Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The European Parliament recognizes that
“the cultivation of cereals and soya feed
for livestock is responsible for substantial
greenhouse gas emissions” and “considers
that a switch from intensive livestock
production to extensive sustainable
systems should be encouraged while total
meat consumption needs to be reduced, in
particular in industrialised countries.”
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Heating and cooling the massive confinement operations that
dot the U.S. landscape—and increasingly parts of Asia, Latin
America, and the Caribbean—also results in several million tons
of CO
2
emissions. In the past, factory farms were typically located
close to where feed was grown, but low transportation costs have
allowed confinement facilities to be located far from fields of corn
and soybeans. In some regions, including China, factory farms are
cropping up next to cities, requiring long-distance transportation
of feed.
We've known for decades that farmed animal production has
also had disastrous impacts on fragile forest ecosystems and the
biodiversity they contain, including an untold number of plant and
animals species that have not yet been identified. In the 1980s,
environmentalists in industrialized countries blamed McDonald's
and other fast-food chains for buying beef produced from animals
raised on previously forested areas in Latin America. Contrary to
popular belief, however, most of the beef from slaughtered cattle
who had been raised in the rainforest was not for middle-class
Americans, but for domestic consumption in the countries where
the animals lived. Unfortunately, today, this is changing, as areas
of the Amazon and other parts of South and Central America are be-
