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The staggering cost of rising world meat production
By Mark Bittman
Published: Monday, January 28, 2008
A sea change in the consumption of a resource that people take for granted may be in store: something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn't oil.
It's meat.
The two commodities have a great deal in common: Like oil, meat receives government subsidies in the U.S. marketplace. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally, like oil, meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases and becomes increasingly visible.
Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world's tropical rain forests.
Last week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles, or 320,000 hectares, were lost.
The world's total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the past 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, a projection that one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, said was resulting in a "relentless growth in livestock production."
Americans eat about the same amount of meat daily as they have for some time, about 8 ounces, or 230 grams, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world's population, Americans grow and kill nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world's total.
Growing meat uses so many resources that it is a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: An estimated 30 percent of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases - more than transportation does.
To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and Pamela Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would be as if they all switched from a standard sedan - a Camry, say - to the ultra-efficient Prius.
Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 1 kilogram of beef, or 2.2 pounds, is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.
Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means an increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, an increase some experts say will contribute to higher prices.
This will be inconvenient for residents of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the Food and Agricultural Organization.
Though some 800 million people now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This is the case in spite of the inherent inefficiencies: About two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.
The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States - much of which now serves the demand for meat - contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in U.S. rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense if the quantities are small. But the claim that "you've got to eat meat" collapses at the national level, even if the amount of meat Americans ate were not harmful.
Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. Americans each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the U.S. government's recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein.
It is likely that most Americans would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.
What can be done? There is no simple answer. Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would make a difference, too.
"There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat," said Mark Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the private International Food Policy Research Institute.
Then there is technology. Israel and South Korea are among the countries experimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some of the biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with some success, to turn manure into fuel.
Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of "meat without feet" - meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks.
Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as Americans accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it.
Pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half the pork and three-quarters of the chicken.
Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers' becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production.
"When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.," Eshel said, "nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is 'optimal' only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly - even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag - the entire structure of food production will change dramatically."
If price spikes do not change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
Rosegrant said he foresaw "a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption - one like that around cigarettes - emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet."
It would not surprise Eshel if all of this had a real impact. "The good of people's bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned," he said.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet made a similar point.
"There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled," it said. "Both demands are exerted by the same group of people, the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases."
In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers' markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one's notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.
If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It will not be uncommon, but just as surely as the SUV will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.
Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in The New York Times's Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
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Inner-city, multi-storey farming: Genius or dubious?
Farms of the future?
The food industry is one of the great silent polluters on the planet. Whilst oil, chemical and transport industries get blamed for destroying the planet, our ever-growing need for more food is destroying our planet at a far great rate than people think.
Now, I'm not just talking about the meat industry here which, with its masses of livestock, represents 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and uses 30 percent of the Earth's land surface, I'm talking about the more mundane things like transporting the food.
Currently, we import food from all over the world and in some cases, the food generates its own weight in C02 during its journey around the world - such as New Zealand gala apples. Not just that, but despite us producing more and more food for an ever-growing and more indulgent society, a third of the global population is still starving.
With that in mind, multi-storey farms located in the heart of cities have been touted as a wall to minimise land use, reduce emissions from transport and make regions self-sustainable. In recent years, floods, droughts, wildfires and pollution have devastated traditional harvests and in many cases, it is expected to get worse. India's agricultural output for example, is predicted to diminished by 30 percent by the end of the century due to changing rain patterns. Not just that, but mankind is rapidly running out of land to grow crops due to a rapidly growing population. According to the United Nations, the amount of arable land per person decreased from about an acre in 1970 to roughly half an acre in 2000 and is projected to decline to about a third of an acre by 2050.
For these reasons, inner-city farming makes sense. Also known as Vertical Farming, it would see high storey buildings turned into high-rise meadows using the latest hydroponic and aeroponic technologies to cultivate crops. It is also hoped that by using water-and-nutrient solutions or nutrient-laced mist, the entire production would be soil free, therefore enabling the projects to use 90 percent less water than conventional farming.
A vertical farm would also behave like a functional ecosystem, in which waste was recycled and the water used in hydroponics and aeroponics was recaptured by de-humidification and used over and over again. This in turn would lead to less pollution as the CO2 of major cities were absorbed by the abundance of plant-life being grown.
So far, only a few cities have taken the idea seriously. Barcelona has seen proposed plans circulate online of 'hanging gardens' dominating the skyline showing the scale of the idea, whilst a recent article in New York magazine has applauded the idea.
