Monday 3rd December 7.30pm Carnivores or Vegans: who’s saving the planet?
Can a meat-free diet reduce one person's impact on the environment even more than giving up their car or forgoing several plane trips a year, or would a vegan diet destroy the British countryside as we know it? With animal emissions accounting for 18% of total greenhouse gases, what is the future for meat eaters, meat producers and the British countryside?''
Speakers included Martin Tebbutt of Boathouse Organics, livestock farmer, Michael Fordham, Tony Wardle of Vegetarian campaign group, Viva! And Craig Sams, chair of The Soil Association. Chaired by Joyce Edmond Smith of Brighton and Hove Council’s Sustainability Commission.
Joyce Edmond Smith reminded us that when measuring the carbon footprint of B&H, the food sector was the largest single impact. Internationally, it measures 18% of the carbon footprint, dwarfing transport at 3%.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in its report in 2005 that the environmental impact of livestock was so significant that it had to be addressed urgently.
Michael Fordham
Local extensive livestock farmer
MF explained how his 1000 acres of arable/beef had been scaled back after the floods in 2000 to 700 acres of prime Aberdeen Angus beef and crops purely for human consumption.
He has learnt from the crisis and prides himself on excellent animal husbandry: his cattle are fed on home-grown forage and the calves stay with their mothers until they are weaned at 9 months and taken to slaughter at 18-30 months at the local abattoir in Heathfield.
He tries to keep his business as local and sustainable as possible. The farm shop which was set up as a result of the floods, employs local people and he says that he enjoys the work much more now that it is more of a face to face, personal business involving the local community.
He provides a service to local producers, farmers markets and catering businesses and has won the Viva Lewes prize for his sausages!
Craig Sams
Chair of the Soil Association until Oct this year
Owns Judges organic Bakery in Hastings
When his grandparents were farming in Nebraska in the 1880s, the rich topsoil was 12 ft deep 50% of which was composed of carbon. Over the years, draught animals were replaced by tractors until the dustbowl episode of the 1930s showed how the topsoil had been depleted and turned into CO2. Now that soil is 3 ft deep or less.
"We stand, in most places on earth, only six inches from desolation, for that is the thickness of the topsoil layer upon which the entire life of the planet depends." R Neil Sampson, Farmland or wasteland, Rodale Press, 1981.
Nearly half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to date have come from agriculture. Animals have become intensively farmed and we use more land to feed livestock than feeding ourselves.
Agriculture can be part of the solution though. The European Climate Exchange is growing rapidly. This reflects the fact that from 2008 there will a legal requirement on major industries in Europe to either reduce emissions or to buy offsets from others who have. Farmers will want to sell into this market if they can show they are reducing emissions. This will mean that industrial farming will eventually have to pay for its extra emissions which will force farmers to think about greenhouse gas when they decide how to farm. Farmers will farm with carbon in mind
Organic farming emits approximately 50% fewer emissions than non-organic.
Stern report said that carbon in soil is valuable; farmers are the most obvious carbon capturers. If you add the cost to future generations of carbon emitted today to the value of carbon in the soil as a retainer of plant nutrients and water the real value of a tonne of carbon locked up in the soil is £170. At the moment the market value is only £18, so there’s a way to go, but eventually the market price will reflect reality. The embedded cost of emissions will be costed into the price of farm produce. Dairy/meat costs will go up and we’ll tend to spend our food budge on more fruit , vegetables and wholegrains. This is the healthy eating advice of successive governments for the past 30 years.
Economic imperative is already making impact: Tesco is already working with Liverpool University to measure the carbon footprint of 20 products. The Carbon Trust is working with the British Standards Institute for a wider standard that can apply to all activity. It won’t be long before our Carbon footprint will become taxable.
Nitrate fertilisers are made from oil and with peak oil, farmers will be forced to rethink. Feed costs will also go up. Industrial farming increases carbon emission of soil
Carbon farming is the future.
We’re entering an age of peak soil. There are no undiscovered reserves of soil lurking under the Saudi Arabian desert. We have to include agriculture in the battle against Greenhouse gases.
Martin Tebbutt
Boathouse Organic Butcher
Mixed organic farm and farm shop
He chose to be organic because of the sustainability debate We’re the problem; we have to be responsible for the solution. What happens in a crisis? how hard is it to feed your family? Personal experience changed his mindset when water and electricity was cut off (floods?)
We can look around the world to find examples of low energy farming Soil is a living organism Agriculture can be part of the solution
Tony Wardle
Viva! Vegetarian campaign
We can’t have continuous growth when reserves are limited Consumption is at the heart of the problem Centre of the crisis is livestock production Desertification has led to loss of biodiversity acidification of the oceans from rising levels of Co2 We’re trashing complex eco systems without a thought in our quest for food UN FAO 2006 report strips away all the last excuses yet deforestation in Amazon and other forests is still going on.
You need 17kg of fodder for 1kg of meat product. Animals demand 70% of our land for feed. There is no more land available.
