The global impacts of food production Food is produced and processed by millions of farmers and intermediaries globally, with substantial associated environmental costs. Given the heterogeneity of producers, what is the best way to reduce food's environmental impacts? Poore and Nemecek consolidated data on the multiple environmental impacts of ∼38,000 farms producing 40 different agricultural goods around the world in a meta-analysis comparing various types of food production systems. The environmental cost of producing the same goods can be highly variable. However, this heterogeneity creates opportunities to target the small numbers of producers that have the most impact. Science , this issue p. 987
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But animal ag is far from sustainable, unfortunately.
Climate change, resource depletion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution, overpopulation, soil erosion, and overfishing are all symptoms of ecological overshoot.
Agriculture is a key culprit in most of those symptoms, and animal ag accounts for 80% of all agriculture.
Animal ag is directly responsible for majority of deforestation, is a major driver of biodiversity loss, has twice the greenhouse gas emissions than plant based foods, uses much more fresh water, pollutes the waters and causes dead zones in oceans, overfishing threatens us with empty oceans in 2040's, destroys our soils, etc. etc.. The…
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reforestation potential of animal ag lands is so huge, that we could store our entire 1.5C carbon budget in those lands.
We can free up the area a size of Africa (cca 9 Indias) by switching to plant based diets, and use it for reforesting/rewilding.
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares - https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
Reforestation potential of pastures (and abolishment of animal ag) would allow us to store the entire 1.5C carbon budget by rewilding/afforesting previously forested pastures. It would also stop biodiversity loss, which is a very serious problem in this day and age. - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4
Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture (and reforesting) has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century - https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Beef, soy for animal feed and palm oil are responsible for 60+% of tropical deforestation - https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss - https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob...
The way we eat could lead to habitat loss for 17,000 species by 2050 - https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287498/meat-wildlife-bi...
Livestock and climate change: what if the key actors in climate change are... cows, pigs, and chickens? - ttps://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Livestock-and-climate-change%3A-what-if-the-key-in-Goodland-Anhang/6704c7a0777c82357704d82b9ae8007c1197cb07?p2df
The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/meat-gre...
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
Mass Extinctions and Their Relationship With Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration: Implications for Earth's Future - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF00...
> There is research demonstrating that the lowest-impact meat produces significantly more greenhouse gas than the worst, highest-impact vegetable. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
Yes, that is my point.
> either embracing climate change
I'm making the very basic claim that all of these are based on normative facts, not metaphysics.
There is research demonstrating that the lowest-impact meat produces significantly more greenhouse gas than the worst, highest-impact vegetable. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
If you're arguing that excess greenhouse gas emissions is not a waste product, then it seems like you're either embracing climate change or you know something about greenhouse gasses that nobody else knows.
> environmental disaster ... high amounts of chemicals to make it palatable
Sorry, but this sounds like animal ag. propaganda.
Most faux vegan meat substitutes are just vegetable protein (essentially plant-based flour), fat and few spices.
You can make home-made vegan meat and and dairy replacements and it's just few ingredients.
E.g. seitan is just vital gluten flour, water/veggie stock, salt and spices.
Basic vegan cheese is just plant-based fat/milk, starch and salt.
And last but not least ... vegan diets != faux meats. Vegan diets == plants, seeds, nuts, spices.
--- few links out of many ---
Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study…
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shows
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-di...
Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds
https://www.tech-paper.com/2022/07/plant-based-meat-by-far-b...
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm
> Basically anything which on the purchased packet says imported from an country that has rain forests should be avoided
Animal farming in EU is reliant on Brazilian soy from Amazon. Nowhere on the packet you'll read this. But sure, blame avocado toasts, and ignore the fact that avocados grow on trees and as such are (may be) very sustainable. Just don't do the same stupid stuff as californians do with their almond monocultures.
> small scale farmer or hobbyist who raises his own animals has likely less blood on their hand than a vegan who live in a city and eat imported fresh…
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veggies
https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
> Vegan diets are not sustainable
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... - Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets - if the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
https://talkveganto.me/en/facts/suitable-for-all - a well planned vegan diet is suitable for people of all ages
https://plantbasednews.org/news/plant-based-lifestyles-imper... ... Plant-Based Lifestyles Now ‘Imperative’ For Survival, IPCC Climate Expert Says
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-chea... - Sustainable eating is cheaper and healthier - Oxford study
https://www.tech-paper.com/2022/07/plant-based-meat-by-far-b... - Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216
"Moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products (table S13) (35) has transformative potential, reducing food’s land use by 3.1 (2.8 to 3.3) billion ha (a 76% reduction), including a 19% reduction in arable land; food’s GHG emissions by 6.6 (5.5to 7.4) billion metric tons of CO2eq (a 49% reduction); acidification by 50% (45 to 54%); eutrophication by 49% (37 to 56%); and scarcity-weighted freshwater withdrawals by 19% (−5 to 32%) for a 2010 reference year."
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw9908
"In total, the “no animal products” scenario delivers a 28% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy relative to 2010 emissions (table S17)."
https://doi.org/10.3390/su142114449
"Our study finds that all dietary patterns cause more GHGEs than the 1.5 degrees global warming limit allows. Only the vegan diet was in line with the 2 degrees threshold, while all other dietary patterns trespassed the threshold partly to entirely."
> There is a lot of green washing in crop farming.
Sure.
https://www.salon.com/2022/11/11/the-meat-industry-is-borrow... - The meat industry is borrowing tactics from Big Oil to obfuscate the truth about climate change
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/09/academy-nutr... - group shaping US nutrition receives millions from big food industry
> artificial fertilizers uses natural gas, and leaks from those operations is one of the major contributors to global warming
At least 75% of those fertilizers are used for animal farming ( https://ourworldindata.org/land-use )
Abstract If future net-zero emissions energy systems rely heavily on solar and wind resources, spatial and temporal mismatches between resource availability and electricity demand may challenge system reliability.