This text is an excerpt from a Master's based project (with RMIT) that tackled a chosen sustainability issue. This particular case regards meat production and meat consumption and the associated health and environmental consequences.
The Livestock Agriculture’s Environmental Consequences
In the past two decades, numerous major studies have detailed the monumental ecological footprint of livestock agriculture (Brugger et al., 2015; WWF, 2022; IPCC, 2020). One of these earlier studies was the 2006 analysis by the Food and Agricultural Organization. This study by Steinfeld et al., 2006 called ‘Livestock’s long shadow’ revealed the many serious impacts of the livestock sector. Steinfeld et al. unveiled that livestock agriculture was a key factor in deforestation. Livestock rearing accounted for 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the land surface of the planet (Steinfeld et al., 2006), which is the world’s single largest anthropogenic land-use, and the largest source of water pollutants (Jackson, 2009).
The expansion of feed crops – such as soybean production – is also resulting in an additional threat to biodiversity (Brugger et al., 2015). According to a WWF report (2022)(also in WWF, 2014), the state of the world’s biodiversity is worse than ever. In Latin America, habitat loss and degradation, resource exploitation and climate change have seen a fall of biodiversity since the 1970s: reported as an 83% loss in 2014 (WWF, 2014) and 94% in 2022 (WWF, 2022).
Although the Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 (CBD, 2010), the IPCC’s Climate Change and Land report (2020), (to name a few) recommended a shift to moderate meat consumption, international and governing bodies have failed to bring the issue to discussions and policy making (Brugger et al., 2015).
Figure 1. : Graph from ‘Our World in Data’ showing Greenhouse gas emissions across the food supply chain. The graph illustrates greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product (kgCO2 equivalents per kg of product). Source: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
Dietary Choices, GHG emissions and Health
To this date, there have been an increasing number of studies that examined the link between dietary choices, the associated food production systems and their resulting impacts on GHG emission levels (Green et al., 2015). A few studies have also systematically reviewed the literature and findings on the relation between dietary choices and the resulting GHG emissions (Green et al. 2015; Joyce et al., 2014). Some of these studies are outlined here.
In 2014, Hendrie et al. published a study that compared four diets and their correlated GHG emissions in an Australian context. It was found that non-core foods (foods that were high in energy but low in nutrients such as processed meat, confectionary and food high in saturated fats)contributed to 27% of GHGs in the average diet. Red meat was found to have the largest GHG emissions. Despite these findings, the study did not recommend that this food group be reduced at all (Hendrie et al., 2014; Green et al., 2015); which might be related to the study being “funded and approved” by Meat & Livestock Australia (Hendrie et al., 2014, pp. 300). This ensuing recommendations gives an indication of the kind of influence that the meat production industry has been able to exercise not only over studies and research, but also government policies and initiatives that relate to meat production and subsidies (Shapiro, 2015).
In the North American context, Soret et al. (2014) compared the GHG emissions related to vegetarian, semi-vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets. The mean annual GHGs emitted for each of these diets were 1113kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) for non-vegetarians, 872kg CO2e for semi-vegetarians, and 788kg CO2e for vegetarians. Vegetarian diet showed a 29.2% reduction of CO2e when compared to the non-vegetarian diet, and a 21.6% reduction for the semi-vegetarian diet.
In the context of New Zealand, Wilson et al. (2013) modelled 16 diets using linear programming. Compared to vegetarian and vegan diets, GHG emissions were higher for all diet scenarios involving meat and fish (Wilson et al., 2013). In this study, policy propositions were also identified (Green et al., 2015). These propositions suggested local government policies to ensure that optimised foods (low GHG, low-cost and “healthy) foods be exempt from taxes and promoted by the public health sector and environmental stakeholders, such as through food labelling (Wilson et al., 2013). Wilson et al. (2013) also suggested that these foods could be served in public institutions providing meals (schools, nursing homes, prisons and hospitals).
In the United Kingdom, Scarborough et al. (2014) showed how a high meat diet yielded 2.5 times more GHGs than an average vegan diet. The authors concluded than consuming less animal-based products is a feasible method for reducing GHG emissions and improving general health. It was also recommended that the national government dietary recommendations be updated to reflect these increasingly apparent findings.
Of the 21 studies that Joyce et al., (2014) considered in their review connecting GHG emissions and dietary choices, 19 of them found that the less animal-based products there are in one’s diet, the lower the GHG emissions are. Today, reducing animal-based food consumption is recognised as a significant way to reduce GHG emissions (IPCC, 2020; Green et al., 2015; Stanton, 2012).
When considering the health aspect of meat, while it is considered an adequate source of protein and nutrients such as vitamin B12, iron and zinc, there is ever-increasing body of evidence showing that high levels of meat consumption negatively impacts health and disease risk (Qian, 2020; Marsh et al., 2015; Raphaely & Marinova, 2014).
In the study by Soret et al. (2014), the mortality rate and mortality hazard rations were examined for a non-vegetarian, semi-vegetarian and vegetarian diets. The mortality rate for non-vegetarians was 20% higher than the other two diets. Mortality, cardiovascular and cancer mortality are all increased with higher intakes of meat (Larsson & Orsini, 2014; Sinha et al.,, 2009; Pan et al., 2012; Rohrmann et al., 2013; Abete et al., 2014).
Conversely, plant-based diets or diets which contain low intakes of meat are found to improve health and disease outcomes (Qian, 2020; McEvoy et al., 2012; Sievenpiper & Dworatzek, 2013). In summary, even though meat offers some beneficial nutrients, its positives are outweighed by the risks it poses, and foods other than meat can adequately supply the necessary nutrients (Stanton, 2012; Stanton, 2015).
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