Tag: Livestock

Feed humans before livestock – World Wildlife Fund

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Transform UK farmland to boost food resilience and tackle nature crisis, says WWF.

By, Brendan Montague, The Ecologist (Creative Commons 4.0)

Half of the UK’s wheat harvest each year – equivalent to 11 billion loaves of bread – is being used to feed livestock in an “inherently inefficient” process that is fuelling climate change, a WWF report reveals.

The report shows the extent of farmland used to grow crops that are being used to feed animals instead of people. It explores the benefits for people, climate and nature of using more of the UK’s arable land to grow crops for human consumption instead, such as addressing the climate and nature crises and boosting the UK’s food resilience.

The latest report in WWF’s Future of Feed series highlights the fact that dairy and meat products provide only 32 percent of calories consumed in the UK and less than half of protein despite livestock and their feed making up 85 percent of the country’s agricultural land use.

Habitats

Growing crops like cereals to feed farm animals accounts for a significant proportion of this land-use footprint, according to the analysis in the report.

Wheat and barley grown to feed farmed animals in the UK using 2 million hectares of land – 40 percent of the UK’s arable land area.

Wheat grown in the UK each year to feed livestock – mostly chickens and pigs – makes up half of our annual wheat harvest and would be enough to produce nearly 11 billion loaves of bread.

Oats grown in the UK to feed livestock each year make up a third of our annual oat harvest and would be enough to produce nearly 6 billion bowls of porridge.

The UK imports large quantities of soy to feed pigs and poultry, fuelling the destruction of precious habitats overseas, like the Brazilian Cerrado.

Affordable

Replacing animal feeds like soy and cereal with alternatives like grass, by-products from the food supply chain, and innovative feed ingredients such as insect meal, would free up land to grow food for people, including high-value crops like fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and could be at the heart of a transition to nature-friendly regenerative agriculture.

The report recognises that this approach to feeding farm animals would necessitate a reduction in the overall numbers of livestock in the UK.

Kate Norgrove, executive director of advocacy and campaigns at WWF said: “We can’t afford to stay locked into a food system that’s not fit for purpose, with food prices soaring.

“Far too much of the food we eat is produced in ways that are fuelling the climate crisis and driving catastrophic nature loss, yet failing to deliver affordable, healthy food for all.

Biodiversity

“To make our food system truly shock-resistant we need to accelerate a shift to sustainable production, including rethinking the way we are using huge quantities of the UK’s most productive land to grow food for livestock instead of people.

She added: “UK governments can future-proof our food and bring huge benefits for nature and climate at the same time by ramping up support for farmers to transform our landscapes, making space for nature in farms and forests, fields and fens.”

Focusing purely on the carbon footprint of food production risks fuelling agricultural intensification and masking other negative environmental impacts, like pollution from the slurry or land conversion for feed production in chicken farming, which can have a low carbon footprint in comparison with pasture-fed beef, the report states.

It also highlights the importance of looking at a wider range of measures to evaluate the environmental impact of all aspects of food production, taking account of pressures on land, water, and biodiversity before drawing conclusions.

Environmental Impact And Edible Bugs, Q&A With EarthTalk

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Is switching out meat for edible bugs to satisfy our protein needs a viable way to ratchet down our carbon emissions and overall environmental impact?
—J. Cruz., Gary, IN

It’s true that humans’ affinity for meat—especially beef, lamb, pork and to a lesser extent chicken—takes a huge toll on the environment given the resources and emissions expended to rear and then transport it to market. In fact, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that raising livestock accounts for some 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally. Meanwhile, on the consumption side, cutting meat out of our diets is perhaps the most efficient way we can slash our personal carbon footprints. But eating only vegetables can make it hard to get enough protein, and that’s where bugs—with half or more of their body weight consisting of proteins—could play an important role in providing us with enough sustenance to feed ourselves, especially as our population surges to nine billion by 2050.

Proponents of eating bugs argue that emissions from so-called “insect farming”—that is, growing bugs for the express purpose of feeding humans and/or animals with them—is a much more energy- and emissions-efficient way to produce protein than traditional forms of livestock agriculture.

If we bartered beef, pork or chicken for a handful of insects, the environmental impact of our animal-protein intake would drop dramatically .

Insects are especially effective at converting their food because they’re cold-blooded and therefore waste less energy to keep warm.”

—David Suzuki, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki

If you’re curious about edible insects, why not try some? Lewiston, Maine-based EdibleInsects.com ships edible insects coast to coast. UK-based PureGym is a big proponent of deriving dietary protein from insects, and offers several seemingly tasty recipes on its website and YouTube channel. Creamy Mealworm and Coconut Noodles, anyone?

Some environmentalists are opting to meet their dietary protein needs by eating bugs—like this Thai green curry crickets dish—instead of meat. Credit: Flavio Ensiki, FlickrCC.

Of course, just because crickets, ants, cockroaches and worms are becoming more common as food delicacies doesn’t mean that eating them is new for humans. The FAO points out in its “Edible Insects” report that while bugs have always been part of human diets, recent innovations in so-called “mass-rearing systems” mean we can produce a lot more insect-based protein than we used to: “Insects offer a significant opportunity to merge traditional knowledge and modern science in both developed and developing countries.”

Suzuki couldn’t agree more: “Emerging entotechnologies (from the Greek root entomo, for ‘insect’) bring together applications that focus on what insects do best.” For instance, food waste or agricultural residue is fed to fly larvae, which in turn is used as a meat-free but protein-rich livestock feed. “[L]arvae have voracious appetites for fruit and vegetable residues and could help improve the way we handle…organic waste,” reports Suzuki. “It’s a way to give a second life to stale food, rather than sending it to compost bins or biogas plants.”

“Considering that nearly 45 percent of fruit and vegetables produced worldwide is wasted, this is not a fringe idea,” says Suzuki. “After feeding the hungry with the highest quality unsold portions of our food, we could feed our breeding animals with insects raised on organic residues from grocery stores and restaurant kitchens.”

CONTACTS: David Suzuki’s “Save The Planet: Eat An Insect,” FAO’s “Edible Insects,” PureGym.

EarthTalk® is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk. Send questions to: question@earthtalk.org.