Last November, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) published a controversial report labeling processed meats—such as salami, sausages, and hot dogs—as carcinogenic and red meats as “probably carcinogenic.” For many, the report came as a small step in acknowledging a larger truth: that our most basic food choices have far weightier consequences than we care to acknowledge. But while the health implications of eating processed and red meats are becoming general knowledge, few yet realize the environmental impacts.
Although American farms are typically (and intentionally) portrayed as a literary pastoral, the massive move towards industrial agriculture (“Big Ag”) and concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) have effectively obliterated the bucolic image of food production. To meet America’s growing demand for low cost poultry and livestock, animal production systems have intensified, expanding vertically rather than horizontally.
Industrial animal production has evolved to raise animals in increasingly confined spaces for shorter periods of time using massive amounts of freshwater, antibiotics, and chemicals. Industry proponents view the intensification as an environmental triumph, a move toward more sustainable practices. Indeed, farmers are able to produce more meat today using less land, feed, and water than they did fifty years ago. According to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, hog farmers today use 78% less land, 41% less water, and 38% less pigs to produce the same amount of pork as they did fifty years ago. However, in doing so, the industry has effectively supplanted broader low-intensity practices for more concentrated, highly unsustainable ones. The mechanization, homogenization, and consolidation of large animal production operations have marginalized, if not ended, the “family farm,” a consequence that raises as many ethical questions as it does environmental. Americans are hooked on cheap meat, and as direct costs to consumers decline, environmental and health costs steadily rise.
Studies show that current livestock and poultry confinement operations contribute significantly to water pollution and water scarcity, climate change, air pollution, land degradation, and loss of biodiversity. Such operations also increase demand for monoculture feed crop production, which leads to further environmental harms. These effects naturally implicate issues of environmental justice, meaning certain communities—usually low-income and minority communities—disproportionately bear the environmental burden of animal agriculture, as well as ethical violations (both human and animal) that are beyond the purview of this discussion.
Perhaps the largest environmental issue facing industrial animal operations is the enormous amount of waste they generate. In 2003, USDA conservatively estimated that confinement operations generate approximately 500 million tons of manure each year, more than three times the amount of waste generated annually by the entire U.S. population. However, whereas human waste is required to go through an intensive treatment and monitoring process, waste generated by confined animal operations is subject to more lenient, often ineffective treatment. The large amounts of hazardous pollutants—including antibiotics, hormones, biodegradable organics, heavy metals, nutrients (such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), pathogens, pesticides, salts, sediments, and suspended solids—contained in manure seriously affect air, water, and land quality when pollutants are emitted into the air, applied to the land through land application processes, and accidentally discharged into ground water.
Unfortunately, the harms of industrial animal organizations extend far beyond those created by ineffective waste management practices. Animal operations emit large amounts of air pollutants at every stage of the production cycle, making them significant contributors to air pollution and climate change. Accounting for roughly 18% of global emissions, it is estimated that industrial animal operations alone are one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases (in comparison, the combined global emissions from the entire transportation sector total 13%), and emissions are projected to increase 80% by 2050. Animal agriculture also requires huge amounts of freshwater—34 to 76 trillion gallons annually, or roughly 500 times the amount used in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)—for both the animals and production systems, leading to water impairment and water scarcity. While private homes in the U.S. account for 5% of water consumption, animal agriculture accounts for 55%. Further, substantial land degradation occurs from deposition, use, erosion, and climate change, and aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity is damaged by the resulting water, air, and land pollution.
Industrial animal operations often point to an expanding population—expected to reach 9 billion worldwide by 2050—hunger statistics, and demand for low cost meat products to justify their intense, unsustainable practices. However, it is food access and food waste that is lacking, not food production. In fact, we already produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. Rather than reducing costs, animal operations have externalized them through significant and continued environmental degradation. Today, animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction. All of our air, land, and water suffer the externalized costs—costs totaling $414 billion—of animal agriculture. We can no longer afford cheap meat.
The above information comes from: “Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Law” (2013) by Mary Jane Angelo, Jason J. Czarnezki, and William S. Eubanks II. Specifically, Chapter 5 The Industrialization of Animal Agriculture: Connecting a Model With Its Impacts on the Environment by Hannah M.M. Connor. pp. 65-91.
http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/