Livestock a major threat to environment
Remedies
urgently needed
29
November 2006, Rome
- Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?
Surprise!
According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas
emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is
also a major source of land and water degradation.
Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy
Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock are one of the most
significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.
Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.â€
With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products
every year. 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.
Long shadow
The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural
sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and
contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor
farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable
energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their
crops.
But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the
FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow –Environmental Issues and Options.
“The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one
half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,â€
it warns.
When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock
sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities,
but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It
generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the
Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23
times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system
of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to
acid rain.
Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly
permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land
used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are
cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation,
especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former
forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
Land and water
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20
percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction
and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate
policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing
desertification.
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s
increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water
pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major
polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from
tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.
Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above
and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn
for the production of feed.
Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and
nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to biodiversity
loss in marine ecosystems.
Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial
animal biomass. Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand
for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important
ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a
culprit.
Remedies
The report, which was produced with the support of the multi-institutional
Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, proposes explicitly
to consider these environmental costs and suggests a number of ways of
remedying the situation, including:
Land degradation – controlling access and removing obstacles to mobility on
common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods and silvopastoralism,
together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; payment
schemes for environmental services in livestock-based land use to help reduce
and reverse land degradation.
Atmosphere and climate – increasing the efficiency of livestock production
and feed crop agriculture. Improving animals’ diets to reduce enteric
fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and setting up biogas plant
initiatives to recycle manure.
Water – improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Introducing full-cost
pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock
concentration close to cities.
These and related questions are the focus of discussions between FAO and its
partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock production at global
consultations in Bangkok this week. These discussions also include the
substantial public health risks related to the rapid livestock sector growth
as, increasingly, animal diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector
growth can also lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets.
Contact:
Christopher Matthews
Media Relations, FAO
[email protected]
(+39) 06 570 53762
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