargill or Smithfield. Governments do not necessarily follow the FAO’s recommendations, but its views carry some weight, particularly among European policymakers.

The FAO said that without fresh measures - from taxes and fees to cuts in subsidies or a boost in the efficiency of the sector - “continued growth in livestock production will otherwise exert enormous pressures on ecosystems, biodiversity, land and forest resources and water quality, and will contribute to global warming”.

A tax on meat is something animal rights groups have been calling for for years, could this actually happen now? Could an increase in the price of meat encourage people to eat a plant-based diet or will they just eat cheaper, and more destructive, factory farmed meat?

Read the full article.
Download the UN report.

India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the West to stop eating beef. According to the Telegraph he said “The solution to cut emissions is to stop eating beef. It leads to emission of methane which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

Most people in India are Hindu and believe that cows are sacred. Ramesh said “What India has going for it is the fact that we are not a major beef eating nation.”

This message from India is a reminder that climate change is not just an environmental issue but one of social justice too. The way we live our lives in developed countries directly impacts the lives of others. Eating meat causes climate change; climate change causes extreme weather, rises in sea levels, droughts and food shortages - and those that suffer the most are those least responsible for climate change.

Read the Telegraph article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6615422/India-tells-West-to-stop-eating-beef.html

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

Friends of the Earth and Compassion in World Farming released a new report, Eating the Planet?, this week and celebrated that, according to their research “We can eat meat, ditch factory farming and save the planet”.

FoE have always been a little shy about telling people they need to change the way they live, preferring to ask them to sign a postcard to their MP instead. So I was happy to receive an email from FoE to tell me that they had at last tackled the issue of meat consumption with their latest report and that the “focus is on reducing daily meat and dairy consumption”.

However, the press release tells a different story. It seems the message they are desperate to tell people is that we can eat meat, not that we need to cut down. On their home page right now is the message “eat meat and save the planet - we don’t have to go vegetarian”. They’re actually telling people to eat meat. When Lorn Stern said people should consider going vegetarian for the environment, Friends of the Earth reacted very defensively and told him via the Times that “by leaping to the conclusion that we should all go vegetarian, your reports didn’t address the urgent need for it to clean up its act to be part of our low-carbon future”.

The other problem is that their report looked only at global production and consumption, not at what is feasible on a local level. I asked them if they thought people in the UK could eat meat 3 times per week (with humane, extensive, organic systems) and not have to import any meat, dairy or animal feeds from elsewhere, and they couldn’t answer that question; they said they hoped that would be the case but that they could only answer this question after more research had been conducted.

I don’t understand it, they talk about localisation of food systems and then use a report which analyses global food production to tell people in the UK what they should eat. They commission a report which shows that we need to reduce meat and dairy consumption but they seem to be actively against people going vegetarian. It makes no sense.

Jeremy Paxman interviewed Al Gore on Newsnight last night, to ask him about Copenhagen but also about the changes he’s made in his own life to reduce his carbon footprint.

Paxman asked “you suggest that tackling this problem will involve huge changes in human behaviour, how have you changed our behaviour?” Gore replied that he had changed his lightbulbs and windows, dug geothermal wells, switched to a hybrid car and covered his roof with solar panels. He said he was “walking the walk, not just talking the talk” and that he had “long since committed to this path and am proud to have done so”.

But on one question, the story is a little different.

Paxman: Have you become a vegetarian?

Gore: No, I have not, although for health reasons, along with climate reasons have reduced the amount of meat in my diet, of course, as we all know it’s much healthier to have more vegetables and fruits instead of meat and actually the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is a legitimate issue where climate is concerned.

Paxman: We should become vegetarians if we’re concerned about the planet, shouldn’t we?

Gore: I don’t plan to, I respect those who do, but it’s a personal choice and will remain so.

So, to tackle climate change we all need to make huge changes to the way we live, but that is just a personal choice? Considering the devastating impacts of climate change already occuring in the world today and the massive implications for future generations, is it not a moral obligation? What is it with meat? Why is it that Gore, like so many others, is prepared to do everything else but not stop eating meat?

It’s all very well for those with plenty of spare cash to invest in new technology such as solar and geothermal energy and hybrid cars, but for all the rest of us, this just isn’t even remotely possible. What can we do? Going vegetarian is one of the most effective and cheapest ways to reduce our carbon footprint, whilst also being healthier - just think of the additional energy savings in the carbon intensive hospitals and pharmaceutical companies if we all ate more fruit, veg and wholegrains instead of meat! Cutting down on meat seems to be doing Gore some good at least, he’s clearly lost weight.

UK residents can watch the Gore interview online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/newsnight

All over the press today is news that Lord Stern has urged people to stop eating meat to save the planet. Big news, is the message finally getting through?

Times: Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet
Guardian: Vegetarian diet is better for the planet says Lord Stern
Daily Mail: Save the planet, go veggie, says climate chief Lord Stern
Telegraph: Lord Stern: ‘People should give up eating meat to halt climate change’

While some organisations are trying with all their might to avoid talking about consumption, it is refreshing to see yet another voice bringing this issue in to the main stream media. He follows the likes of government advisor on climate change, Jonathan Porritt and chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri. WWF have also recently released a report which aims detailing how we might reduce the world’s meat consumption. Earlier this week WorldWatch Institute released a report estimating that animal agriculture is responsible for 51% of all the world’s greenhouse gas emmisions. Evidence and debate is mounting, it’s time for us all to think seriously about the impacts of our choice in foods; and make the right decisions.