What is clear is that something needs to be done. Last month, the media reported that by 2030, a 'perfect storm' of resource shortages would lead to 8 billion people fighting for food, water and energy. It is therefore essential that we have plans in place to be able to feed the global population as soon as possible.
After all, there has long been a saying that civilisation is three meals away from anarchy.
So Vertical Farming? Genius? Or simply impractical... like solar roads? Either way, it is simply the latest invention in the battle to combat climate change and save the planet resources. For more ideas, click here.
Images from the Arkinet and New York magazine
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Technology Quarterly: Q4 2010
Vertical farming
Does it really stack up?
Agriculture: Growing crops in vertical farms in the heart of cities is said to be a greener way to produce food. But the idea is still unproven
WHEN you run out of land in a crowded city, the solution is obvious: build upwards. This simple trick makes it possible to pack huge numbers of homes and offices into a limited space such as Hong Kong, Manhattan or the City of London. Mankind now faces a similar problem on a global scale. The world's population is expected to increase to 9.1 billion by 2050, according to the UN. Feeding all those people will mean increasing food production by 70%, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, through a combination of higher crop yields and an expansion of the area under cultivation. But the additional land available for cultivation is unevenly distributed, and much of it is suitable for growing only a few crops. So why not create more agricultural land by building upwards?
Such is the thinking behind vertical farming. The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. It would also reduce the spoilage that inevitably occurs along the way, says Dickson Despommier, a professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University in New York who is widely regarded as the progenitor of vertical farming, and whose recently published book, “The Vertical Farm”, is a manifesto for the idea. According to the UN's Population Division, by 2050 around 70% of the world's population will be living in urban areas. So it just makes sense, he says, to move farms closer to where everyone will be living.
Better still, says Dr Despommier, the use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides can be kept to a bare minimum by growing plants indoors in a controlled environment. Soil erosion will not be a problem because the food will be grown hydroponically—in other words, in a solution of minerals dissolved in water. Clever recycling techniques will ensure that only a fraction of the amount of water and nutrients will be needed compared with conventional farming, and there will no problem with agricultural run-off.
A wide variety of designs for vertical farms have been created by architectural firms. (The idea can arguably be traced back as far as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, built around 600BC.) So far, however, the idea remains firmly on the drawing board. Would it really work?
“Without artificial lighting the result will be an uneven crop, as plants closest to the windows are exposed to more sunlight and grow more quickly.”
The necessary technology already exists. The glasshouse industry has more than a century's experience of growing crops indoors in large quantities, says Gene Giacomelli, director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Centre at the University of Arizona in Tucson. It is now possible to tailor the temperature, humidity, lighting, airflow and nutrient conditions to get the best productivity out of plants year round, anywhere in the world, he says. The technology of hydroponics allows almost any kind of plant to be grown in nutrient-rich water, from root crops like radishes and potatoes to fruit such as melons and even cereals like maize.
There are a number of ways to do it, but essentially hydroponics involves suspending plants in a medium—such as gravel, wool or a form of volcanic glass known as perlite—while the roots are immersed in a solution of nutrient-rich water. A constant flow of air keeps the plants bathed in carbon dioxide. Any nutrients and water that are not taken up by the roots can be recycled, rather than being lost into the soil. “You can grow anything with hydroponics,” says Dr Giacomelli.
He and his colleagues have created the South Pole Food Growth Chamber, which has been in operation since 2004. This semi-automated hydroponic facility in Antarctica is used to provide each of the 65 staff of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station with at least one fresh salad a day during the winter months, when supply flights to the station are extremely limited. The chamber has a floor area of 22 square metres and produces a wide range of fruit and vegetables with little more than the occasional topping up of water and nutrients. It does, however, require artificial lighting because the station is without natural daylight for most of the winter.
And that highlights a big potential stumbling-block for vertical farming. In the Antarctic the need to provide artificial light is a small price to pay for fresh food, given the cost of importing it. But elsewhere the cost of powering artificial lights will make indoor farming prohibitively expensive. Even though crops growing in a glass skyscraper will get some natural sunlight during the day, it won't be enough. Without artificial lighting the result will be an uneven crop, as the plants closest to the windows are exposed to more sunlight and grow more quickly, says Peter Head, global leader of planning and sustainable development at Arup, a British engineering firm. “Light has to be very tightly controlled to get uniform production of very high-quality food,” he says.
