From IOP PUBLISHING and the “our way or the highway” department:
Global diet and farming methods ‘must change for environment’s sake’
Reducing meat consumption and using more efficient farming methods globally are essential to stave off irreversible damage to the environmental, a new study says.
The research, from the University of Minnesota, also found that future increases in agricultural sustainability are likely to be driven by dietary shifts and increases in efficiency, rather than changes between food production systems.
Researchers examined more than 740 production systems for more than 90 different types of food, to understand the links between diets, agricultural production practices and environmental degradation. Their results are published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Lead author Dr Michael Clark said: “If we want to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, but still provide a secure food supply for a growing global population, it is essential to understand how these things are linked.”
Using life cycle assessments – which detail the input, output and environmental impact of a food production system – the researchers analysed the comparative environmental impacts of different food production systems (e.g. conventional versus organic; grain-fed versus grass-fed beef; trawling versus non-trawling fisheries; and greenhouse-grown versus open-field produce), different agricultural input efficiencies (such as feed and fertilizer), and different foods.
The impacts they studied covered levels of land use, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), fossil fuel energy use, eutrophication (nutrient runoff) and acidification potential.
Dr Clark said: “Although high agricultural efficiency consistently correlated with lower environmental impacts, the detailed picture we found was extremely mixed. While organic systems used less energy, they had higher land use, did not offer benefits in GHGs, and tended to have higher eutrophication and acidification potential per unit of food produced. Grass-fed beef, meanwhile, tended to require more land and emit more GHGs than grain-fed beef.”
However, the authors note that these findings do not imply conventional practices are sustainable. Instead, they suggest that combining the benefits of different production systems, for example organic’s reduced reliance on chemicals with the high yields of conventional systems, would result in a more sustainable agricultural system.
Dr Clark said: “Interestingly, we also found that a shift away from ruminant meats like beef – which have impacts three to 10 times greater than other animal-based foods – towards nutritionally similar foods like pork, poultry or fish would have significant benefits, both for the environment and for human health.
“Larger dietary shifts, such as global adoption of low-meat or vegetarian diets, would offer even larger benefits to environmental sustainability and human health.”
Co-author Professor David Tilman said: “It’s essential we take action through policy and education to increase public adoption of low-impact and healthy foods, as well the adoption of low impact, high efficiency agricultural production systems.
“A lack of action would result in massive increases in agriculture’s environmental impacts including the clearing of 200 to 1000 million hectares of land for agricultural use, an approximately three-fold increase in fertilizer and pesticide applications, an 80 per cent increase in agricultural GHG emissions and a rapid rise in the prevalence of diet-related diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
Professor Tilman added: “The steps we have outlined, if adopted individually, offer large environmental benefits. Simultaneous adoption of these and other solutions, however, could prevent any increase in agriculture’s environmental impacts. We must make serious choices, before agricultural activities cause substantial, and potentially irreversible, environmental damage.”
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Something I’ve never understood about cows & greenhouse gases. Maybe I’m missing something, correct me if I’m wrong. Cows don’t produce more carbon than they take in. Every atom coming out into the atmosphere went in in their food. And the food, grass or grain fixed that carbon from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. So cows don’t produce carbon dioxide. They’re simply part of a cycle. All the cattle in the world don’t add a single atom of extra carbon to the atmosphere. Or is there nuclear fusion going on inside cows?
Not “inside” cows…., but,
they are highly organized and are smarter-than-we-think. Mm, hm.
NOTICE TO ALL DAIRY AND BEEF FARMERS: check all silos weekly. The Omaha Project is active again.
Do not underestimate your livestock!
Note to all non-U.S. readers: the legend that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern started the Great Chicago Fire of Oct. 8-10, 1871 is what is alluded to above.
Boy that brings back memories:
One dark night when we were all in bed
Old Lady Leary lit a lantern in the shed
And when the cow kicked it over she winked her eye and said
There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.
Fire! Fire! Fire!
[repeat repetitively at lower volume each time, but shout Fire! Fire! Fire!]
Here you go, lCISIL. Have fun singing. 🙂
“Hot Time in the Old Town, Tonight”
(youtube)
Summer camp campfire song. Amazing I still remember the lyrics.
Those of us who eat a ketogenic or LCHF diet know that grass-fed animals are FAR better for the environment than grains and much healthier for people to eat as well. After all, humans are not ruminants and aren’t designed to eat grains (hence all the methane produced when eaten). Animals eat grasses and other native vegetation and turn that into healthy fat and protein for humans to consume. In the process, they churn up the soil and fertilize it, making for a better environment for insects, birds, and wild animals. Win=win.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/actually-raising-beef-is-good-for-the-planet-1419030738
Animal protein is also far more nutritious, containing just about every essential nutrient (if organ meats are consumed), if grass-fed rather than grain or corn-fed.
