How Is Beef Meat Having an Impact

Water

The excessive use of water for agricultural activities suggests a great probability for the depletion of natural resources. It should be noted that water is an essential resource for agricultural production through irrigation. 70% of the freshwater withdrawal globally is utilized in the agricultural sector. Moreover, the large volumes of water used in agricultural production demonstrates is value as a crucial resource in livestock and poultry farming.

Water is essential in the meat processing chain from the start to the finish. Based on the process perspective, the processing areas, the meat, and the machines in the meat industry require water. To this end, large volumes of water are contaminated with cleaning chemicals, waste products, and raw materials. including bones, legs, packaging materials, hair, skins, and chemicals. It is no doubt that washing of the livestock, cleaning of the machines, and the carcasses contribute to the environmental pollution. Consequently, waste products such as blood, manure, fat, undigested stomach contents, and other cleaning agents also require a large volume of water to discharge. ^[11] Apart from the environmental pollution, the large quantities of water needed for meat processing in Brazil's export-oriented livestock feed and meat production, which is around 8%, also subjects the population of Brazil to freshwater stress. ^[11]

Land

At bottom right and bottom center, deforestation and cultivation are evident by the regular, rectangular shapes that delineate plots. Fire is a common means of clearing land and this type of slash-and-burn agriculture is having a devastating impact on plant and animal communities as well as people who are native to the forests. MODIS has detected numerous fires (red dots) and thick smoke is visible at bottom left. Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It is important to consider land when talking about the environmental impacts of meat consumption. The report published by the Agricultural Organization under the United Nations in 2011 revealed that livestock production accounts for over 30% of the global land being utilized for the meat and livestock-related production. Moreover, the report further revealed that around 70% of all the land under the agricultural activities and livestock production is responsible for freshwater pollution, climate change, and destruction of biodiversity. ^[12] This toll the livestock rearing has on the environment is evident in the case of Brazil. This country is naturally forested, courtesy of owning 60% of the Amazon rainforest. However, Brazil is one of the major producers of the commercial beef cattle in the world, and cattle rearing requires large amounts of land for grazing.^[13] It is natural, then, that livestock farmers have their eyes on the Amazon rainforest for pasture and space. It is estimated that if the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is not contained, the rainforest will be reduced to 40% by the year 2025. ^[13] Having said this, the livestock production in Brazil has created a lot of environmental problems in the nation and other South American countries. Four-fifths of the forest has been deforested across the Amazon rainforest to create room for the livestock farming.^[13]

There are serious environmental impacts and destruction of biodiversity due to the agriculture-related deforestation. ^[13] The deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to create land for the large-scale livestock rearing for meat destroys the water catchment area, leading to the water shortages and global warming. ^[13]

Rainforest and Wildlife

In the case of Bolivia and the Amazon rainforest, the environmental researchers have established that livestock agriculture in the Amazon is not sustainable and will lead to the irreversible changes in the tropical forests.^[13] More specifically, the deforestation of the rainforest has increased the temperature of the region by over 4 0c, resulting in adverse impacts on the human and the wildlife inhabiting the forest. Moreover, the lands cleared for livestock farming releases huge quantities of greenhouse gasses. Greenhouse gasses are emitted in all the stages of the livestock rearing and meat processing from the animals in the farm, to the slaughterhouses, to the meat processing plants. In the farms, there are heavy environmental burdens through the emission of the nitrous oxides, methane, and carbon dioxide emanating from the manure. Nitrous oxide contributes to global warming and ammonia leads to acidification.^[13] Also, emissions from the meat production processes contribute the 2,836.8 million tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Moreover, livestock rearing and meat processing are responsible for around 30% of the greenhouse emissions in the world. More so, this happens due to the tropical deforestation and the methane gas emissions. Specifically, livestock feed and meat production emits 45% of the greenhouse, digestion by cows contributes to 39% greenhouse emission, and manure decomposition is responsible for 10% greenhouse emission.^[14]

The Present and Future of Humanity

The land and water demands in agricultural activities is on the rise due to increasing population. Given this, the need to expand land for agricultural activities including livestock farming, has led to the deforestation of the tropical areas to create agricultural lands. These changes in land utilization create negative impacts on the environment through greenhouse emission, fragmentation of the species habitats, and the alteration of the hydrological cycles. The effects pose doom to the current and future generations. In Brazil, their practice of clearing of the rainforest for export-oriented livestock feed and production is unsustainable; the temperature in the tropical rainforest has increased by 4 °C. The effects result in the destruction of the wildlife habitat, reduced freshwater supply, and global warming. ^[14]

Arguments

The Kyoto Protocol identifies livestock as potential sinks for atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, Goodland and Anhang rebut the understanding that the live domesticated animals are important carbon sinks.^[15] They assert that cattle rearing of cattle increases pressures on other carbon sinks such as forests^[15]. Furthermore, Goodland and Anhang opine that the photosynthetic capacity of the earth decreases as forests are clear for anthropogenic reasons, and aptly relative livestock to automobiles as products of human inventions, leading to environmental degradation. ^[15]

While agricultural production produces the necessary nutritive substances for the world population, it contributes to the destruction of the natural habitats for other living organisms. Carlsson-Kanyama and González believe that beef farming exhausts resources such as water and fertilizer unnecessarily because the need to grow animal feed forces the farmers to set aside vast areas of land. They believe that such land should be used to grow crops instead of cattle since it is more efficient and sustainable.^[16] Additionallt, Balmford et al. claim that the desire to feed the world population increases pressure on the land we share with wild animals and plants^[17]. They note that governments can feed their populations through the establishment of limits on excessive consumption. ^[17]

Bias

The act of attributing deforestation to the need to produce animal feed fails to recognize the reasons which force the population to reduce the existing forest cover. While the need for agricultural land results in the encroachment of the forested areas, it is a consequence out of the necessity to satiate an increasing human population. An increase in population requires the massive production of food all over the world, and the perception that the world can eliminate food insecurity through an increase in production fails to recognize the overall impact on biodiversity. The researchers' claims are valid as excessive use of farm chemicals pollute various aspects of the environment. In general, human beings need to appreciate and consider the impact of particular agricultural practices on the well-beings of other living creatures.

Layering Perspectives: Additional Evidence of Impact?

The description above details the costs and impact from meat consumption from the perspective of natural resources conservation students. In this section, we welcome contributions from other perspectives. Those interested in contributing to this case study may use the following questions as a guide:

1. What other costs and/or impacts become apparent when meat consumption is viewed through the lens of other disciplines and professions?
2. What special expertise, resources, or theoretical orientations might others bring to help us better evaluate the costs and implications associated with meat consumption?

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Source: https://cases.open.ubc.ca/environmental-impact-of-meat-consumption/