What’s Feeding Our Food?

Currently much of the meat that finds its way onto a British plate is fed on high protein animal feeds grown on the other side of the world. This feed is often made from genetically modified soy, grown on recently deforested land. A new Friends of the Earth report, ‘What’s Feeding Our Food’ has highlighted the scale of the destructive dependence that our diets have, particularly in Latin America.

Soy farming has been shown to be a ruthless industry, spoiling valuable habitats and livelihoods. This land use change takes land from indigenous smallholders, pushing marginalised groups and their farms further into the rainforest. As the industry explodes with profitability, more funds are available for the producers’ logging enterpises that clear the way for more soy production.

This is a particularly extreme example of a malaise which is actually affects the whole planet. The greenhouse gases released from livestock production contribute 18% of global emissions, mostly due to the land conversions, the reduction of our carbon sinks, and emissions produced from ruminant guts. That percentage is more than all the cars, planes and lorries on the planet. Localisation of feed production would prevent sensitive rainforests damage, but the quantity of land required to feed our livestock is greater than Europe has the space for, and even if we could meet our own demand, this would have its own carbon burden.

It is essential that the sustainability of meat and dairy consumption in the UK is carefully calculated. How much can we eat, where does it come from and how is it fed? The inefficiency of feeding high protein feed to cattle and not to people directly must be challenged. In Britain some land is not suitable for crops, and so is currently grazed, but this qrazing pasture is often improved with applications of nitrogen fertlisers, contributing to GHG emissions through the production of nitrous oxides. This land could be better utilised by growing biomass, a fuel which we are in great need of. By-products such as those from the brewing industry, currently used as animal feeds, could more usefully act as feedstocks for anaerobic digestion producing fuel gas.

Inevitably in order to reduce food related GHG emissions there must be a substantial reduction in the number of livestock being reared. This is a particularly difficult objective in a world where the populations driving India’s and China’s growing economies are meat and dairy hungry. It is crucial that meat and dairy production moves to the top of the climate agenda to prevent these emissions increasing. Ultimately we have a great deal of influence over the effects of livestock production on the environment by simply selecting more carefully what we put in our mouths.

Read Friends of the Earth Report: What’s Feeding Our Food to find out more http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/livestock_impacts.pdf