THE ONLY WAY WE CAN FEED A LARGE POPULATION, IS THROUGH A SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM THAT IS NOT DEPLETING THE VERY RESERVES THAT GROW OUR FOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE. CAROLINE
Sustainable Meat
On the subject of agriculture and food, be careful not to underestimate the vested interest of enormous companies in keeping agriculture and food production industrialised. Everything from seed supply, to monopolising the shelves in a supermarket, is worth a lot of money to some of the players in these industries.
Huge marketing budgets help maintain the notion that we need GM, factory farms and space age technology to be able to deliver a growing populations food needs.
Well actually that is where (in my opinion) they are wrong. And it’s not just ‘little hill billy me’ either, there is a growing choir of credible expert voices singing the same song.
It is true that we are likely to have to feed approximately 9 Billion mouths in the next couple of decades. But to use the US as an example, it takes 41 tonnes of plant protein to produce 7 million tonnes of animal protein. Does this make sense! AND in doing this it uses vast quantities of fossil fuel, water and has a huge detrimental effect on the environment.
Grass land grows food for animals all year round, the manure from the animal, naturally fertilises the soil with no transportation or storage required, the grass grows deep roots so is resistant to drought and flood. Healthy soil grows deeper and richer by taking atmospheric carbon and locking it down in the ground which in turn grows more nutrient dense food for the animal to grazing upon. Some fields are cultivated to produce vegetables and cereal grain for human consumption and are naturally fertile, these crops are rotated to maintain a natural fertility minimal loss of carbon.
Factory farming is, in essence, moving the animals from a given area of grassland and putting them in a shed. You need to feed the animals and get them fat quick, so you plough the pasture and grow a crop, each year the soil depletes and carbon is released into the atmosphere. The poor soil is vulnerable to flooding and drought and there is a huge amount of work, money, chemicals and fossil fuel required to sow the seed, kill the weeds, harvest the crop, dry, store and feed this to the animals. The animals are not really designed to eat this stuff and get sick, so we give them anti biotic’s to prevent this. The manure is collected in huge tanks causing toxic gas and potential contamination and is then transported miles to spread back onto fields.
But can we produce enough food from a pasture based system?
Well this is hard to prove or disprove and it depends on what people want to or should eat, how much they eat and how much we waste.
In the USA 35 Million cattle are slaughtered every year for food. It is estimated that in the past, the Great Planes of North America alone supported up to 75 million bison (twice the weight of a beef steer), the bison would have co-existed with millions of other mammals and thrived on a diverse resilient eco system. This area alone could easily produce more than enough healthy 100% grass fed meat for the US population’s current requirements.
And do we require all that food anyway? Well, it’s a bit of a political in-correct 'hot potato', but the answer is NO.
Americans eat approximately 815 billion calories a day, 200 billion more than needed to stay healthy, this is enough to feed 80 million people!
There are nearly one billion malnourished people in the world, but the approximately 40 million tonnes of food wasted by US households, retailers and food services each year would be enough to satisfy the hunger of every one of them.
I think the question should be, 'can we afford not to feed the world on a pasture based system?'
The State of Iowa has lost one half of its top soil in 150 years of farming, this soil took thousands of years to form.
Water is a finite resource and with population growth will have to be managed VERY carefully. Industrialised agriculture accounts for 87% of fresh water consumed each year, livestock themselves only drink 1.3% of this.
If a carefully considered system of crop and pasture rotation was adopted, un-cultivatable land was grazed by meat animals and people in he western western world ate only what their bodies needed, perhaps we could feed the world and reverse climate change in the process!
THE ONLY WAY WE CAN FEED A LARGE POPULATION, IS THROUGH A SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM THAT IS NOT DEPLETING THE VERY RESERVES THAT GROW OUR FOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE.
On the subject of agriculture and food, be careful not to underestimate the vested interest of enormous companies in keeping agriculture and food production industrialised. Everything from seed supply, to monopolising the shelves in a supermarket, is worth a lot of money to some of the players in these industries.
Huge marketing budgets help maintain the notion that we need GM, factory farms and space age technology to be able to deliver a growing populations food needs.
Well actually that is where (in my opinion) they are wrong. And it’s not just ‘little hill billy me’ either, there is a growing choir of credible expert voices singing the same song.
It is true that we are likely to have to feed approximately 9 Billion mouths in the next couple of decades. But to use the US as an example, it takes 41 tonnes of plant protein to produce 7 million tonnes of animal protein. Does this make sense! AND in doing this it uses vast quantities of fossil fuel, water and has a huge detrimental effect on the environment.
Grass land grows food for animals all year round, the manure from the animal, naturally fertilises the soil with no transportation or storage required, the grass grows deep roots so is resistant to drought and flood. Healthy soil grows deeper and richer by taking atmospheric carbon and locking it down in the ground which in turn grows more nutrient dense food for the animal to grazing upon. Some fields are cultivated to produce vegetables and cereal grain for human consumption and are naturally fertile, these crops are rotated to maintain a natural fertility minimal loss of carbon.
Factory farming is, in essence, moving the animals from a given area of grassland and putting them in a shed. You need to feed the animals and get them fat quick, so you plough the pasture and grow a crop, each year the soil depletes and carbon is released into the atmosphere. The poor soil is vulnerable to flooding and drought and there is a huge amount of work, money, chemicals and fossil fuel required to sow the seed, kill the weeds, harvest the crop, dry, store and feed this to the animals. The animals are not really designed to eat this stuff and get sick, so we give them anti biotic’s to prevent this. The manure is collected in huge tanks causing toxic gas and potential contamination and is then transported miles to spread back onto fields.
But can we produce enough food from a pasture based system?
Well this is hard to prove or disprove and it depends on what people want to or should eat, how much they eat and how much we waste.
In the USA 35 Million cattle are slaughtered every year for food. It is estimated that in the past, the Great Planes of North America alone supported up to 75 million bison (twice the weight of a beef steer), the bison would have co-existed with millions of other mammals and thrived on a diverse resilient eco system. This area alone could easily produce more than enough healthy 100% grass fed meat for the US population’s current requirements.
And do we require all that food anyway? Well, it’s a bit of a political in-correct 'hot potato', but the answer is NO.
Americans eat approximately 815 billion calories a day, 200 billion more than needed to stay healthy, this is enough to feed 80 million people!
There are nearly one billion malnourished people in the world, but the approximately 40 million tonnes of food wasted by US households, retailers and food services each year would be enough to satisfy the hunger of every one of them.
I think the question should be, 'can we afford not to feed the world on a pasture based system?'
The State of Iowa has lost one half of its top soil in 150 years of farming, this soil took thousands of years to form.
Water is a finite resource and with population growth will have to be managed VERY carefully. Industrialised agriculture accounts for 87% of fresh water consumed each year, livestock themselves only drink 1.3% of this.
If a carefully considered system of crop and pasture rotation was adopted, un-cultivatable land was grazed by meat animals and people in he western western world ate only what their bodies needed, perhaps we could feed the world and reverse climate change in the process!
THE ONLY WAY WE CAN FEED A LARGE POPULATION, IS THROUGH A SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM THAT IS NOT DEPLETING THE VERY RESERVES THAT GROW OUR FOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE.