Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report: Livestock a major threat to environment

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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

Livestock a major threat to environment

Remedies urgently needed

29 November 2006, Rome - Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions,

rearing cattle or driving cars?

 

Surprise!

 

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and

Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more

greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent - 18 percent -

than transport. It is also a major source of land and water

degradation.

 

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO's Livestock Information and

Policy Branch and senior author of the report: " Livestock are one of

the most significant contributors to today's most serious

environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the

situation. "

 

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy

products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than

double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in

2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million

tonnes.

 

Long shadow

 

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other

agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion

people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural

output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are

also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source

of organic fertilizer for their crops.

 

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according

to the FAO report, Livestock's Long Shadow -Environmental Issues and

Options. " The environmental costs per unit of livestock production

must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening

beyond its present level, " it warns.

 

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the

livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from

human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even

more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of

human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming

Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

 

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced

methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by

the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which

contributes significantly to acid rain.

 

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface,

mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global

arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes.

As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver

of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example,

some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over

to grazing.

 

Land and water

 

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about

20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing,

compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands

where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management

contribute to advancing desertification.

 

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the

earth's increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other

things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of

coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes,

antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and

the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing

disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below

ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn

for the production of feed.

 

Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous

and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to

biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

 

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all

terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock's presence in vast tracts of

land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity

loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in

decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

 

Remedies

 

The report, which was produced with the support of the

multi-institutional Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD)

Initiative, proposes explicitly to consider these environmental costs

and suggests a number of ways of remedying the situation, including:

 

Land degradation - controlling access and removing obstacles to

mobility on common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods and

silvopastoralism, together with controlled livestock exclusion from

sensitive areas; payment schemes for environmental services in

livestock-based land use to help reduce and reverse land degradation.

 

Atmosphere and climate - increasing the efficiency of livestock

production and feed crop agriculture. Improving animals' diets to

reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and

setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure.

 

Water - improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Introducing

full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage

large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.

 

These and related questions are the focus of discussions between FAO

and its partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock

production at global consultations in Bangkok this week. These

discussions also include the substantial public health risks related

to the rapid livestock sector growth as, increasingly, animal

diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector growth can also

lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets.

 

Contact:

Christopher Matthews

Media Relations, FAO

christopher.matthews

(+39) 06 570 53762

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