From: abulsari@abo.fi (Abhay Bulsari VT)
Subject: Fat of the land (American) by Alan Durning from WorldWatch
Organization: Abo Akademi University
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 13:07:49 GMT


Thanks to Michael Traub for this article.


[The following article is reprinted from the July issue of World Watch
magazine.  It gives an overview of the environmental consequences of a
meat-centered diet.  For a detailed, referenced, account of the global
picture, see Worldwatch Institute Report #103 entitled "Taking Stock."
Long post: 350 lines]


Fat of the Land

by

Alan B. Durning
Senior Researcher
Worldwatch Institute
1776 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington, DC  20036

   When most Americans sit  down to  dinner, they're only a  bite away
from  unwittingly  worsening the environment.  The overlooked offender
is  tonight's  steak,  pork  chop,  or  chicken  breast.   The  unpaid
ecological price of that meat  is so hefty that Americans could end up
eating themselves out of planetary house and home.
   Putting half a pound of red meat and poultry on the table  each day
for every American  citizen rings up  quite a tab.  The  industry that
supplies the world's leading nation of meat-eaters is associated  with
environmental ills ranging from depleted and  contaminated underground
water to an atmosphere  pumped full of greenhouse gases.   Even modern
egg production participates in the ecological wrongdoing.
   There's nothing  anti-ecological  about  cows,  pigs, and  chickens
themselves.  Rather American-style  animal farms burden nature because
they have outgrown their  niche.  In the  U.S., livestock stand at the
center of agriculture,  absorbing much of  the country's crop  harvest
along  with  vast  quantities of  energy  and water.   Elsewhere, most
livestock are  raised as  they've always been: as a sideline to crops.
In some circumstances, they turn  plants  people  cannot eat into food
they can.
   Every  nation in the world that's  wealthy enough,  nonetheless, is
taking  notes  from  the United  States  and  is  starting  to  shower
resources on raising animals for meat; U.S.-style animal farms seem to
be the wave of the futrue.  If the American diet alone does not pose a
mortal  threat to the  natural  estate,  its adoption around the world
certainly  would.  the prospect  of 5  billion people  eating  the way
Americans do is an ecological impossibility, requiring more grain than
the world can grow and more energy, water, and land than the world can
supply.

%% The American diet %%

   Some  shifts in American dining are already  apparent.  Fresh fruit
and vegetable sales are  climbing.  Many restaurants  feature meatless
selections, and there's a  booming  trade  in  vegetarian and low-meat
cookbooks.  Also, airlines  report  growing numbers  of  requests  for
vegetarian meals.  But Americans  are not yet fat-shunning herbivores.
While beef  consumption  per person has declined slowly since 1976 and
per-capita egg consumption peaked decades ago,  poultry has more  than
taken up the slack.
   Americans  have been jumping from  one animal  product  to another,
eating  fewer burgers and more  chicken nuggets, fewer  eggs  and more
turkey.  Annual consumption of red meat and poultry together is at  an
all-time high of 178  pounds per person, up from  about 137 pounds  in
1955.  Last year, Americans each ate about 65 pounds of beef and veal,
63 pounds  of poultry, and 49 pounds of  pork, plus 139 eggs and dairy
products made from  70 gallons of milk.  For  a family  of four,  that
works out to half a steer, a whole pig, and a hundred chickens a year.
   Churning out those quantities of  animal  products  takes  all  the
ingenuity  agriculturalists can muster.  Consequently, modern meat and
egg production bears little resemblance to  the family farm idyll that
still  colors the imagination of most Americans.   In the U.S., animal
foods are produced  in concentrated agroindustries,  not cow  barns or
chicken coops.
   In fact, animal farms are as  much factories as farms.  Of all farm
animals in industrial countries, only cattle spend most of their lives
in daylight.  Broiler chickens live exclusively in gigantic,  darkened
sheds where thousands of  birds are  fed carefully measured rations of
grain.  Eggs  come from similar installations, where hens  are crowded
into stacked  cages, eating  from one  conveyor  belt and laying  onto
another.  Pork  comes  from  warehouse-size  sheds  built  over sewage
canals that sluice away manure.
   Beef cattle graze a year before ranchers truck them to vast outdoor
feedlots to be "finished" for slaughter.  Their last months  are spent
gorging on rich rations of corn, sorghum, and soybean meal that fatten
them for slaughter.  Dairy cows, unlike  other farm  animals, continue
to  live something  not  unlike the  old-fashioned  farm  life,  often
grazing  outdoors part  of each day.  However, they,  too, are sent to
slaughter  when  their  milk  production  falls  off, and  their  male
offspring -- useless in the milk  business, except for a  few breeding
bulls -- usually become veal calves or "baby beef."
   Regardless of animal type,  though, modern meat production involves
intensive use --  and often misuse -- of grain crops, water resources,
energy, and grazing areas.   In  addition, animal agriculture produces
surprisingly large amounts  of  air and  water pollution.  Taken as  a
whole, livestock rearing is  the  most ecologically damaging  part  of
American agriculture.

