30/11/06
Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or
driving cars?
Surprise!
According to a new report published by the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates
more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18
percent – than transport. It is also a major source of
land and water degradation.
Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information
and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock
are one of the most significant contributors to today’s
most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required
to remedy the situation.”
With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and
dairy products every year. 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.
Long shadow
The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other
agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3
billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural
output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock
are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential
source of organic fertilizer for their crops.
But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according
to the FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow –Environmental
Issues and Options. “The environmental costs per unit of
livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the
level of damage worsening beyond its present level,” it
warns.
When emissions from land use and land use change are included,
the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from
human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of
even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of
human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming
Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced
methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced
by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia,
which contributes significantly to acid rain.
Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land
surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent
of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock,
the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures,
it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America
where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the
Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
Land and water
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with
about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing,
compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands
where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management
contribute to advancing desertification.
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to
the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing
among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the
degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal
wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers
and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing
disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below
ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn
for the production of feed.
Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous
and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing
to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.
Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all
terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock’s presence in vast
tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute
to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services
are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.
Remedies
The report, which was produced with the support of the multi-institutional
Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, proposes
explicitly to consider these environmental costs and suggests
a number of ways of remedying the situation, including:
Land degradation – controlling access and removing obstacles
to mobility on common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods
and silvopastoralism, together with controlled livestock exclusion
from sensitive areas; payment schemes for environmental services
in livestock-based land use to help reduce and reverse land degradation.
Atmosphere and climate – increasing the efficiency of
livestock production and feed crop agriculture. Improving animals’ diets
to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions,
and setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure.
Water – improving the efficiency of irrigation systems.
Introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to
discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.
These and related questions are the focus of discussions between
FAO and its partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock
production at global consultations in Bangkok this week. These
discussions also include the substantial public health risks
related to the rapid livestock sector growth as, increasingly,
animal diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector growth
can also lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets.
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