Rethink: How We Eat
No conversation about changing the food system is complete unless it includes the consumer’s role. Although altering our eating habits isn’t easy, we must grow more aware of the link between what we eat and the land. To quote writer Wendell Berry: “Eating is an agricultural act.”
Eat less, but better, meat — Americans account for just 4.5 percent of the world’s population, but we eat approximately 15 percent of the meat produced globally. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, this amounts to 170 pounds of meat per person each year. Many of these animals consume grains, resulting in a lot of land devoted to growing feed — in fact, one-third of global cereal crop production is fed to animals.
We could expect a multitude of benefits by making the simple choice to eat less meat.
While meat can be part of a healthy diet, too much leads to health problems, such as high cholesterol and heart disease. And when animals are raised in ways that pollute our environment, this only exacerbates the problem. Excrement and urine from confined animals, for example, can leach into water and soil and emit dangerous concentrations of greenhouse gasses.
Animals can, instead, be raised to benefit our production systems. They are efficient grazers and can be an integral part of crop rotation. Returning animals to pasture instead of confined housing would reduce their numbers, but they would be raised with more space to roam and no routine antibiotics, and more land would be available to directly feed people. Thus, we could expect a multitude of benefits by making the simple choice to eat less meat.
Provide food education — Access to good food is only one part of developing new eating habits; we also need to know what to do with it. By teaching people how to grow foods, read recipes, train a palate and develop cooking skills, we can dramatically change the food system. Food Corps — a national organization that places leaders for a year of public service in communities with limited resources — introduces kids to food education and connects them to where their food comes from. In just a few years’ time, this group is driving change, reaching more than 29,000 children.
Food companies can actively engage as well, whether it’s by providing examples of how a whole food like steamed broccoli pairs with a processed food product like macaroni and cheese, or supporting food education in our schools and communities. After all, what will have a more profound impact on the health of members of our next generation than teaching them about how to eat?
To a Better Future
To feed our growing population, we need the food community to accelerate investment in a more sustainable food system. The innovations are already available, and now is the time to invest in and refine them. Systemic change cannot come from one company, government or individual; everyone needs to be involved. Are there other factors that should be considered? Of course. These are complex issues with complex solutions. Are we going to get there within a year? No. But we need to wake up to the need for a paradigm shift in how we do things in order to get us on a sustainable path to feeding 9 billion by 2050. The people on this planet and the natural resources we depend on cannot afford to progress on a linear path. Instead, we need to rethink the system. 
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Is there any evidence at all that grass fed meat is "better" (I'm Australian and most of our domestically consumed cattle and sheep meat is grass fed and our rate of bowel cancer is the highest in the world!). By evidence I don't mean claims by Michael Pollen, I mean actual data. I don't know of any.
Is there any evidence that reductions of meat consumption would free up land? Sure ... Jonathan Foley's work is the best I know of. But how much do you need to reduce consumption to free up land?
That depends on how much meat you want to produce. Is it 10 percent of what is eaten now? 50%? 1%? Without putting a number on it, there is no way to calculate the land required. Eating just 1% of meat would certainly free up land ... but 50%? That's far from obvious. And what about climate change? For every ruminant we graze, that's a significant amount of methane that needs to be dealt with. Australia has more cattle than people and the warming they produce exceeds that of all our coal fired power stations ... and grass fed cattle produce far more methane than feedlot cattle.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/08/11/australias-most-powerful-climate-forcing-agent-its-not-coal/
On the land-related point, given that 1/3 of cereal production is fed to animals, one might posit that we could switch from animal-feed to people-feed crops. Thus it might not ‘free up land’, but you would use land differently so you can feed more people (given feed to animal conversion rates). And to your point, it’s about the quantity of meat we want to produce. I don’t have an exact percentage to give you. My point is around reworking parameters to feed a growing population. In fact, I think that these numbers need to come from a bottoms-up, not a top-down approach so that the regional ecology and population needs are taken into account. There are a lot of variables at stake and we need to consider the needs of the land and people.
As for climate change and animals, this is a really interesting issue. Based on what I have studied, animals can be an integral part of a healthy ecosystem landscape. And while enteric fermentation is problematic from a carbon emissions standpoint, we need to also consider the benefits that animals can bring from an ecosystem-health perspective. Yes, they may contribute methane into the atmosphere, so we need to consider quantity of animals. But they can also regenerate our lands if we practice holistic management techniques. Alan Savory’s team has done extensive work on this and I know several folks who follow his principles. You can find his portfolio of research here: http://www.savoryinstitute.com/2013/03/resources/evidence-supporting-holistic-management/. And you can watch a great TED talk on this topic here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html.
Joel Salatin, Allan Savory, and others have shown that properly managed ruminants on grasslands will actually sequester carbon and build soils. Oh, and increase yields and profit, by the way.
Shauna: Other species of animals on our planet expand or contract their populations based primarily on their food supply. Why should we be different? If we were only able to produce enough food next year for 7.1 billion people, I'd be pretty confident in saying there would be 7.1 billion people. Would people suffer? I don't think people would suffer any more than they already do suffer. I know it's a crazy thought. I just thought I'd put it out there. We are, after all, biologically based creatures that evolved on this planet WITH all the other creatures that are here. Shouldn't the same natural laws that govern their existence also govern ours?
