By It had to happen eventually – beef is on the green menu as the World Wildlife Fund is making calls for a more sustainable beef industry, starting with hamburgers. But one of its recommendations may be to intensify farming, ala North America, and abandon New Zealand's pastoral approach. WTF?
The WWF, led by Jason Clay, its iconoclastic senior vice president for "market transformation," convened a Global Conference on Sustainable Beef, bringing together environmentalists, academics and industry giants including McDonald's, Walmart, Cargill and JBS, a Brazilian company that calls itself "the largest animal protein processing company in the world" and owns U.S. brands Swift and Pilgrim's Pride.
The goal? To improve sustainability within the beef industry.
One surprise may be to encourage beef producers around the world to behave more like those in the U.S. and Europe, which rely on much-maligned Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to produce more beef while using less land, water and feed than producers elsewhere. The issue, Clay says, is whether it is better to have animals on pasture for four years (as in Brazil) and producing a lot of methane, or whether it's better to slaughter animals in two years or less, including some time in a CAFO to increase the weight to acceptable levels.
Needless to say, this is likely to be a controversial undertaking.
Still, one thing we can agree upon is this: There's lots of room for improvement in the beef biz. In his presentation, Clay says beef production generates about 1.3 percent of the world's calories but uses 60 percent of all the land used to produce food. Beef production also consumes disproportionate amounts of water and energy, and is a leading cause of deforestation in Brazil.
It's hard to imagine a less efficient way to feed people. An oft-quoted but sometimes disputed 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that livestock raised for meat or milk production cause more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport industry -- between 14 and 22 percent of global emissions.
That U.N. report also said: "Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes." People tend to consume more meat as their income grows.
Via: Greenbiz.com
I'm sorry, but what an oxymoron, more sustainable beef via feedlots! yea right.
Although ruminant numbers continue to increase, the methane output has stabilised over the past decade. Since 1999 atmospheric methane concentrations have levelled off while the world population of ruminants has increased at an accelerated rate. Prior to 1999, world ruminant populations were increasing at the rate of 9.15 million head/year but since 1999 this rate has increased to 16.96 million head/year. Prior to 1999 there was a strong relationship between change in atmospheric methane concentrations and the world ruminant populations. However, since 1999 this strong relation has disappeared. This change in relationship between the atmosphere and ruminant numbers suggests that the role of ruminants in greenhouse gases may be less significant than originally thought, with other sources and sinks playing a larger role in global methane accounting. There is a real need to reassess the contribution of livestock production to the entire process.
Feedlot intensive beef production has far more negative implications for the environment, animal and human health than grassfed, thats a no-brainer. Check out the movie Food Inc for a pretty good overview of the industrialization of food.
Give me grass feed free range biologically grown, nutrient dense, high omega 3 beef any day!
Written in January 2011