Not just about emissions from animals – it’s also about the tramping of the soil by animal hooves which releases carbon. Also about the superbugs which agriculture promotes, acid rain and ozone depletion.
Our profit motive will speed us towards carbon trading. Farming will be dictated by this Subsidisation of agriculture is the problem. The lobbying of the meat and dairy industry is at the root – and can be part of the solution if shown where the money is.
Peak oil future: animal fat is responsible for health issues such as heart disease and cancers. NHS won’t be able to cope without oil. WHO report 1990 said that most degenerative disease is promoted by meat and dairy
Questions:
What about lowlands in Sussex which are only useful for sheep? (Tony Wardle - land would revert back to forest and capture carbon) We haven’t got enough land to feed ourselves locally without intensive farming
Answers:
• We have to eat much less meat. Currently eating meat every day. 2/5 of the world’s grain is being used to feed animals – that’s equivalent of the entire Chinese grain production. We’ve lost our way • Carbon farming could be part of the answer. Europe is leading the way on carbon farming and trading. We need to reduce our emissions by 80% so let’s learn from Germany etc • Engage the big players like Monsanto in the answer. Too powerful to be an enemy
• In the West, cost of animal feed has been artificially low because of subsidies. Lose the subsidies and let the market decide • Junk food is the result of the subsidies - corn and soya bean as animal fodder = ½ of American farming costs because of market for cheap beef • Rationing • Phase out fertilisers (peak oil imperative) • Price up quality meat • Get rid of intensive farming • Legislate • Go back to forestation • Become vegan – plant based diet requires a quarter of land • Go organic
Craig Sams' speech
Lewes Transition Town Debate
When we talk about meat we are talking about carbon – the process by which meat is made starts with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and a series of chemical processes using nitrogen and oxygen that give us protein, fat and carbohydrates. Everything on this planet is conjured out of thin air, with help from water and sunshine.
I was born on a farm in Nebraska.
In the 1880s, when my great grandfather first ploughed the prairie the topsoil was 12 feet deep. Now it’s less than 3 feet deep and shrinking. Every tonne of soil that he ploughed contained about 50 % carbon and 5 percent nitrogen. When a tonne of soil disappeared it produced 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Then there was also nitrous oxide gas equivalent to another 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s 33 tonnes for every tonne of soil.
And that was with horsepower
Things really picked up in the 1930s with oil at 10 cents a barrel and tractors replacing horses, production went up and soil erosion went crazy.
The result was the Dust Bowl
Half of all the world’s greenhouse gas emissions from 1850 to 1990 came from agricultural activity. Most of that was clearing vast areas of the Midwestern prairies, the Argentine Pampas and the interior of Australia for livestock rearing. Originally it was for grazing stock, now the animals are confined tightly so that as much land as possible can be used to grow crops to feed them, increasing the rate of emission of greenhouse gases.
Now process is being repeated in China, India, and soon, Africa.
We need to reverse this process.
There are 1.5 billion hectares of arable land on the planet and if you just saved one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions per year that would give us a 1.5 billion tonnes emission reduction. If you went further and instituted practices that captured and locked carbon in the soil then you would have another 1.5 billion tonnes, giving a total of 3 billion tonnes per year of carbon reduction. That would cover more than half of the 80% emissions reductions we need to stabilise our climate.
Agriculture has always been a big part of the problem. It has more potential than any other industry to be the biggest part of the solution. This is because its foundation is the natural mechanism by which carbon dioxide gas is turned into organic matter.
In January 2008 the second stage of the EU’s compliance with Kyoto takes effect. We move from a voluntary compliance with emissions reductions targets to compulsory compliance.
The concrete, steel, glass, aluminium, energy, plastics and oil refining industries will have to make reductions to comply with the agreed emissions reductions.
Any company in those industries that fails to reduce enough will have to buy emissions reductions from someone who has reduced by more than enough.
At the moment those certified emissions reductions only cost €23. If you haven’t purchased them then from January 2008 you have to pay a fine of €100 per tonne for any shortfall.
On Friday shares in the European Climate Exchange soared 30% in value from £9 to £12 per share.
This is because Invesco – the $10 billion investment fund bought 29% of its shares – they are taking it seriously. So must we.
With a January 2008 deadline and already profitable in the voluntary phase of Kyoto compliance that ends on December 31st, the soaring price of Climate Exchange shares indicates that a huge growth in demand for certified emissions reductions is anticipated.
Like the organic market, the carbon offset market was once entirely voluntary until governments eventually caught up and legislated for a level playing field.
What this shows is that some people don’t mind paying more for stuff they know will help to save the planet – but everyone prefers it when the load is shared more equally.
The market for greenhouse gas offsets will reward companies that can reduce their emissions and the WTO have already ruled that it is acceptable for Europe to impose tariffs on imports from countries that do not reduce their emissions comparably. So the EU will tax imports, thereby exporting carbon compliance.
