Part 1: Land Use and Livestock: The big 'D'

Following up on my previous ‘brief overview’ post, today I will explore one of the many consequences of livestock farming on our environment by looking at a specific type of land use consequence : the big 'D'- Deforestation 

Land use, often defined as the ‘’arrangements, activities and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover type to produce change, or maintain it" (FAO, 2013), are in fact degrading the quality of our soils, waterways, natural resources and air.

Livestock, indeed, take up a lot of space. Globally, livestock occupy the largest share of all human land uses (Steinfield et al 2007) and use up to 30% of the world’s entire land area that counting  for pastures and land used to grow grain for feeds and forage (Monfreda et al 2008). We use about 8 times as much land for feeding animals than is used for feeding humans (cowspiracy.com).

But why does it take so much land to feed livestock? Let’s think of it from a simple perspective. Livestock eat, graze, sleep and to a certain extent reproduce. With an approximate number of 50 billion living livestock on the planet (reference world bank report) it seems only reasonable that more land should be attributed to feeding the animals (which seems absurd to me considering 11% of the world population were considered undernourished between 2012 and 2014 – FAO, 2014)

In this context, acres of forest are being cleared in the Amazon which leads us to discuss how intensive livestock farming is  rapidly 

The overwhelming majority of the forest area lost in the Brazilian Amazon eventually becomes pasture which acts as the primary driver of deforestation (Barona et al 2010). As such, Kaimowitz et al (2004) indicate that new cattle are concentrated in Brazil’ s Amazon states of Mato Grosso, Pará, and Rondônia, which also represent states with the greatest deforestation in 2002 (reference)
Although other factors also seem to importantly contribute to forest deforestation – for instance, logging which indirectly affects it through an easier access for farmers to move into forested areas, logging represents a much less damaging factor to deforestation than the direct growth of cattle ranching (Kaimowitz et al 2004). 

Yet deforestation, is not the ultimate consequence of animal agriculture on forests. 

As environmental blogger Loulou Salge suggests in her blog, it is essential to clearly distinguish these two terms from one another.

Deforestation represents a decrease in the area covered by forest, with no guarantee of continuity in maintaining the forest cover  where as Forest degradation referring to a general quality decrease in its condition, being related to one or a number of different forest ecosystem components (soil, fauna, vegetation...)

Getting to the Meat of the Matter: a brief overview of the issue

Whilst my last post served as a general introduction to the theme of my blog, this post will focus on the basis of the issue, in which I wish to underline the important consequences livestock farming has on our environment. So, what is it really all about..? What evidence do we have? What are the statistics saying?  And above all:

What’s really warming our planet?

Firstly, I believe a visual explanation of global warming contributors was the most effective way to introduce the basis of the problem. The figure below, created by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), displays the four human induced factors that contribute to Earth’s rising temperatures between 1880 and 2005. The black ‘observed’ line represents the measured global land and ocean temperature records. The greenhouse gases, Ozone, land use and aerosols are all model estimated that each human factor contributes to the overall temperatures. However, we notice a clear distinction between the greenhouse gas line and the other three coloured lines. Thus, it is argued that greenhouse gas is majorly responsible for causing observed temperatures to rise from the 1930s to 2005.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/

Now that it is clear to us that greenhouse gas is the number one factor responsible for global warming (epa.gov), its is only logical to find out what’s actually causing these greenhouse gas emissions from being increasingly present in our atmosphere.

Source: https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/figure-ts-2.html

Here, the energy supply sector represents the highest contribution to carbon dioxide according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC, 2007). The agricultural sector, which includes livestock farming, is accountable for a modest 13, 5 %, according to the above pie chart and for the year 2004.

But, in 2006, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) published an important report that first brought the link between animal agriculture and climate change to light. Dr. Henning Steinbeck and his fellow UN experts calculated that 18% of all annual global greenhouse gas emissions were accounted for by livestock farming (FAO, 2006).  A few years later two World Bank experts showed that livestock and their byproducts (all secondary products made in the manufacturing of a primary product) are actually responsible for 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (Goodland et al, 2009).

But why are all these statistics so significantly different to one another? How accurate are these figures and are they really portraying the truth?

A statistical debate

First and foremost, the two studies had calculated radically different numbers of livestock animals living in the world. The World Bank article suggested an approximate of 50 billion livestock animals whilst the FAO had only presented 21,7 billion livestock animals globally in their research. The case for the FAO’s ‘missing animals’ was later proven to be an error by scholar (Akers, 2010) and that in fact 34,3 billion livestock animals should have been added to the previously estimated number (more than half of the animals forgotten in the calculus!).

I believe, above all, that whatever the number may be, global meat consumption and therefore global demands for meat are exponentially rising. The 2013 FAO report predicted a 70% increase in meat demand by 2050 (FAO, 2013), which is worrying for world population growing at a rate of 1,13% per year (worldometers.info).

Going back to the IPCC’s 2007 pie chart above, I believe, it may somewhat be misleading. Although numbers are accurate, we must not forget that agriculture is indirectly linked to all other sectors in this chart. Agriculture is accounting for the forestry sector which cuts down trees in order to grow crops instead. In similar ways it is linked to waste/waste water sector, energy supplies and transportation for all the meat and dairy we consume from the various countries around the world. It is fundamental to keep a critical eye when analyzing data and statistics which is something I aim to do throughout the integrity of my blog posts.  

Understanding the environmental impact

So far, I have provided you with a set of explained statistics on the broader agricultural sector as well as the more focused livestock agricultural sector. In this manner, I hope to have enlightened you with some important numbers on how animal agriculture is a leading factor contributing to GHG emissions. Both directly and indirectly, livestock is a major player in global environmental issues (FAO, 2006). To briefly summarise, livestock has a substantial impact on all aspects of the environment:

-      -  Land use

-       - Global water bodies

-      -  Climatic changes (land and ocean temperature rising)

-       - Air (through air pollution)

-       - Biodiversity

This brief overview enabled me to present the basis of the issue and has given a good foretaste to my upcoming blog posts.

That's all for now!!