%% Staff of livestock life %%

   Animal farms  use  mountains  of grain.   Nearly  40 percent of the
world's total, and more than 70  percent of U.S. production, is fed to
livestock,  according to U.S. Department  of  Agriculture data.   Last
year, 162 million tons of grain, mostly corn but also sorghum, barley,
oats, and  wheat,  were consumed by  livestock.   Millions of tons  of
protein-rich  soybean meal rounded out the  diet.  No other country in
the world can afford to feed so much grain to animals.
   Were all of  that  grain consumed  directly  by  humans,  it  would
nourish  five  times  as many people as it does after being  converted
into meat, milk,  and eggs, according to  the  Iowa-based Council  for
Agricultural Science and Technology, a nonprofit research group.
   Such calculations  don't mean  that  if Americans  ate  less  meat,
hungry people would be fed.  Worldwide,  630 million people are hungry
today  -- because they're too poor to buy food, not because food is in
short  supply.   Even if  feed grains  were given  as food aid, hunger
might  persist  because  handouts  can flood  agricultural markets and
discourage Third World farmers from planting crops.
   The more immediate  problem  with  raising  animals on grain is the
wate  of resources.  The effectiveness with which animals turns grains
such  as corn  into  food products  varies  enormously.   Nearly seven
pounds of  corn and soy are needed  to  put  one  pound  of  boneless,
trimmed  pork  on the  table in the  U.S.  Cattle require less  -- 4.8
pounds of grain and soy per pound of meat -- because unlike pigs, they
eat grass most  of their lives.  American chickens eat  2.8 pounds  of
feed per pound of meat, and egg layers do better at 2.6 pounds.  Dairy
cows  are the  most efficient,  using  just  0.1  pounds of  grain and
soybean meal to  provide a pound (about a pint) of milk,  because most
of their nutrition comes from grass.

%% Counting kilocalories %%

   American  feed  takes so  much energy to grow  -- counting fuel for
farm machinery and for making fertilizers and  pesticides  --  that it
might as  well be a petroleum  byproduct.  Cornell University's  David
Pimentel,  a  specialist  in agricultural energy  use, estimated  that
14,000  kilocalories  are required to produce a pound of  pork  in the
U.S. -- equivalent to the energy in nearly  half a gallon of gasoline.
Pimentel's data show that energy use, like grain consumption, declines
from pork to beef, chicken, and eggs.  Dairy  farms are  exceptionally
frugal with energy, using scarcely the equivalent of one-fortieth of a
gallon of gasoline per pound of milk.
   Almost half of  the energy used  in  American agriculture goes into
livestock production,  the majority of it for meat.  Producing the red
meat  and  poultry  eaten each year by a typical American takes energy
equal  to   50  gallons  of  gasoline.   Supplying   vegetarians  with
nourishment requires one-third less energy on  the farm than supplying
meat-eaters.
   Of course energy used on the farm isn't the whole story in the food
system.  Processing,  packaging,  transporting,  selling, storing, and
cooking  foods  uses  almost  twice  as  much  energy   nationwide  as
agriculture does.  Yet, meat still leads the league in energy used per
pound  of  product served.   Pork involves  more than 15 times as much
energy as fresh fruits and  vegetables.  Milk, by  contrast,  uses  as
little energy as plant foods.

