Food and your Footprint: Is Beef as bad as it is made out to be?
Is it right to blame beef so much for climate change? Let us look at it objectively without any bias.
There is lot of discussion going on about food and its role in climate change. The debate got intensified after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its special report in October 2018 recommended drastic reduction in meat consumption. Citizens of UK and US were advised to cut beef consumption by 90% and milk by 60% while increasing consumption of beans and pulses to four and six times respectively. Spawning from the above analysis are many articles popping up daily in popular news sources advising people to boycott meat, like this one which says “The single most effective action you can take to combat climate change is to stop eating meat”. But is it right to blame beef so much for climate change? Let us look at it objectively without any bias.
Cows emit GHG and are definitely a problem for our environment. But giving it more attention than what it needs will only complicate things. It is extremely important that we analyze the problem of beef consumption in the proper context. China and the U.S. are the largest Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emitters and the proportion of GHG emitted by cattle in those countries are relatively low compared to other carbon intensive sectors. For example, In the U.S., agriculture contributed only 9% to total GHG emissions in 2017 according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This is while transportation, electricity and industry contributed 29%, 28% and 22% to the total GHG emissions respectively. We will be missing the story completely if by some misguided logic; we concentrate more on beef and not on the three top emitting sectors which need more of our attention in the biggest emitting countries. Perhaps beef became the focus of attention albeit mistakenly from the global data of economic segment wise emissions of GHG by US EPA (see the figure above). In that data, agriculture, forestry and land use contribute 24% of total GHG emissions. It is on par with the Electricity and Heat generation sector which account for 25% of total GHG emission. Perhaps this comparison sparked the wrong focus on beef. Transportation sector if viewed globally contribute only 14% of the total GHG emissions. This is in stark contrast to the data from US where transportation accounts for 29% of the total emission. This is the point on which I build my case to shift focus more to the sectors which emit larger proportion of GHG in largest emitting countries. That only makes sense because 91% emissions in the U.S. come from sectors other than agriculture, yet the focus is on beef. As a percentage of global emissions, agricultural related emissions in the U.S. constituted only 1.3 % whereas the rest of the carbon intensive sectors in the U.S. constituted 13.3% of the global GHG emissions in 2017. Global percentage of GHG emissions by the U.S. in 2017 was 14.6%. This disparity in GHG emissions between farming and diet related emissions and that of emissions from other carbon intensive sectors is visible in every developed country.
According to U.S. EPA data of sector wise GHG emissions in 2016, methane emission in the U.S. from cows accounted for only 2.6% of the total GHG emissions while transportation, electric power generation and different other Industries respectively contributed 28.5%, 28.4% and 21.6%. Once again, this data shows clearly that our focus should not be misguided towards the cattle industry when other industries generate bulk of GHG emissions. However there is a need for caution because methane from cows constitutes 44% of the total methane emission. It is not good as methane is about 30 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Efforts are undergoing to reduce Methane emission by using better feeds and feeding techniques and also by selective breeding for increasing per unit beef output. But accomplishing the goals takes time and there are limitations to it too. We also can contribute in the mitigation process by reducing our intake of beef. But the amount of negative press beef generates because of misreading of the facts is bad on two counts. Firstly the main culprits for the problem of climate change remain eluded from harsher public scrutiny while they continue polluting our environment like never before. Secondly, food security of the multitude in the developing countries which depends on milk and other dairy products can be affected negatively. It will become difficult to solve hunger and malnutrition problems. Remember, according to the U.N., there are 821 million hungry people and over 150 million children stunted in our world and misguidance like what happens about beef consumption can put our hunger eradication goal at risk.
Perhaps the intensive focus on the beef industry is meant to create a smokescreen so that the fossil fuel industry can escape a tighter scrutiny. So let us focus more on other pressing issues like reducing excavation and consumption of fossil fuels as well as in using renewable energy in electricity generation, transportation and industry. Of course, it would help our cause if we all go low on meat and eat more of plant based diet. People of rich and developed countries who eat excess of calories from meat based foods can do a lot more in this regard. The average American is responsible for emission of 14.9 metric tons GHG, compared to 6.57 metric tons per person in China and only 1.57 metric tons in India. Average American’s diet-related GHG emissions were 1.9 tonnes in 2014. Compare diet related per capita emissions (1.9 tonnes) to total per capita emissions (14.9 metric tons) and one will easily understand where the focus should be if one wants to reduce the emissions.