Agriculture can and must play a huge role in this process
At this time it is on the outside, because agriculture knows what would happen. They would have to pay a substantial price to carry on emitting greenhouse gases at the high levels that typify industrial agriculture.
Farmers have no commitment to any particular product or even any particular way of farming. Their primary commitment is to make a living from owning or renting a land holding. If raising livestock pays, then they’ll raise livestock. If growing barley pays, they’ll grow barley. They respond to price signals.
When those price signals include a consideration of greenhouse gas emissions then farmers will farm with carbon in mind. As long as they don’t have to worry about it they won’t. They have enough to worry about as it is with the weather, fickle markets, foot and mouth and avian flu, to name just a few.
So what would happen if farming had to help with the greenhouse gas reductions that our leaders are about to commit to in Bali this week and next?
In most cases, organic farming emits substantially lower levels of greenhouse gas, on average about half the level of non organic farming.
If agriculture had to do its bit there would be strong pressure to go organic. Not just organic, but carbon-conscious organic.
Of all the carbon capture and storage technologies on the planet, none can ever hope to be more efficient than photosynthesis, because it harnesses the unlimited energy of the sun and uses abundant free inputs like carbon dioxide and water. It’s absurdly cheap and has been tested for millions of years. Agriculture is about capturing carbon and converting it into food. All carbohydrates, proteins and fats are carbon-based molecules that would not exist without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A farmer is constantly balancing input costs and output revenues.
If the cost of inputs exceeds the value of outputs, then the farmer goes bankrupt.
In the carbon economy, the cost of carbon dioxide inputs will be free and the reward for carbon that is permanently removed from the atmosphere by plants will be appreciable.
How appreciable?
Nicholas Stern in last year’s Stern report put the cost to the next generation of every tonne of carbon emitted today at £70. Carbon in the soil, because it retains nutrients and water, has an estimated value of £100 per tonne, because it reduces nitrate and irrigation costs by that amount.
If farmers got £170 for every tonne of carbon that they could sequester then they would see carbon as their primary product. We’re moving in that direction.
When that happens the embedded costs of carbon, nitrous oxide and methane would have to costed into the final price of animal products and dairy products and other farm produce.
The price of food will reflect this and people will respond by eating more wholegrains and vegetables and they will reduce their consumption of meat, dairy products and refined and processed foods.
This of course is what government health advice has been urging for the past 30 years.
All farmers will seek to optimise their income by harvesting carbon and food crops in whatever proportions are most profitable. The main point is that the greenhouse gas cost of every food will be incorporated into its price.
Right now the Carbon Trust and the British Standards Institute are busy developing robust measurements that will be universally applicable to all food and farming products.
Tesco have funded a major project at Liverpool University to develop a carbon footprinting standard that can be adopted by the food industry worldwide.
Soon calculating greenhouse gas emissions and reductions will be as easy as calculating your VAT.
When food has to play by the same rules as concrete, steel, aluminium and glass what will we see?
In an economy where greenhouse gas emissions are paid for by the emitter we will see the following
1. Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas 300 times worse than Carbon dioxide, it comes from nitrate fertilisers. The cost of nitrates is already going up in line with oil prices. So farmers who can reduce nitrate save on fertiliser bills and on the cost of their greenhouse gas emissions. Feed costs will go up and with it the price of meat and dairy products.
2. Methane from cattles burps and farts is a greenhouse gas 20 times worse than Carbon dioxide, so raising livestock will have an added methane cost that will be built into every steak and every pint of milk.
3. Industrial farming reduces the carbon content of the soil, organic farming increases it. This will swing the cost equation in favour of organic farming, whether a farmer is growing for human consumption or animal feed
4. Although biofuels are a con, there are opportunities for what I call ‘carbon farming’ that will encourage farmers to grow non-food crops that are high in organic matter. These will have a similar to impact to biofuels, in raising the cost of animal feeds and meat.
Historically animals would graze only on land that wasn’t suitable for growing crops and would feed, particularly in the case of pigs and chickens, on kitchen scraps and agricultural waste.
The economics of farming are heading in that direction again.
When farmers see what the opportunities are for selling carbon offsets they will follow the money.
The Transition Towns Movement is predicated on the concept of Peak Oil. We can all argue about whether and when the oil supply is going to dry up, and there are alternative sources that become cost effective as energy prices rise.
No soil scientist disagrees that we passed the point of Peak Soil several decades ago and every year we lose more soil than we gain by cutting down forests. There are no hidden undiscovered reserves of soil lurking under the Saudi Arabian desert, that’s for sure.
If we accept the science of climate change then there is no excuse for not including agriculture in the equation. That will transform the farming economics of the future.
We are at war with an enemy, greenhouse gas, that is far more threatening than terrorists or jumped up dictators. We can win it and farming is our most powerful weapon. If we use it to its full effect then the black and white question of carnivore versus vegan will morph into the less contentious grey area of how much or how little meat we eat and whether it is grown organically and in a carbon aware way or not.
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