%% Watering the herd  %%

   Feed grain  guzzles water,  too.  In  California, now the  nation's
leading dairy producer, livestock agriculture  takes nearly a third --
the  largest share -- of irrigation  water, according  to  independent
water analyst Marc Reisner of San  Francisco.  Animal raising accounts
for similar shares across the  western U.S., including areas irrigated
with water  from  dwindling  underground aquifers.   The  beef feedlot
center  of the nation --  Colorado,  Kansas, Nebraska,  and  the Texas
panhandle --  relies  on  crops raised  with  water  pumped out  of  a
depleting undergound water source called the Ogallala aquifer.
   Jim  Oltjen, professor of  animal  science  at  the  University  of
California at Davis, estimates that half of  the  grain and hay fed to
American livestock  grows on  irrigated  land.  He calculates that  it
takes  about  430 gallons of water  to  produce  a  pound of pork, 390
gallons  for a  pound  of beef, and 375 gallons per pound  of chicken.
Thus the  water  used by to supply Americans with meat comes to  about
190 gallons per person per day, or twice what typical Americans use at
home for all purposes.

%% Land lords %%

   The  livestock industry uses half the territory of the  continental
U.S. for feed crops, pasture, and range.  On the half of U.S. cropland
growing  animal feed and hay,  soil continues eroding  at a  frightful
pace despite recent progress in conservation.  For each  pound of  red
meat, poultry,  eggs, and milk,  farm fields lose about five pounds of
prime dirt.
   The vast  majority  of land  devoted  to livestock  is not  fertile
cropland  or pasture but arid  public  range  in the  west  which  the
government leases  to ranchers for grazing.  Although the 270  million
acres so used -- an area larger than the 14 eastern seaboard states --
supply less than  5 percent of the beef  Americans  consume, damage to
the land is acute.
   The worst  harm was  done  in the great  cattle drives  of the last
century.  An Environmental Protection Agency sponsored study describes
the  shameful history: The land was grazed  so ruthlessly that "native
perennial  grasses  were  virtually  eliminated  from vast  areas  and
replaced  by sagebrush,  rabbitbrush,  mesquite,  and  juniper."   The
exposed  soil  "was  quickly  stripped  from  the  land  by  wind  and
water...Unchecked flood  flows eroded  unprotected streambanks...Water
tables lowered.  Perennial streams became intermittent  or dry  during
most of the year."
   Harold  Dregne, professor of soil science at Texas Tech University,
estimates that 10 percent of the arid west has been turned into desert
by  livestock.    The   U.S.  Bureau  of  Land  Management,  which  is
responsible along with  the U.S. Forest Service  for overseeing public
rangeland, reported last year  that nearly 70 percent of its expansive
holdings in the west were in unacceptable condition.
   With  open rangeland overgrazed,  cattle concentrate in the  narrow
streambank, or  "riparian,"  habitats  which  are  the  cornerstone of
arid-land ecology.  Trampling and  eating  vegetation  that  regulates
water flow, the herds leave  the land  unable  to  absorb cloudbursts.
Floods  then  rampage downstream, carrying away soil and  accelerating
the  process  of ecological  decline.   Edward Chaney,  author  of the
EPA-sponsored   assessment   of  rengeland,  says:   "I've  talked  to
specialists  across the west, and everyone agrees that riparian  zones
are in worse shape than ever."

