An Earth Day Reflection On The Breathtaking Effects Of Cutting Back On Meat (organic, greenhouse gases)
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"Excrement produced by chickens, pigs, and other farm animals: 16.6 billion tons per year - more than a million pounds per second (that's 60 times as much as is produced by the world's human population - farmed animals produce more waste in one day than the U.S. human population produces in 3½ years)."
"Water used for farmed animals and irrigating feed crops: 240 trillion gallons per year- 7.5 million gallons per second (that's enough for every human to take 8 showers a day, or as much as is used by Europe, Africa, and South America combined)."
"Emissions of greenhouse gases from raising animals for food: The equivalent of 7.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the UN report. Concludes the UN: "The livestock sector is... responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions." That's about 40 percent more than all the cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships in the world combined (transport is 13%)."
"It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie of animal protein as it does to make one calorie of plant protein."
Well looking at some data about Nitrogen in the Chesapeake:
Quote:
Chemical Fertilizer:
Approximately 73 million pounds* or 26% of the total nitrogen load to the Bay is due to excess fertilizer from agricultural and urban/suburban areas in the Bay watershed. (*based on long-term average hydrology simulations). Of this total, approximately
44 million pounds comes from agricultural lands and
29 million pounds comes from urban/suburban lands.
These detrimental loads to the Bay could be reduced by using best management practices (BMPs) that ensure only the amount needed for crop and lawn growth is applied to the land and BMPs that prevent any excess from seeping into groundwater or reaching local waterways that lead to the Bay. Manure:
Approximately 51 million pounds* or 18% of the total nitrogen load to the Bay is due to excess animal waste from agricultural areas in the Bay watershed (*based on long-term average hydrology simulations).
These detrimental loads to the Bay could be reduced by using best management practices (BMPs) that ensure only the amount needed for crop growth is applied to the land and BMPs that prevent any excess from seeping into groundwater or reaching local waterways that lead to the Bay.
3/4 of US crops go to feed livestock, not people. In fact, it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat (not to mention 2,000 gallons of water and a couple hundred gallons of gas). By comparison, a pound of corn is grown using 100-250 gallons of water
Solution? Take a hard look at the facts and ask yourself if you really want to make some choices which benefit the environment. If you still decide not to, you'll at least understand the impact of your lifestyle.
Source? Lets take corn for example which is our largest agricultural product and the single biggest source of feed for cattle? According to here 34% goes to ethanol production and that's before adding in what is used consumed by humans.
Percentage Of Corn Crop Used For Ethanol - Cattle Network (http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?contentid=230813 - broken link)
So even before we add to the 34% what people are eating which itself is going to be a significant amount as corn is found in nearly every single thing you buy you're 3/4 of feed going to livestock is already looking shaky.
Source? Lets take corn for example which is our largest agricultural product and the single biggest source of feed for cattle? According to here 34% goes to ethanol production and that's before adding in what is used consumed by humans.
Percentage Of Corn Crop Used For Ethanol - Cattle Network (http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?contentid=230813 - broken link)
So even before we add to the 34% what people are eating which itself is going to be a significant amount as corn is found in nearly every single thing you buy you're 3/4 of feed going to livestock is already looking shaky.
Source?
Heitschmidt, R.K. et al, "Ecosystems, Sustainability, and Animal Agriculture", Journal of Animal Science 74 (1996), 1395-1405
in 1996, 77% of corn production alone was being fed to livestock with only 2% being consumed by people. Given that the ethanol boom came about in recent years, corn dedicated to feed crops has probably changed somewhat to perhaps closer to 70%. Soybean and wheat production dedicated to feed drops is still in the neighborhood of 70-75%.
Here are a few more data points from the same source:
US farmland producing vegetables: 4 million acres
US farmland producing hay for livestock: 56 million acres.
So, your contention that vegatable production is responsible for the pollution of the Chesapeake doesn't hold much water, especially if you read this portion from the report you cited earlier; "due to excess animal waste from agricultural areas in the Bay watershed..."
So, your contention that vegatable production is responsible for the pollution of the Chesapeake doesn't hold much water,
That was meant to be a tongue in cheek remark, the point is manure being used to fertilize farmland to be used for livestock feed is only part of the problem where the Chesapeake is concerned.
For example we have roughly 34 million acres of corn planted just to supply ethanol in 2007 if you go by the 34% figure:
WASHINGTON, Jun. 29, 2007 – U.S. farmers planted 92.9 million acres of corn in 2007, exceeding last year's planted area by 19 percent and surpassing the March projection by 3 percent
I love picking on ethanol, its too easy. Everywhere you turn there is downside.
So even before we add to the 34% what people are eating which itself is going to be a significant amount as corn is found in nearly every single thing you buy you're 3/4 of feed going to livestock is already looking shaky.
Note that the feed material and ethanol derived from corn overlap depending on the process used. So even if a portion of it is used for ethanol, that same crop could also be used as feed.
RFA - Resource Center - How Ethanol Is Made (http://www.ethanolrfa.org/resource/made/ - broken link)
In the 2002 USDA survey (table 6), they classified 155.2 million acres were used for feed crop while 130.8 for food crop. I don't know exactly how they broke this down, since much of the soybean mass is for feed (i.e. the overlap of feed and other uses), but there must also be some food corn crop. However, that's a considerable amount of resources for feed crop. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB14/eib14d.pdf
"After rebounding from the current recession, increased global demand for meat is expected to boost world consumption of feed grains. ... Most of the growth in trade is in corn. However, the U.S. share of world feed grain trade declines slightly over the next decade as increasing domestic corn use for ethanol limits growth in U.S. corn exports."
If the world consumption increases, the changes in US consumption are not going to be so significant.
I have to question the numbers myself because the report cited does not factor in a lot of important information that takes up the whole picture. One must keep in mind that an animal excretes 85% of what they eat back out as manure, and that is organic matter and good for the environment. In fact grazing livestock is a very efficient system. They eat in one spot, and depoisit 85% of what they eat back out. It is the ultimate cycling of nutrients for the soil.
Livestock producers today (such as myself) have to abide with CNMP's that started because farmers wanted to ensure that we were no polluting the environment. In my county they did studies and tried to conclude that farmers were contributing 50% pollution to the lakes, but the local soil and water conservation district felt the data was flawed. It took 2 years to get a proper study, but in the end, the pollution was only 12%.
The real culprit is actually from suburbanites that have far more acreage in lawns then there is in farm land. More fertilizer is spread on lawns then on farmland as well and typically twice as much fertilizer is spread on a lawn then what it can handle. Thanks to CNMP's farmers have a very scientific approach to how much nutrients their farms can handle andwe do not over-fertilize. Why would we...it takes away from the bottom line to do so. At the same time, improper septic systems from homeowners ended up causing the majority of pollution in our lakes.
As for the corn issue cited, very little sweet corn is planted in this country, and from that many people see that the rest goes to animal feed. That is not quite right though. The corn is processed into many food related products with Corn Syrup being used in everything. That comes from "cow corn" sine it has a much bigger kernal but has very little flavor directly of the cob.
The truth is, livestock is a VERY effecient use of land and plant material, in particular because they can convert unarable land into very precious meat. Until we as humans can be genetitically modified to convert cellulose plant material into something we can digest, we are far better off letting our ruminant friends do so and eat them. The fact that they taste good is just a plus!!
If we truly want to protect the environment we as a society need to start helping the farmer instead of blaming them on twisted facts.
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