Most of the malnutrition problems in the world would be solved if everyone adopted a grain and sugar-free diet. 3rd world countries dependent on grains as food have severe deficiencies of B vitamins, iron, and Vitamin A, to name a few, in addition to the growing obesity/diabetes/cancer/Alzheimer epidemic. Bring on the steak, bacon, eggs, and butter!
Bread is also nutritionally deficient, even for ducks, causing deformities:
https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/27/stop-feeding-ducks-bread/
In another way grains are bad for the environment as well as people, pesticide-coated canola seeds are contaminating wetlands, killing off the insects that birds depend on. Plus, canola and other vegetables oils are terrible for you. Just eat real fat – butter, lard, coconut oil, etc.
http://www.audubon.org/magazine/spring-2017/the-same-pesticides-linked-bee-declines-might
In the paper the other day:-
Apparently there is a new fad of wheat grass smoothies.
If you want to know what they taste like ask a lawnmower.
Scrape the bottom of the lawnmower, add to blender. Add water or juice, blend. Should be about right…..
Another way to improve nutrition: provide roads so farmers can get product to market as opposed to letting it sit around & rot. Talking to you India.
Probably easier than dictating what everybody should be eating.
I’ve read that no new railway lines have been built in India since 1948, when the British left. New roads have probably been built, but maybe mostly big glamor projects (?), not the small rural roads farmers need. (Just guessing.)
” We must make serious choices, before agricultural activities cause substantial, and potentially irreversible, environmental damage.”
It always bothers me when people talk about “irreversible” environmental damage, or lament over things that may “never recover” (like the Great Barrier Reef). How many mass extinctions has planet Earth suffered, five? We could call those global environmental catastrophes, but even they were not irreversible. Life recovered. People need to develop a more long term vision of life on this globe.
Ok, I’m making a choice:
I believe I’ll have another hamburger. There; the world is healing already.
Good choice, J. Chip. Think I’ll have a steak. 😀
Having just skimmed through the paper, 4 things stand out for me.
They keep talking about acidification, but don’t define what they mean by that.
When looking at greenhouse production they make no mention of the CO2 enriched atmosphere commonly found inside many greenhouses, typically 1200 – 1500 ppm.
They don’t count H2O as a greenhouse gas. Does extra evapouration in areas using irrigation not count?
They have lots of caveats about how they were unable to do this or that due to lack of data. I suppose at least we can give them credit for saying that regarding some things they just don’t know.
But maybe I have missed things because I didn’t read it slowly.
Excerpt from Conclusions:
“In addition, over 30% of food production is wasted; reducing food waste would offer environmental benefits without requiring shifts in production practices or diets (Foley et al 2011).”
Worth a read:
Thanks to EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, American farmers are a newly endangered species
By Jody Gallaway – senior regulatory biologist from Chico, California.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/06/02/thanks-to-epa-and-army-corps-engineers-american-farmers-are-newly-endangered-species.html
“Reducing meat consumption and using more efficient farming methods globally are essential to stave off irreversible damage to the environmental, a new study says’
India suffers from a shortage of animals and manure which is desperately needed on the land.
Really, total livestock population is ~500 million over half of which are cattle.
“Farm Yard Manure (FYM) which is the most commonly used organic
manure in India is in short supply. Under the recently launched Paramparagat
Krishi Vikas Yogana (PKVY) scheme, the Government is planning to bring
5 lakh acres of land under organic farming over the next three years. The
achievement of this target may be in jeopardy due to non-availability of farm
yard manure. Measures suggested to overcome this shortage are rearing more
cattle, enhancing the production of organic manure through incentives,
increasing the land under fodder crops and permanent pastures, encouraging
the maintenance of cattle through subsidies and incentives and kraaling of
cattle on the fields”
http://www.journalijar.com/uploads/210_IJAR-10078.pdf
Richard — Traditional agriculture in India is farming system based wherein animal husbandry was a part and thus provided economic, nutrient security. Here farmers used fodder as animal feed. Here crops and cropping patterns included cereals and pulses and thus provided good-nutricious fodder for animal.