%% South of the border %%

   The American appetite for meat has environmental  consequences that
extend beyond  our  national  frontiers.   The U.S.  imports  only 0.5
percent of its beef from Central America, but the effects of producing
that meat are startling.
   In Central America, beef exports to the U.S. have  played a part in
the tragedy  of forest destruction.  Costa Rica, for example, was once
almost completely cloaked in tropical forest, holding within its small
confines perhaps 5  percent  of all plant and animal species on earth.
By 1983, after two decades of explosive growth in the cattle industry,
just  17  percent  of the  original forest remained.   Throughout  the
period, Costa Rica was  exporting between one-third and  two-thirds of
its  beef,  mostly to  the  U.S.,  and it continues to export  smaller
quantities today.
   Producing a single Costa  Rican  hamburger involves the destruction
of 55 square feet of rain forest -- an  area about the size of a small
kitchen.  Such  a swath typically  contains one tree, 50  saplings and
seedlings  of  20  to 30  species,  thousands  of  insects  comprising
hundreds  of  species,  and  an  "almost  unimaginable  diversity  and
abundance  of   mosses,  fungi,  and   microorganisms,"  according  to
biologist  Christopher   Uhl  of  Pennsylvania  State  University  and
Geoffrey Parker of the New York Botanical Garden.
   Clearing that single patch of wet, lowland Costa Rican forest would
also  release as much as  165 pounds of the carbon it naturally stores
into the atmosphere in the form of the greenhouse  gas carbon dioxide,
according to Sandra Brown, professor of  forestry at the University of
Illinois.  That's as much carbon as the typical American car  releases
in a 20-day period.

%% Hog wash and hot air %%

   With such colossal quantities of food, water, and energy going into
the livestock industry,  other things are bound to come out.  The most
distinctive is animal  waste, which  after  it's  dried amounts to 158
million tons a year.  Most  of the waste comes from cattle in pastures
or  on the range, where waste  management simply means letting natural
decomposition  take   its  course.   But  about   one-fourth  is  from
stockyards, chicken  factories, and  other feeding facilities.  There,
disposing of the waste  is a  vexing task.  It must be moved,  stored,
and spread without allowing it into water supplies.
   Congress first instructed the  EPA to regulate animal wastes in the
Clean Water Act of  1972, but the effectiveness of  that regulation is
hotly contested.  The  agricultural  industry claims  almost no animal
wastes contaminate water, while  critics allege widespread  violations
and lax  enforcement.  The EPA has begun to  look into the matter, but
so  far has  little to show.  In the  one  place where the agency  has
solid  data,  the  Chesapeake  Bay  basin,  manure  from all livestock
contribute about one-tenth of nitrogen and phosphorus  water pollution
from all sources.  Nitrogen and phosphorus over-fertilize algae, which
grow rapidly and disturb the balance of aquatic ecosystems.
   Fertilizers and agricultural chemicals running off of feed-crop and
pasture fields also deserve an entry in animal products' environmental
ledger.  U.S.  corn fields alone consume about 40 percent  of nitrogen
fertilizer along with more  herbicides and insecticides than any other
crop.
   Lumping  together  animal  wastes  and feed fertilizers,  livestock
agriculture probably accounts  for 40 percent of the  nitrogen and  35
percent  of phosphorus  released  into  American  rivers,  lakes,  and
streams, according to  a computer  model devised by Resources for  the
Future, an environmental research center in Washington, D.C.
   The water  woes  of  animal  production run  deep too, extending to
underground water  tables.  As  it percolates through the soil, manure
or its chemical  constituents can  cause serious damage, especially in
the  form  of  health-threatening  nitrates.  The EPA has  found  that
roughly  one-fifth  of  the wells in  livestock  states  such as Iowa,
Kansas, and Nebraska have nitrate levels that exceed safety standards.
The EPA can't prove animal farming is the culprit yet,  but manure and
feed-crop fertilizers are leading suspects.
   As animal wastes and  feed-growing  chemicals  pollute  the  water,
animals  themselves pollute the air.  Cattle  and other ruminants such
as goats and  sheep  emit methane,  a  potent greenhouse gas,  as they
digest  grass and other fibrous  plants.  Each  head  of American beef
cattle belches out about  a  third of a pound of methane  per pound of
beef yielded.  Add the  carbon released  from  fuels  burned in animal
farming,  and every  pound  of  steak has the same  greenhouse-warming
effect as a 25-mile drive in a typical American car.