When you eat red meat, any red meat (kangaroo, beef, pork, venison, etc) your body generates endogenous nitrosamines ... the same stuff that causes lung cancer in smokers. This process is entirely natural and has nothing to do with refining or processing. Your claim about bowel cancer being the result of refined and processed food isn't supported by any data at all ... it get echoed around the internet ad nauseum but there's no actual epidemiology to support it. Whereas there is plenty to support the red meat link. The nitrosamine causal chain is one of a few for which there is good evidence.
Also, you recommend `agroecology’- an understanding the structure and function of the natural ecosystems on which agriculture is built. The World Bank IAASTD Report is partly to blame for the confusion over just what agroecology is and its relation to natural ecosystems. The Glossary of the IAASTD Report claims that: “Agroecological functions are generally maximized when there is high species diversity/perennial forest-like habitats.” I think this almost exactly wrong. Most of our food now comes from annual grasses – a plant type that cannot survive in `perennial forest-like habitats’. There is a sound agroecological reasons for the success of cereal monocultures. Firstly: a major ecological principal is the need to escape competition, in particular from the dominance of woody vegetation – grasslands worldwide manage this escape. Secondly, cereal fields are a close mimic of the wild annual grasslands that supported our pre-agricultural ancestors over 10,000 years ago. These natural fields of one species were maintained by natural disturbance – flooding, fire, and grazing. From the dawn of agriculture farmers have mimicked this disturbance by tilling and weeding to reduce competition for the crop.
In addition, we may have a `monoculture of the mind’ for agroecology. Rather than a broad international acceptance of agroecology, it is dominantly promoted from a limited number of scientists in the United States, with the apparent intention of turning the agricultural clock back a hundred years or so.
First, grass fed beef produces more methane than feedlot beef. Why? Because that's what you find when you measure it, here's one such study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10375217
Savory? He's fine if you are more interested in a good story than in finding out what actually happens. Here's a little critique: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/04/allan_savory_s_ted_talk_is_wrong_and_the_benefits_of_holistic_grazing_have.html
Now back to grass fed beef. The UCS stuff is about fat profiles. I was talking about bowel cancer which has nothing to do with fat profiles. Red meat causes bowel cancer (see World Cancer Research Fund's 2007 report) and the faty acid profile is irrelevant. It might be relevant to heart disease but to find out you'd at least need to confirm that Australians have less heart disease ... and since we have heaps of it, I doubt you can do that. It doesn't matter how often you say that this or that fat profile is healthy ... you need epidemiological data ... measure of relative death rates of people eating different diets. Our heart disease rates dropped here a couple of decades ago when we started to remove fat from dairy products (remember this is all grass fed fat) and reduced sheep intake (remember all our sheep were grass fed) and replaced it with chicken (grain fed!).
Agroecology is, indeed, not a new concept and it seems - based on the definition you highlight - that there are different interpretations of what it means. I defined agroecology in the article, and it's a bit broader than how you define it (referencing the WB). Species diversity is certainly key. But understanding the geographical complexity is also a part of the analysis. Here is how Stephen Gliessman, a pioneer in studying this work, talks about it: http://www.agroecology.org/Steve.html. I don't agree that those who are working on agroecology are taking us back in time. Quite the opposite, I see some amazing in-depth scientific research that looks at soil structure, water filtration and a host of other ecological components that seek to understand how farming and nature can work together symbiotically. Healthy soil is the foundation for farming and this is what I see progressive agroecological practitioners working on.
I'd love to learn more about your points on policy and subsidies. I realize that these are complex issues and federal policy is more than just direct payment subsidies. But there are plenty of other 'price supports' the the U.S. offers to farmers that ultimately end up acting as a subsidy - i.e. crop insurance.
Regarding methane production of pasture-raised versus grain-fed, this analysis has many variables to consider and it's not a black and white response. The study you referenced uses low-quality feeds for pasture raised animals and feed seems to be a major factor for methane emissions. A report by UCS (yet another one!) highlights several studies that assess this issue. They state: "Perennial pasture species typically sequester more carbon in soil than annual row crops used for feed grain concen- trates. On the other hand, cattle in CAFOs usually gain weight faster than cattle on pasture. The result is that feedlots may produce fewer methane and nitrous oxide emissions per unit of product, but pastures may offset that advantage by sequestering more carbon in the soil. However, best management practices can affect both the rate at which pasture soil sequesters carbon and the rate at which pasture plants grow—and thus the productivity of beef production—as well as other factors that influence methane and nitrous oxide emissions from pasture." http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/global-warming-and-beef-production-report.pdf
If that is the case, then I hypothesis that all the badgering by NGO and Gov will only move the needle a little bit.
The bold step is incorporating an ecological dimension into the existing economy. Okay, I hear you - that is folly, let's continue badgering - that too is folly, but NGO and Gov staff are well-trained in that.
Here is my money to my mouth: https://prezi.com/pvx9r5dykawt/the-role-of-shared-governance/
I have applied this six times and am fairly proficient in it.
Here is a point by point takedown of that Slate article: http://sheldonfrith.com/2015/12/14/why-the-slate-article-about-allan-savory-is-dead-wrong/