Green revolution technology destroyed this system as this is mono crop chemical input technology that mainly worked under irrigation. The mono crop-hybrid fodder is of poor quality feed for animal. Thus gradually it effected the farmers and encouraged migration to urban areas for greener pastures. Farmers neglected intercropping patterns even under rainfed condition with high risk practiced high input cash crops.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Much of that could be corrected if they stopped revering the cow and started searing it instead
EnvironMENTAL solutions.
How many forms can they take?
https://youtu.be/7j5Be5a86uA
98%of New Zealand,s beef production is grass fed and the vast majority graze on land to steep to cultivate . Maybe we should terrace our hills to grow rice .The idiots in charge here are trying to restrict vegetable growing in the Waikato Basin in the future because nitrogen and sediment losses can affect water quality . What they have not taken into account is that Auckland,s population is projected to rise by another million people in the next 50 years .Are our vegetables going to be imported from China ? As for our government they signed up to Kyoto because our green gas emissions were supposed to be very low with most of our electric power generated from hydro and geothermal .But then the green blob said our farmed livestock are emitting methane which is 25 times worse than co2. .Methane is a non problem as it breaks down rapidly in the upper atmosphere back into water and co2 which are both essential to growing grass .Sugar is the real problem
Sugar is really easy…just remove the Carbon and you have Water
Yes Gwan – and a baseline has not (and will never be – no $) established on what the net increase in methane is in relation to ruminants in NZ. Much of the NZ lowlands (e,g, Waikato Basin, Southland) was saturated swamp and peat before drainage. Natural anaerobic decomposition produces methane – including from within our native forest.
“We didn’t find a problem, so we invented one to make our research sound like there was some point to it”
I am reminded of sitting in a university lecture in Environmental Science and looking out at a rather stagnant pond in the middle of campus, inhabited with ducks. It was filthy. On a farm one would simply go out and blow a few away until they got the idea to bugger off. Ducks are clever. Just a few days before annual duck shooting season thousands flock into a large lake centered in my local city, Hamilton, They putrefying that lake too – protected by the double standards of urban idealists. Once upon a time Maori would have swum in it and used it as drinking water.
Within the lecture notes of the above course the term “”Cowboy Ethics” was used to describe forest clearing in New Zealand over a century ago. This was in the 1990’s when PC was really starting to kick in. I had great pleasure in knocking on the lecturers door to point out that it was discriminatory. Boy – what a fluster! She changed that page by leaving the term in and writing sic as a subscript. Justification was given at the next lecture.
I personally could not give a damn what they called it but the PC was starting to make me puke.
The animal husbandry thing gets we going too. How many cats in cities are locked in apartments their entire lives, how many birds in cages and fish in tanks?
M
They cleaned up the pollution in a lake in Ireland and the ducks left.
Tománková, I., C. Harrod, A. D. Fox and N. Reid. 2013. Chlorophyll-a concentrations and macroinvertebrate declines coincide with the collapse of overwintering diving duck populations in a large eutrophic lake. Freshwater Biology. doi.10.1111/fwb.12261.
We can’t win. Corn fed cattle were the way to go in the past, now it’s grass fed. Now that it’s grass feed, we can’t eat the cows because we’re harming to environment. We could to back to buffalo, but they are notorious for doing whatever they want and tend to unnerve people. No matter what we eat, someone is going to tell us we can’t eat it.
They only want us to swallow their swill.
It seems that we’ve been screwing things up royally since harvesting our first apple. Pick it and POOOF! there goes the Garden.
First paragraph:
“Reducing meat consumption and using more efficient farming methods globally are essential to stave off irreversible damage to the environmental, a new study says.”
——————–
“Environmental” …really.
Was that like a transcription error or what ??
“If we want to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture”
Who’s this “we,” jackass?
You want to starve, knock yo’self out. Please. No reason normal people would want to do that, too.
+1
The solution^2 is simple, we simply eat all the Vegetarians and Vegans 😉 Win/Win.
The Solyent Green solution? 😎
“Co-author Professor David Tilman said: “It’s essential we take action through policy and education to increase public adoption of low-impact and healthy foods, as well the adoption of low impact, high efficiency agricultural production systems”.
And there is your money line!!! …. we are from the government and we are here to help you!!
…At your expense. 😎
We are plagued by fads. One of the more dangerous fads is organic gardening. It is dangerous in part because it gives unsettled minds of susceptible people the idea that protest against experience can succeed. Protest turns to segregation that leads to riots and sometimes to warfare.
If organic farming was made compulsory, millions would die from starvation.
It is a junk concept that strangely makes some people believe it is noble.
