Inefficient agriculture
Agricultural practices in the US and elsewhere are often inefficient and hazardous to the environment.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007940.html
Farmed animals in the USA are eating 70 percent of its grain production. It's estimated that the grain fed to food animals in the USA could instead feed 800 million humans.
...
But beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1, and Avaaz isn't making noise about that. The fact is, animals destined to be eaten are eating food that humans could be eating.
Agriculture is central to the food vs. fuel debate. The controversial leaked 13th chapter of the New Zealand Environment Report slammed the government for its failure to take action regulating the agricultural sector. David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found more than a decade ago that the USA produced enough animal protein through pasture-raised stock alone to meet the population's recommended daily allowance of meat and dairy protein. From an energy perspective, grazing animals on marginal land can be viewed as a reasonable use of resources.
And there was this in the Fresno Bee April 15:
http://www.fresnobee.com/lifestyle/food_recipes/story/529567.html
The Nitschkes' cattle eat grass throughout their lifetimes instead of being fattened on grain that's hard for them to digest. Grass-fed beef has less fat than typical beef from cattle fattened with grain. Plus, it contains more omega-3s, the fatty acids that help protect the body from illnesses such as heart disease.
...
"As we get more and more of these beef recalls or any kind of food recalls, you're getting more people who are concerned," says Clovis native Seth Nitschke, co-owner of Open Space Meats. "They just want to know where their beef comes from." The Newman-based producer of grass-fed meat raises cattle on about 650 acres in Catheys Valley, Turlock and Minden, Nev.
and on the second page of that article
"When the price of corn goes up," McDougald says, "these guys are going to want to hold these cows on green grass as long as they can."
Since grass-fed beef producers such as Nitschke don't have the option of feeding their cattle with grain, maintaining healthy grass is especially important.
"If you abuse your natural resources by overgrazing, eventually it will catch up to you," says an Open Space brochure.
"So grazing our lands responsibly is a win-win situation. Not only do the cattle get to graze the most nutritious plants for them, it actually helps the grasses reproduce more effectively and keeps the rangeland healthy and the water clean."
They're strong words from someone who isn't part of the environmental movement.
"I'm not an environmentalist," Seth Nitschke says. "But I damn sure am a conservationist."
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html
Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein, according to the Cornell ecologist's analysis.
Tracking food animal production from the feed trough to the dinner table, Pimentel found broiler chickens to be the most efficient use of fossil energy, and beef, the least. Chicken meat production consumes energy in a 4:1 ratio to protein output; beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1. (Lamb meat production is nearly as inefficient at 50:1, according to the ecologist's analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. Other ratios range from 13:1 for turkey meat and 14:1 for milk protein to 17:1 for pork and 26:1 for eggs.)
Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in the United States, Pimentel noted. Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters. "Water shortages already are severe in the Western and Southern United States and the situation is quickly becoming worse because of a rapidly growing U.S. population that requires more water for all of its needs, especially agriculture," Pimentel observed.
Livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for much of the soil erosion in the United States, the ecologist determined. On lands where feed grain is produced, soil loss averages 13 tons per hectare per year. Pasture lands are eroding at a slower pace, at an average of 6 tons per hectare per year. But erosion may exceed 100 tons on severely overgrazed pastures, and 54 percent of U.S. pasture land is being overgrazed.
And, no, there's not a lot to do about it. Reduce consumption, perhaps.
I think perhaps the entire agriculture industry needs to be rethought and rebooted.
We know that feedlots are not a healthy way to raise cattle. So why do we allow them?
We know that chicken factories are not a healthy way to raise chickens. So why do we allow them?
It's not just a matter of cruelty, although that's certainly a factor. It's becoming, more and more, a matter of energy efficiency. I can replace my incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs and save on energy. There are other ways I can save on energy, and I'm moving that direction. The agricultural practice of concentrating animal production in huge pestholes and demanding that neighbors tolerate the resulting stench is not energy-efficient; does not produce good beef; tends to be cruel; harbors disease; focuses manure in one spot so the soil can't handle the pathogens, which then migrate into groundwater; and encourages stupidity (witness a number of recent beef recalls, including the one about cattle that had to be fork-lifted into the slaughtering line because they were so sick).
And it's not just beef, either; chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, goats... all are affected.
The one thing big business listens to is money.
So buy wisely, and be sure they know why.
Sometimes we can't avoid buying feedlot cattle. For example, it's not easy to find grass-fed beef in 5-pound lots that's inexpensive. The energy expenditures of feedlots are offset by the cheapness of other costs - but can we really afford to ingest diseased beef because the feedlot managers are afraid for their jobs? Can we afford to drink the waste products sluiced off of the diseased cows? Can we really afford E Coli in our wells? Can we afford to feed corn to our cattle, when grass produces leaner beef? Not all the costs of feedlots are transmitted to the consumer in a dollar figure.