A new investigation again shows the damaging impact of cheap factory farmed meat sold in Europe because of it’s total reliance on soy from Latin America as animal feed. Soy plantations not only result in mass deforestation but also horrific human rights abuses as indigenous people are poisoned and forced from their land. From the Ecologist website:-

Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence.

Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America’s most impoverished countries, according to a new film launched in conjunction with the Ecologist Film Unit.

An investigation in Paraguay has discovered that vast plantations of soy, principally grown for use in intensively-farmed animal feed, are responsible for a catalogue of social and ecological problems, including the forced eviction of rural communities, landlessness, poverty, excessive use of pesticides, deforestation and rising food insecurity.

The investigation is part of Friends of the Earth Europe’s Feeding and Fuelling Europe programme, in collaboration with other groups including Friends of the Earth members in the Netherlands, Paraguay, UK, Uruguay, the Ecologist magazine, Via Campesina and Food and Water Watch.

Friends of the Earth Food Campaigner Kirtana Chandrasekaran explains in the film that we need to stop factory farming for meat and dairy, use home grown feeds and more extensive methods of farming and direct subsidies for factory farming in to “better quality” farming.

The UK is a land-scarce country. As the population keeps growing and communities around the country fight to save the last of our wild areas from new road and housing developments, how will we find the land to be able to grow more food to feed animals? Consumption of meat and dairy has to be tackled but no-one seems to have the guts to say it.

See the 10 minute film and read the full article on the Ecologist website: www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/336873/killing_fields_the_true_cost_of_europes_cheap_meat.html

The excellent Meat-Free Monday e-newsletter from Animal Aid reported today on a new report regarding world hunger and food production.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), nearly 30 percent of the world’s population suffer from some form of malnutrition. And this week, a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, states that 25 million more children will go hungry by the middle of this century as climate change leads to a decline in agricultural productivity and food shortages.

The lead author of the IFPRI report stated that ‘we are going to have 50 per cent more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050 and meeting food demands is going to be a huge challenge - even without climate change’. However, according to the FAO, ‘the world already produces enough food to feed every child, woman and man and could feed 12 billion people, or double the current world population’. The main problem is not the amount of food available, but the ways in which the world’s grain harvest is being used and distributed - farmed animals are fed no less than half of the world’s harvest.

Instead of adding to the amount of food available, meat simply creates even more mouths to feed; those of farmed animals. And the return is extremely poor. It takes roughly eight kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef and two kilos are required for one kilo of chicken. It would make far more sense to grow food that humans can eat directly - grains, pulses, legumes, nuts, vegetables and fruits. As resources become ever more scarce, experts now agree that the human population must rely more upon a plant-based diet. Patrick Wall, chairman of the European Food Safety Authority, questions whether it is ‘morally or ethically correct’ to be feeding grain to animals while people starve. We can all take steps to ease the hunger of children and others around the world by reducing the amount of animal products we eat, starting with Meat-Free Monday, or better yet, going completely meat-free.

To sign up to the Meat-Free Monday newsletter, which includes news updates and recipes, and find out more about this campaign visit the Animal Aid website.

This weekend the New York Times reported on a frightening story of how a home-cooked hamburger resulted in seizures, coma and paralysis of dance instructor Stephanie Smith.

The article, Woman’s Shattered Life Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection, described the effects of eating an E.coli contaminated hamburger on 22-year old Stephanie Smith’s health, “Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed“.

Although Stephanie’s reaction to E.Coli, which is found in the intestines of cows, was extreme, the investigation following her case revealed that the meat industry is failing to keep meat safe. The hamburger that Stephanie ate was “made by the food giant Cargill, labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria“.

Perhaps the two most frightening sentences in the article were “An Agriculture Department survey of more than 2,000 plants taken after the Cargill outbreak showed that half of the grinders did not test their finished ground beef for E. coli; only 6 percent said they tested incoming ingredients at least four times a year” and “Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies.”

Eating meat is a gamble with your health; if you’re one of the unlucky ones, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Read the full detailed article here; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?_r=1

Today the Guardian published a useful guide on how to cut your carbon emissions by 10%; which is about 1.5 tonnes for the average person. It’s a long list of 51 different carbon cutting measures and right at the top of the list, beaten only by ‘never fly’, ’sell the second car’, and ‘cut your annual car mileage in half’ is ‘go vegan three days a week‘, which will result in a cut of 0.5 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. ‘Change to an almost entirely vegetarian diet, using mostly unprocessed wholefoods such as grains, seeds and nuts’ will also result in the same saving.

Going vegan for just 3 days a week will save five times more carbon emissions than regularly washing over the sink instead of taking showers or getting rid of your freezer, and over twice as much as installing a solar hot water system or buying a wood burning stove.

Asking people to change their eating habits is always a tough ask, by when you look at the huge impact reducing your meat and dairy consumption can achieve, how can anyone who cares about the future of our planet not at least give it a try?

To see the full list, in order of greatest CO2 saving first, go to;

How to cut your carbon footprint