“I Couldn’t Give Up Meat For Environmental Reasons” - From A Farmer's Perspective
What we eat and where it comes from seems to have become a much more popular topic of conversation in the last few years. Many of my friends have become vegetarian or vegan recently, often for environmental reasons. “We watched the new BBC documentary on how bad meat is for the environment” is a phrase I’ve heard many times.
Personally, I am not convinced.
Now don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly admire people who switch to a vegan diet. They are doing what they think is best to help save our world, and for that I am very grateful. But I don’t think that cutting meat out entirely is always that environmentally friendly. Cutting down on meat, yes. Cutting meat out? I don’t think so. And here is why.
Let’s imagine for a second that everyone is living a vegan lifestyle and there is no need for livestock. No farmers would be able to afford to keep farm animals just as pets and so there would be very few cattle or sheep around anymore. They couldn’t be left to roam the countryside because they would damage the crops that we would desperately be trying to grow to feed an increasing population. Any permanent pasture would be ploughed up and chemically fertilised to grow crops, because you can’t make food from grass without grazing animals. More hedgerows would be ripped out so that we could fit bigger machinery into the fields to make production more efficient. This would result in the eradication of many local species which rely on permanent grass fields and hedgerows to survive, such as hedgehogs, moles, lapwing birds and many more.
Instead of cultivating all the permanent pasture in the UK, we could just import more food from abroad, but this would only displace all the same problems to other countries where there are fewer laws protecting the environment. According to DEFRA, in 2016 UK food chain consumption was responsible for over 600 million tonnes of greenhouse gas production; over 350 of which was associated with imports.
Furthermore, many of the protein alternatives, such as soya, lentils, chickpeas and peanuts don’t grow well in the UK because they need a much warmer climate to grow. This means we have to import all the items we consume, or alternatively grow them in very energy intense, unnatural conditions. Growing 500g of chickpeas in America may only produce 330g of carbon but the chickpeas still have to be shipped here on boats that use dirty fuel and produce large quantities of GHG emissions.
Anyway, I digress. Let’s talk about shit. Livestock manure is a fantastically important resource produced by all livestock. Almost all farm manure (over 95 million m2 annually) is spread back onto crop fields to increase the nutrient content and the organic matter of the soil and without it, the soil suffers. More organic matter in soil creates a better structure, improving water infiltration and storage, as well as improving crop development as roots can penetrate deeper into the soil. The variety of different nutrients available from livestock manure also encourages different species of plants to grow and helps improve the habitat for the rare species.
But, in our hypothetical situation no more livestock would mean no more livestock manure, and we can’t use human manure or that would increase the risk of disease; so we would have to increase the amount of chemical fertiliser that we use. Even more so if we try to grow crops that aren’t suited to the UK climate, like avocados, peanuts, or soya. Currently we use 1.7 million tonnes of chemical fertilisers annually. If we didn’t use farmyard manure alongside the fertiliser then that would increase by up to a third. We are already running out of phosphorous (a major component of artificial fertiliser) faster than any other resource. According to Carpenter and Bennett, if we continue to use phosphorous at the current increasing rate we will suffer global shortages by 2040.
On a more positive note, livestock farming (and the use of permanent pasture) can actually do lots to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Grass fields are incredibly effective at reducing the impacts of increased flooding; absorbing and retaining more water upstream so that the towns and cities downstream won’t be flooded. They can also be used to encourage the habitation and population growth of endangered creatures, by maintaining their habitats. Permanent pasture soils are rarely disturbed so have the ability to absorb and store HUGE amounts of carbon, especially when compared to soils in a crop field which are regularly disturbed when crops are planted.
But, farmers are unable change their farming methods to be the most environmentally sustainable if there is no market for it. The rise of veganism has shown that the consumers have the power to create a more diverse and environmentally friendly market, so I suggest that the best way to help protect our local environment is to buy locally sourced produce, both meat and vegetables, that have been grown using sustainable practices. And if you’re not sure whether your source of meat is environmentally sustainable, just ask! All meat produced in the EU (Or the UK now…) has an EC code which specifies both where it was produced and the regulations adhered to while doing so. Some big supermarkets even specify who produced it, and if you source your meat from a butcher then they are likely to know exactly how the meat was produced too. So there you have it. Enjoy your meat, but please just make sure it is well sourced.
Written by Maddie Pow
Maddie lives and works on her family farm on the outskirts of Bath. In her spare time she does a bit more farming, and a bit more. But she equally enjoys spending her evenings sitting by the telly with a glass of wine doing some knitting. Or perhaps baking some sour dough. If you want to know more about British farming you can follow her Instagram @livinginwellies