P.S. Australia’s ABC broadcaster has for years proclaimed itself a deliberate advocate of organic farming. This is absolutely contrary to its charter, that requires balance. I have formally complained. The reply was legalese that addressed nothing of importance.
Geoff
Glaciers covered Chicago in 2 miles of ice and ripped away how much top soil as they retreated – we till a few inches of top soil so we can survive. Tell me again how destructive we are being?
Going vegetarian will cause a giant rise in gull stones if we don’t get fat in our diet. I’m sure doctors would like this.
Although conventional farming and ranching is the most efficient use of land and resources, concede the academics, Yet… “However, the authors note that these findings do not imply conventional practices are sustainable.”
This just shows that “sustainable” is an utterly empty term and meaningless standard.
Please, do not try to live without animal products. The B12, superior proteins, iodine, and zinc in beef will save you from having a lot of problems later. If you feel spaced out, try eating a 100% beef hamburger. You really don’t want to end up with mental impairments, nerve damage, and a psychiatric misdiagnosis after denying yourself the very nutrients that would prevent those problems.
Zeke, one should point out that organic farming is “conventional farming.”
Modern high-technology farming is unconventional farming, which is why we all use it these days. High technology farming much more efficient and productive than conventional (organic) farming.
High technology farming probably has less impact on the land, too, that conventional (organic) because it uses about 1/2 the land to produce the same amount of crop yield.
Pat Frank June 16, 2017 at 6:46 pm says, “Zeke, one should point out that organic farming is “conventional farming.””
I have learned, through many years of experience with the “rigor-free thinking” of organic activists, to use the term “conventional farming.” That is because their term, “organic farming,” is so daft and general that you cannot use its opposite. Of course, there is no such thing as non-organic or inorganic farming, so we say “conventional agriculture.”
Organic. ha ha.
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7397/full/nature11069.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120510
A good paper o the wasteful nature of Organic farming….probably some actual science contained therein…unusual for “Nature”…..
Read about the American Dust Bowl. It was due to the US govt during WW I encouraging wheat farming in the American Midwest to replace the loss of wheat from Russia. Grass lands were plowed up to plant wheat. The rest, as they say, is history.
In the 19th century, the Midwest plains were commonly referred to as the “Great American Desert”. The Dust Bowl reminded us why. Big, flat, treeless, arid, and WINDY.
The real problem is mankind’s out of control population..We need to be reducing human population, not enabling it to increase.
Do tell, Willhaas, which country’s population you want to reduce, and by how much.
Are you volunteering to be the first to be “reduced” ????
Will haas, did you know that population growth has been slowing all of its own Accord? It will level off at ~9billion near 2050. UN of course says 10-11b,ever alarmist. When I look at a ‘problem’ I start by trying envision the gross dimensions of the problem (the engineer in me): 90 billion people would fit in Lake Superior with about a square metre to tread water in. 7 billion could even swim around.
We are over 80% of the natural peak world population. When we get there, Malthusians will have finally been shut up. All the linear thinking and modelling will be in history’s scrap heap. We will overshoot the 9billion only if we don’t stop all the misanthropic ugliness and retardation of global prosperity. Ideologues and useful designer-brained idiots are the chief impediment to an exciting milestone in the race’s journey.
Jump, Willhaas, jump!
I would invite your attention to the book “What to Expect When Nobody is Expecting”. It is about the collapsing populations. The Population Bomb? Another hoax just like CAGW.
willhaas it is best to lead by example in all population reduction schemes.
“Larger dietary shifts, such as global adoption of low-meat or vegetarian diets, would offer even larger benefits to environmental sustainability and human health.”
He is advocating for bringing back the “poor diseases.”
It so happens that the Americans, with their free press, churches, and independent living utterly disproved the Social Darwinist theory that viewed the poor underclass people as racially inferior. They were just undernourished and illiterate. And so it is, every time a class of people who have been branded as inferior by the Racial Darwinists have obtained liberty, family, literacy and a good diet, the Darwinists have been utterly utterly debunked. This has happened over and over again.
In fact, our young black soldiers of WWI went over and freed the French from the Aryans on their obnoxious Neitzchean conquest of Europe. How does it feel for Darwinists to be so wrong about racial advantage over and over? I sometimes wonder.
I have a simpler plan.
Abolish biofuel. Problem solved.
The solution to the expressed problem is obvious.
Modern science is very good at genetically altering various organisms. So set science to work to downsizing the human body. But leave all animals we eat as they are. Humans only 2 feet tall will eat far less meat — less crowing too. :>)