Ethics of eating meat

Meat matters

Driving and flying are bad for the environment. That message has been well and truly driven home to consumers. But transport isn't the worst carbon culprit: intensive animal-rearing, and associated transport costs, is. According to a report by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), intensive animal rearing accounts for 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while transport of meat accounts for 13 per cent. Consequently, environmentalists are urging consumers to think hard about what they eat, particularly meat. BBC Food investigates the issues and ethics of meat-eating.

The environmental impact

In late 2008 Dr Rajendra Pachauri, a vegetarian and chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recommended that consumers scale down on meat-eating to cut greenhouse gas emissions, starting by giving it up for just one meal a week. His speech put steak and chops' contribution to global warming under the spotlight.

Production of meat and dairy has significantly more impact on the environment than growing vegetables, grains and other plant foods does. The UNFAO estimates that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. That's more than all of the world's air and road transport combined.

A third of the world's cereal harvest and 90 per cent of soya is grown for animal feed. Soya imports now account for 40 per cent of animal protein feed in the UK, largely because animals require a great deal of feed to turn them into food for humans. It takes up to10kg of cattle feed to produce just one kilogram of beef, 4-5kg of grain to produce a kilogram of pork and 2-3kg of grain for one kilogram of chicken.

Livestock-rearing has also contributed to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, as forests have been cleared to make way for cattle. More than two-thirds of now-deforested Amazon Basin land is taken up by cattle grazing. Much of the rest of the deforested Amazon Basin has been given over to growing animal feed, particularly soya. In December 2008, Friends of the Earth launched its Food Chain Campaign to demonstrate to consumers how an appetite for steaks and cheese in Britain is linked to soya farming in South America.

The beef with beef

Beef has an especially jumbo hoof-print. One calculation by the Animal Science Journal estimates that carbon dioxide emissions from producing a single kilogram of beef are comparable to driving a car more than 250km (155 miles). Then there's the greenhouse gas - 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - that cows emit. In Britain, the methane given off by 10 million cows accounts for eight per cent of the country's greenhouse gases, calculates the Food Climate Research Network.

Transporting feed to the millions of factory-farmed pigs and chickens, added to the cost of housing and heating them, also has an environmental impact. Moving the meat around and refrigerating it to keep it fresh creates yet more greenhouse gas emissions. And back on the farms, the waste that comes from rearing animals on an industrial scale can pollute soil and water systems.

Meat production is a drain on water supplies too. Again, beef scores worst. According to Waterwise, the not-for-profit group focused on decreasing water consumption in the UK, it takes 17 times as much water to produce a kilogram of beef as it does to grow a kilogram of maize. Put another way, 13 litres are needed to grow one tomato, 200 litres go into a 200ml glass of milk and it takes 2,400 litres of water to produce a 150g hamburger. These are examples of 'water footprints' - the amount of fresh, and increasingly scarce, water (not including rain) it takes to produce food.

Increased consumption

British consumers are eating more meat than ever - 50 per cent more than in the 1960s. According to the UNFAO's report 'Livestock's Long Shadow', Europeans and the even more meat-minded Americans aren't the only ones eating more. Since the 1970s meat consumption in developing countries has more than doubled, although, with global average meat consumption at 100g per person a day, rich countries are tipping the scales at 200-250g while poorer ones are lucky to get 20-25g, revealed a Lancet report. As the world's population grows, meat consumption is expected to double within the next 50 years.

The case for eating meat

So that's the case for the prosecution. But, in the unlikely event of a mass overnight, world-wide conversion to vegetarianism, the impact on economies and environments would nonetheless be devastating.

The numerous breeds reared by humans ensures the maintenance of biodiversity, and animals can be an important part of a holistic farming system: they produce manure, are used for traction and transport in developing countries and they eat the parts of crops that humans can't. Hides and bones are used to make goods that would otherwise have to be manufactured from man-made materials. At least one billion people in the world are thought to depend on livestock for their livelihoods.

And, ethically, why shouldn’t people in poorer countries have the opportunity of developing their economies through livestock production as industrialised countries have done, and have the chance to enjoy more meat in their diet?

In better-off countries the meat-eating majority have no moral or environmental objections to being responsible carnivores. Humans are naturally omnivorous and farm animals have long been an integral part of the ecosystem and landscape. Many would argue that humans have a responsibility to the domesticated breeds that depend on humans for survival.

Meat in moderation

Yet it's not just vegetarians urging people to eat less meat. Dr John Powles of Cambridge University’s Department of Public Health and Primary Care believes that the only way to prevent livestock contributing to global warming is for people in rich countries to cut down on meat so that those in developing countries can have more.

Compassion in World Farming's campaign to end factory farming will only succeed if consumers make a conscious decision to eat less meat. "There's no way that animal welfare can be catered for if global meat consumption keeps growing," explains Joyce D'Silva, the charity's ambassador. "The environmental and human health arguments for eating less meat are very strong, and we believe we should eat less meat in the Western world and buy higher welfare meat."

Dr Tom MacMillan of the Food Ethics Council agrees: "The challenge is not only to eat less, but also to eat better meat - produced in more humane and environmentally sound production systems."

If the average UK household bought half as much meat, according to CIWF’s calculations, carbon emissions would be cut by more than if we used our cars half as much. Is it really such a sacrifice to cut out a chop or a chicken breast here and there to decrease our animal intake to 500g of meat and 1 litre of milk or 100g of cheese per week, if it means, in the words of CIWF's D'Silva, "healthier people, happier animals and a healthier planet"?

March 2009