Some links to alternatives (I make no endorsements; read for yourself):
http://www.eatwild.com/
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.html
http://www.slowfood.com/
http://www.slowfoodmadera.org/events.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007940.html
Farmed animals in the USA are eating 70 percent of its grain production. It's estimated that the grain fed to food animals in the USA could instead feed 800 million humans.
...
But beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1, and Avaaz isn't making noise about that. The fact is, animals destined to be eaten are eating food that humans could be eating.
Agriculture is central to the food vs. fuel debate. The controversial leaked 13th chapter of the New Zealand Environment Report slammed the government for its failure to take action regulating the agricultural sector. David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found more than a decade ago that the USA produced enough animal protein through pasture-raised stock alone to meet the population's recommended daily allowance of meat and dairy protein. From an energy perspective, grazing animals on marginal land can be viewed as a reasonable use of resources.
And there was this in the Fresno Bee April 15:
http://www.fresnobee.com/lifestyle/food_recipes/story/529567.html
The Nitschkes' cattle eat grass throughout their lifetimes instead of being fattened on grain that's hard for them to digest. Grass-fed beef has less fat than typical beef from cattle fattened with grain. Plus, it contains more omega-3s, the fatty acids that help protect the body from illnesses such as heart disease.
...
"As we get more and more of these beef recalls or any kind of food recalls, you're getting more people who are concerned," says Clovis native Seth Nitschke, co-owner of Open Space Meats. "They just want to know where their beef comes from." The Newman-based producer of grass-fed meat raises cattle on about 650 acres in Catheys Valley, Turlock and Minden, Nev.
and on the second page of that article
"When the price of corn goes up," McDougald says, "these guys are going to want to hold these cows on green grass as long as they can."
Since grass-fed beef producers such as Nitschke don't have the option of feeding their cattle with grain, maintaining healthy grass is especially important.
"If you abuse your natural resources by overgrazing, eventually it will catch up to you," says an Open Space brochure.
"So grazing our lands responsibly is a win-win situation. Not only do the cattle get to graze the most nutritious plants for them, it actually helps the grasses reproduce more effectively and keeps the rangeland healthy and the water clean."
They're strong words from someone who isn't part of the environmental movement.
"I'm not an environmentalist," Seth Nitschke says. "But I damn sure am a conservationist."
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html
Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein, according to the Cornell ecologist's analysis.
Tracking food animal production from the feed trough to the dinner table, Pimentel found broiler chickens to be the most efficient use of fossil energy, and beef, the least. Chicken meat production consumes energy in a 4:1 ratio to protein output; beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1. (Lamb meat production is nearly as inefficient at 50:1, according to the ecologist's analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. Other ratios range from 13:1 for turkey meat and 14:1 for milk protein to 17:1 for pork and 26:1 for eggs.)
Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in the United States, Pimentel noted. Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters. "Water shortages already are severe in the Western and Southern United States and the situation is quickly becoming worse because of a rapidly growing U.S. population that requires more water for all of its needs, especially agriculture," Pimentel observed.
Livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for much of the soil erosion in the United States, the ecologist determined. On lands where feed grain is produced, soil loss averages 13 tons per hectare per year. Pasture lands are eroding at a slower pace, at an average of 6 tons per hectare per year. But erosion may exceed 100 tons on severely overgrazed pastures, and 54 percent of U.S. pasture land is being overgrazed.
And, no, there's not a lot to do about it. Reduce consumption, perhaps.
I think perhaps the entire agriculture industry needs to be rethought and rebooted.
We know that feedlots are not a healthy way to raise cattle. So why do we allow them?
We know that chicken factories are not a healthy way to raise chickens. So why do we allow them?
It's not just a matter of cruelty, although that's certainly a factor. It's becoming, more and more, a matter of energy efficiency. I can replace my incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs and save on energy. There are other ways I can save on energy, and I'm moving that direction. The agricultural practice of concentrating animal production in huge pestholes and demanding that neighbors tolerate the resulting stench is not energy-efficient; does not produce good beef; tends to be cruel; harbors disease; focuses manure in one spot so the soil can't handle the pathogens, which then migrate into groundwater; and encourages stupidity (witness a number of recent beef recalls, including the one about cattle that had to be fork-lifted into the slaughtering line because they were so sick).
And it's not just beef, either; chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, goats... all are affected.
The one thing big business listens to is money.
So buy wisely, and be sure they know why.
Sometimes we can't avoid buying feedlot cattle. For example, it's not easy to find grass-fed beef in 5-pound lots that's inexpensive. The energy expenditures of feedlots are offset by the cheapness of other costs - but can we really afford to ingest diseased beef because the feedlot managers are afraid for their jobs? Can we afford to drink the waste products sluiced off of the diseased cows? Can we really afford E Coli in our wells? Can we afford to feed corn to our cattle, when grass produces leaner beef? Not all the costs of feedlots are transmitted to the consumer in a dollar figure.
Some links to alternatives (I make no endorsements; read for yourself):
http://www.eatwild.com/
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.html
http://www.slowfood.com/
http://www.slowfoodmadera.org/events.html