Livestock in the Food Debate - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 512

Control of animal diseases, such as SARS in Asia and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)
in UK has led to enormous economic losses (both on the order of $11.5 billion). The
2003 outbreak of SARS infected about 8,000 people in China but cost Asian countries
between $30-50 billion, mostly due to economic repercussions from widespread public
fear of the disease. The true cost of HPAI is still being evaluated. One estimate suggests
that a human influenza pandemic today would cost roughly $2 trillion (IFAH 2012).
With the globalization of milk and meat production, the association of livestock with
threats to human well-being take on an urgent quality. This requires a multisectoral,
multistakeholder, and multidimensional approach.
The Meat and Heat Debate
Agriculture releases substantial amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the bio-
sphere. Based on various reports, agriculture accounts, on average, for almost 40% of
the global CO2 equivalence.3 Livestock has a relatively significant share in this: 65% of
the total anthropogenic Nitrous Oxide (N2O); 64% of the total anthropogenic ammonia
(NH3); 37% of the total anthropogenic methane (CH4); 9% of the total anthropogenic
carbon dioxide (CO2). Roughly 17 billion domestic animals contribute 14-18% of the
global greenhouse emission (Steinfeld 2006; Steinfield et al. 2008).
These emissions are all natural gases that have been part of the earth's atmosphere for
eons. Methane is released by all processes of fermentation in absence of oxygen dur-
ing the decomposition and digestion of natural fibers and unprocessed grains, carried
out by bacteria. This happens in a variety of situations where anaerobic fermentation
takes place. Methane is released in dumping sites, landfills, paddy rice cultivation, and
in the digestive system of cows. When released as gas, methane remains in the atmo-
sphere for 9-15 years and traps heat 21 times as effectively as CO2. (Smith 2009) Nitrous
oxide, which is formed mainly through the oxidation of ammonia and released by ani-
mal excreta, soil, and chemical fertilizers, is the most aggressive greenhouse gas. Nitrous
oxide is 296 times as effective as CO2 at trapping heat and remains in the atmosphere on
average for 114 years.
There are differences among livestock species in greenhouse gas emissions. In gen-
eral, red-meat production emits 2.5 times as much greenhouse gas as chicken produc-
tion, simply because cattle are less efficient than chickens and they grow slower. To
produce a Kg of beef requires up to 13 kg of grain plus forage. To produce 1 Kg of pork
we may need 5.9 kg of grain, compared to 2.3 kilograms of grain to make every kilo of
chicken. In terms of carbon footprint, eating a steak is equivalent of driving a 4x4 for 30
Km. It is claimed that the methane produced in a day by a dairy cow in large-scale farms
could run a 2-liter engine for 1000 Km.4 Approximately 83% of greenhouse gases come
from the actual milk and meat production, of which 37% is CO2, 26% N2O due to fertil-
izer and manure, and 20% methane released from the cow. The rest comes from process-
ing the food (MacKenzie 2008).