%% Living off the fat of the land %%

   The first line  of defense against animal agriculture's  ecological
side-effects is individual action: eating less meat,  or no meat.  The
health  benefits  alone are  compelling: the saturated fats  in animal
products  increase one's  risk  of heart  disease,  stroke,  and  even
certain types of cancer.
   In fact, results of a recent comprehensive study of diet and health
in China suggest that the  healthiest range for fat consumption is  10
to  15  percent  of  calories,  about  a third  of  current  U.S.  fat
consumption.
   But  personal  decisions to eat foods lower on the food chain won't
suffice without corresponding changes in governmental codes that allow
the livestock  industry  to  deplete  and  pollute  resources  without
bearing  the costs.   What's needed is  enough citizens demanding that
lawmakers take aim at the ecological side-effects of meat production.
   There is a  lot to do.   Overgrazing on public  land in the western
U.S.  for example, continues largely  because the BLM and  the  Forest
Service  subsidize and mismanage cattle grazing.  This fact is readily
apparent where fences divide public  from private land.  On the public
side, where the government charges just $1.90 per head  of cattle  per
month, ranchers  run  as many  cattle as they can, and the land  is in
various  stages  of  becoming desert.  On  the private  side,  grazing
charges are typically five times higher, and the land is in far better
condition, with denser and more diverse vegetation.
   Revenues  the  government  gets  from its bargain-basement  prices,
furthermore,  cover  scarcely  one-third  the  costs  of  its  present
inadequate management.   They  are  far  too  meager  to  support such
necessary efforts as vigilant monitoring of range  conditions, fencing
off degraded areas, and ensuring that ranchers keep their herds moving
to  lighten  the burden  on  the land.  The  House  recently  approved
increasing  grazing  fees to $8.70  per head per  month  by 1994,  but
despite the strong margin of passage, 232-192, the measure faces stiff
opposition in the Senate. [it did not pass]
   The federal government  also  takes the  blame for  some  waste  of
irrigation  water  through what  Congress estimates is a $2.2  billion
annual subsidy to western water projects.  Between $500 million and $1
billion of that amount goes to feed and fodder growers.   Fortunately,
long-term public water contracts are coming up for  review across  the
west  in  the  next  five years,  giving environmentalists a chance to
challenge the pork barrel politics that have prevailed so far.
   In the  rain forests of Central America,  the U.S. government could
exert its influence by pressing local leaders  to halt the cattle boom
in the forest.  Up and  down the isthmus,  governments  lavish credit,
tax-breaks, and extension services on cattle ranchers while neglecting
small farmers and the landless poor.
   From  there,  environmental  reformers  might  move on  to  tighten
regulation of  the  water and atmospheric  pollution  that  flows from
animal and  feed farms.   Next,  they  could  go after  animal  farms'
excessive reliance on fossil fuels.  If such efforts succeed, the full
ecological cost of meat and egg production will show up clearly in the
price  of  a pork chop or chicken  breast.  Then  people's pocketbooks
will guide them down the food chain.
   A diet  centered on plant foods may sound bizarre to Americans, but
for most of the Earth's citizens it's the norm.  Worldwide, only about
one  in four  people eats a meat-centered  diet.  But that is changing
rapidly as  incomes in other  nations rise.  For example, the Japanese
diet  of  rice and  fish  is succumbing to  the onslaught  of high-fat
fast-food.   Per-capita consumption of red meat in Japan  has  doubled
since 1975.  Koreans and Taiwanese are following suit.
   The logical extension of this trend --  a world where everyone eats
as much  meat  as  Americans -- is  a recipe for ecological  disaster.
Supporting just  the world's current  population of 5.3 billion people
on  an American-style diet  would require as much energy  as the world
now  uses for  all purposes,  along  with two-and-a-half times as much
grain as all the world's  farmers  produce.  How many planets would it
take to  feed the world's  projected  future population of  10 billion
people on the American ration of eight ounces of grain-fed meat a day?
   If the  global  food  system is not to destroy its ecological base,
the onus  will be  on  rich  nations  to  shift  from  consumption  of
resource-intensive foodstuffs toward modest fare.



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