Reduction in consumption of beef on a global scale is needed if we want to realistically reduce GHG emissions. This is because the decision is up to you and me and not on any government policy. The results will be immediate too even if we will not be able to see it. But changing the eating habits of a population is one of the hardest things to achieve. There are instances in the past where people got accustomed to new tastes like liking bananas and kiwi fruits when they were introduced to new markets but switching meat for pulses and beans so fast and so drastically is difficult to materialize. I feel that the recommendations of the IPCC about meat consumption tilt towards the extreme even though they were well thought out by an eminent panel of experts and it is the need of the day. Extreme views evince least response and the best way to go forward is to take it step by step. Recently there was a report about ‘Meatless Mondays’ movement catching up in New York City public schools. The authorities ran a pilot program at 15 Brooklyn schools and after seeing the success of it, decided to extend the program to more than 1,800 schools across New York City. The success and the positive feedback the program received is a lesson for all of us. If you or me want to reduce meat consumption, it might be better to start by skipping it for one day per week and then to pick up from there.
Consumption of beef can damage the nature indirectly too. Cultivation of soybean accounted for deforestation of at least 21,000 square kilometers of Amazon rain forests from 2006 to 2017 according to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Soy is used mainly as protein rich feed in beef and pork industry. Brazil is world’s largest soy exporter with 13 percent of it coming from Soy farms in the cleared Amazon rain forests. Maintaining and expanding rain forests which are one of the most efficient carbon sinks is vital in the fight against climate change. Most of the deforestation in Amazon occurs for cultivating soybeans. So cutting down our beef intake can help in reducing deforestation.
According to FAO data , in 2017, Brazil had the largest cattle population (211 million) followed by India which had 189 million cows. China came third with 113 million cows. The U.S. which consumes the most of beef had only 89 million cows in 2017. The larger the cattle population in Brazil, the bigger is the threat to Amazon forests. There is a bigger problem brewing in China with a clear shift happening in the preference from pork to beef. It is a dangerous trend because China has a very large population and the changing preference for beef will lead to more deforestation in Amazon in Brazil from where China import beef and soybeans. Cattle are much less efficient calorie converters and take between 50 and 100 calories from grass or any other feed to produce one calorie of beef (see the chart given above). It will also take roughly 20 times more land for cows to produce same amount of protein as beans and other protein rich plants does. Cows also release 20 times more greenhouse gases as compared to the same amount of proteins from plants. Gradual increase of plant based food items in our menu along with concomitant reduction in uptake of beef and other red meat is probably the way forward.
Americans emit a whopping 14.9 tons of carbon per person per year, according to the World Bank which is far above the 2.1 tons of carbon per person by 2050 goal set by the Paris Climate Accord of 2015. Eating meat and beef in particular in quantities way above the nutritional requirements is one main reason for this high emission rates. It is estimated that agricultural and farming greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 10.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year just by replacing 30 percent of beef with mushrooms or any other acceptable substitute in the nearly 10 billion burgers each year which Americans consume. There are other ways too to reduce our diet related emissions, but as mentioned in the beginning, we should not over react and blame cows for climate change. More focus should be to reduce excavation and consumption of fossil fuels. I rest my case here.
Food Wastage Can Worsen Your Footprint:
There is another problem, probably we all ignore, but which is graver than all what we have discussed so far. It has boundless potential to reduce our carbon emissions and to feed the hungry of this world too. According to World Health organization, 821 million people in our world go to bed hungry every night. On the other hand, one third of all food produced gets lost or wasted, an amount which is sufficient to feed the hungry of this world four times over. The wastage of food is a disgraceful and inexcusable evil we commit to the poor of this world. Isn’t it shocking to know that about 1.3 billion tons of food in this world gets lost or wasted every year. To make it worse, there is another greater danger attached to food wastage. “If food wastage were a country, it would be the third largest emitting country in the world” behind China and the U.S. This was the observation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations made in an analysis on carbon footprint of food wastage in 2011 when the carbon footprint of food wastage stood at 3.6 GtCO2 (3.6 billion tonnes of CO2). Not much data is available subsequent to that, but it can safely be assumed that not much has changed either since human behavior is hard to change. Unused food also has a carbon footprint and we add to our footprint inadvertently by wasting food. We do not have control over food lost at various levels during growing, processing, packaging and transporting. But produced and uneaten food occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land vainly which represents close to 30 percent of the world’s agricultural land area. If we do not waste food at our table, we can probably save that much farm land. Food wastage occurring at consumption level in middle and high-income regions is 31–39 percent compared to that of low income regions at 4–16 percent. It shows rich nations can do lot more in reducing GHG emissions by reducing food wastage. Once we buy food, make sure that we don’t waste it. Always buy what we have to and not what we can. Cook only what we have to and not what we can. Once cooked, eat all of it. If there is leftover, don’t throw it, refrigerate it and use it later. Teach our children too about the responsibility of saving food. While buying food, always check the use-by and expiry date and store it accordingly.
