“Right now, huge swathes of rainforest are being cut down to feed the global appetite for beef and leather”, so say Greenpeace, following te release of their new report Amazon Cattle Footprint.

The report confirms what we have known for some time; that cattle ranching is the main cause of Amazon destruction. Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter with a market share of 30%. The Brazilian government has plans to increase their share to 60% in the next decade which can only result in further deforestation.

As the forest is destroyed huge amounts of carbon dioxide are released, which contributes to climate change (deforestation of tropical forests is responsible for approximately 20% of the global emissions
of greenhouse gases); many of the tens of thousands of species of plant, mammals, fish and birds come under severe threat of extinction and indigenous people lose their homes. In addition to this, cattle ranching itself results in further greenhouse gas emissions (methane from the cows) and subjects many workers to slavery (cattle ranching is responsible for the highest rates of slave labour in Brazil).

Whilst Greenpeace target industry and governments to take strong action to halt deforestation, we all, as individuals can take action too. The global meat industry exists because consumers create the demand. If you stop buying meat, there is no reason for the Brazilian government to clear any more forests to produce it.

Find out more about food choices that are sustainable, equitable and environmentally responsible.

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

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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