Plastic bags, SUVs and hamburgers: No right-thinking tree-hugger would endorse them, at least not in public. But here's the thing: While we can replace plastic bags with reusable ones, and we can electrify our SUVs, the world's consumers will almost surely demand more, not less, beef in the years ahead.
Which is why the World Wildlife Fund has begun a conversation about, of all things, sustainable beefThe WWF, led by Jason Clay, its iconoclastic senior vice president for "market transformation," last fall convened a Global Conference on Sustainable Beef, bringing together environmentalists, academics and industry giants including McDonald's, Walmart, Cargill and JBS, a Brazilian company that calls itself "the largest animal protein processing company in the world" and owns U.S. brands Swift and Pilgrim's Pride.
The goal? To improve sustainability within the beef industry.
The surprise? That one solution may be -- may be -- to encourage beef producers around the world to behave more like those in the U.S. and Europe, which rely on much-maligned Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to produce more beef while using less land, water and feed than producers elsewhere. The issue, Jason says, is whether it is better to have animals on pasture for four years (as in Brazil) and producing a lot of methane, or whether it's better to slaughter animals in two years or less, including some time in a CAFO to increase the weight to acceptable levels.
Needless to say, this is likely to be a controversial undertaking.
Still, one thing we can agree upon is this: There's lots of room for improvement in the beef biz.
In his presentation (available for download, here), Jason says beef production generates about 1.3 percent of the world's calories but uses 60 percent of all the land used to produce food. Beef production also consumes disproportionate amounts of water and energy, and is a leading cause of deforestation in Brazil.
It's hard to imagine a less efficient way to feed people. An oft-quoted but sometimes disputed 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that livestock raised for meat or milk production cause more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport industry -- between 14 and 22 percent of global emissions.
That U.N. report also said: "Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes." People tend to consume more meat as their income grows.
To feed a growing population on a finite planet, Jason says: "We need to freeze the footprint of food ... We need to use resources more efficiently and intensify production."
One word: externalities.
One word: externalities. CAFOs are obviously the most efficient way to produce beef, given the heavy subsidies for corn and soy that allow them to buy feed below the cost of production, the lack of accountability for the massive water and land contamination issues that arise from such an incredible concentration of waste, and the looming public health crisis from the overuse of antibiotics for livestock production, which will increasingly result in deaths and higher health care costs as our antibiotics become less effective.
Yes, within the regulatory frameworks that currently exist, CAFOs are by far the most efficient means to produce meat products. But when the subsidies that allow them to operate as they do are stripped away, and the external costs are accounted for, the picture looks very different.
Burning coal, oil, and natural gas are currently the most efficient means of extracting the energy needed to run our societies - but when external costs such as coastal cities, island nations, rainfall patterns, species loss, and arable land are factored in, that cost picture looks a bit different, too.
Brilliantly said! I'm getting
Brilliantly said! I'm getting a Master's degree in Environmental Management at Harvard and you couldn't have recapped all that I have learned on the subject better. Well done!
"allowing cattle to roam
"allowing cattle to roam freely requires a lot of land, a 100 percent grass diet produces lots of methane that cannot be captured in the pasture"
Grass fed doesn't mean roam freely, it means that grain is not imported to feed them. You mention some small interest in science so perhaps it matters that there is a science to grazing management, and that there is a science to the carbon cycle.
Managed grazing is highly controlled movement of animals in rhythm with the growth and maturity of forages so that the animals and the pastures are productive.
But in any event the animals produce no GHGs in addition to those that would be produced from the decomposition of pastures grasses and herbs even if they were never eaten by cattle. It's the natural carbon cycle. The difference is that when the biomass is decomposed inside cattle you get free protein and fats for human consumption. People can't digest grass. Win-Win.
I hope that at some point we progress beyond the uniformed efforts of various activists, advocates and sales staffs and do better analysis and prescription for agronomic systems.
That just sounds like the
That just sounds like the most ill-informed or misinformed approach I've ever heard. What has become of the WWF? Just look at http://www.sustainablelivestock.org/ and the list of sponsors. Does Jason Clay really think he'll get good, unbiased input from the reps of these industries?
Good on you Marc for at least including the link and blurb from Bittman's piece. It gets to the true heart of the matter.
I'll have to go back and see if I donated any money to the WWF and then seriously consider not doing it in the future.
And John, isn't that what the American Grassfed Association, and Animal Welfare Approved are all about?
The sad current state of
The sad current state of "green" beef is that you can purchase organic, grass-fed, humanely-treated beef that still comes from destructively overgrazed ranches with decimated plant, animal and aquatic biodiversity and disgusting non-point source water pollution problems (e.g., high levels of fecal coliform in streams from cows defecating in/next to them).
Sadly missing from efforts to improve the sustainability of the beef industry is that there is still no FSC-like certification for livestock operations and their products (i.e. certifying that a livestock product has come from well-managed rangelands - be they grasslands, deserts, savannas, forests or pastures.)
For example, there are no standards certifying that the beef comes from an operation that does not include overgrazing, cow-degraded stream and fish habitats, or destructive U.S. public lands grazing (reports consistently show that far too large an area of our public lands is in poor ecological condition due to overgrazing).
So there remains a huge business opportunity - not only for beef, but other cow (and sheep) products like leather, wool, etc - to establish an FSC-like certification program for rangelands and livestock operations.
Anyone interested in making it happen, feel free to drop me a line!
I've got years of experience in grassland ecology - fortunately, there are some ranchers who do a fantastic job, and it would be great if they could be recognized and rewarded by having their beef qualify for this type of certification.