Indeed, even in today's single-storey glasshouses, artificial lighting is needed to enable year-round production. Thanet Earth, a 90-hectare facility which opened in Kent in 2008 and is the largest such site in Britain—it provides 15% of the British salad crop—requires its own mini power-station to provide its plants with light for 15 hours a day during the winter months. This rather undermines the notion that vertical farming will save energy and cut carbon emissions, notes Mr Head, who has carried out several studies of the idea. Vertical farming will need cheap, renewable energy if it is to work, he says.
Some researchers, such as Ted Caplow, an environmental engineer and founder of New York Sun Works, a non-profit group, argue that even using renewable energy the numbers do not add up. Between 2006 and 2009 Dr Caplow and his colleagues operated the Science Barge, a floating hydroponic greenhouse moored in Manhattan (it has since moved to Yonkers). “It was to investigate what we could do to grow food in the heart of the city with minimal resource-consumption and maximum resource-efficiency,” says Dr Caplow.
The barge used one-tenth as much water as a comparable field farm. There was no agricultural run-off, and chemical pesticides were replaced with natural predators such as ladybirds. Operating all year round, the barge could grow 20 times more than could have been produced by a field of the same size, says Dr Caplow.
Solar panels and wind turbines on the barge meant that it could produce food with near-zero net carbon emissions. But the greenhouses on the barge were only one storey high, so there was not much need for artificial lighting. As soon as you start trying to stack greenhouses on top of each other you run into problems, says Dr Caplow. Based on his experience with the Science Barge, he has devised a rule of thumb: generating enough electricity using solar panels requires an area about 20 times larger than the area being illuminated. For a skyscraper-sized hydroponic farm, that is clearly impractical. Vertical farming will work only if it makes use of natural light, Dr Caplow concludes.
Vertical, but only three metres tall
One idea, developed by Valcent, a vertical-farming firm based in Texas, Vancouver and Cornwall, is to use vertically stacked hydroponic trays that move on rails, to ensure that all plants get an even amount of sunlight. The company already has a 100-square-metre working prototype at Paignton Zoo in Devon, producing rapid-cycle leaf vegetable crops, such as lettuce, for the zoo's animals. The VerticCrop system (pictured) ensures an even distribution of light and air flow, says Dan Caiger-Smith of Valcent. Using energy equivalent to running a desktop computer for ten hours a day it can produce 500,000 lettuces a year, he says. Growing the same crop in fields would require seven times more energy and up to 20 times more land and water.
But VertiCrop uses multiple layers of stacked trays that operate within a single-storey greenhouse, where natural light enters from above, as well as from the sides. So although this boosts productivity, it doesn't help with multi-storey vertical farms. Even if each floor rotates its crops past the windows so that all plants receive an equal amount of natural light, overall they would get less light, and so produce less biomass, says Dr Caplow. He prefers the idea of the “vertically integrated greenhouse”. This idea involves the integration of vertical farms into buildings and offices, with plants growing around the edges of the building, sandwiched between two glass layers and rotating on a conveyor. Shrouding buildings with plants solves the natural-light problem for agriculture, acts as a passive form of climate control for the buildings and makes for a nice view. But the area available is much smaller.
The immediate opportunity may simply be to take advantage of the space available on urban rooftops, says Mr Head, and to pursue urban farming rather than vertical farming. BrightFarms Systems, a commercial offshoot of NYSW, is working with Gotham Greens, another company to emerge from the Science Barge, to create the world's first commercial urban hydroponic farm in Brooklyn. When it opens in 2011, the 15,000 square-foot rooftop facility will produce 30 tonnes of vegetables a year which will be sold in local stores under the Gotham Greens brand name.
Although this is urban hydroponics, not vertical farming, it is a step in the right direction, says Mr Head. “I wouldn't be at all surprised if we saw large retailers with greenhouses on their roofs growing produce for sale in the shop,” he says. A few examples of this have already sprung up. BrightFarms, for example, together with a firm called Better Food Solutions, began constructing a large single-storey glasshouse on the roof of a big supermarket in October. The supermarket agrees to buy the produce and owns the farm, while Better Food Solutions builds it and runs it. The first fruit and vegetables are expected to go on sale in early 2011.
It is unclear how competitive this will be. Rooftop farming may not be able to compete with other suppliers in a global market unless people are prepared to pay a premium for fresh, local food, says Mr Head. And it is much less glamorous than the grand vision of crops being produced in soaring green towers of glass. But, for the time being, this more down-to-earth approach is much more realistic than the sci-fi dream of fields in the sky.
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