Costs of Livestock

Livestock occupies around 30% of Earth’s land surface, with some 33% of the planet’s arable land now devoted to producing feed for livestock rather than food for people (FAO). 

Around 80% of the world’s soybeans and more than 50% of all corn produced are destined for livestock feed. The manufacturing of fertilizers to grow feed crop requires the burning of fossil fuels estimated at producing 42 million metric tons of CO2/year (AAI, 2010). The conversion of vegetation for livestock pasture and cropland for feed production release an estimated 2.4 billion metric tons of CO2 each year (ibid). Furthermore, the livestock sector alone accounts for around 27% of global water use; producing meat requires 5 times more water than vegetables.

The resource-hungry livestock sector and its supply chain account for 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, 44% of those being in the form of methane (CH4), and the remainder almost equally shared between N2O and CO2. Cattle alone represents 65% of the sector's emissions, with the bulk of emissions originating from enteric fermentation, feed production, manure management and energy consumption / Source: FAO

Intensive livestock production, which tends to be clustered in smaller land plots due to their proximity to ports and cities have poor waste recycling leading to nutrient overloads and pollution. 

Heard about theDead Zone which appears in the Gulf of Mexico every year around mid-summer? 

The Dead Zone is an area characterised by low oxygen levels (threatening all aquatic life) and, this year, was the largest measured since 1985, an area about the size of Slovenia (22729 km²) / Photograph: Dead Zone in the Mississippi River Delta 

The pollution of the dead zone is directly linked to runoff from the Mississippi River, with recent studies identifying large corn, soy, and wheat-growing farms as the main culprits of eutrophication. The investigation conducted by MightyEarth in 2016 mapped the supply chains of the top meat and feed companies (Cargill, Bunge, Tyson) and overlayed it with data of nitrate levels in watersheds experiencing high concentrations of fertilizer pollution. Tyson Foods stood out in particular

Check out the interactive map here! / Source: MightyEarth