Category Archives: Economic Cost

How Now, Old Cow? Do “Slaughter-Free” Dairy Farms Come at an Unsustainable Cost?

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As consumers, we’re more like sheep than we’d like to admit – that is, if sheep were tempted to buy food based on “free from” marketing. Gluten-free, fat-free, lactose-free, dairy-free and GMO-free labels are already firmly stamped on many of the foods we buy in shops and restaurants, and are associated with an invisible yet potent, virtuous halo. After all, if a slice of cake is gluten-free, it must be positively healthy.

The latest marketing wheeze appears to be “slaughter-free” dairy production – a 30 cow herd in Rutland, described as a bovine spiritual utopia, where calves are not weaned but run with cows as “grazing partners”; male calves (renamed as ”oxen”) are used for draught power rather than reared as beef; and once cows retire from milking, they are literally put out to pasture rather than being culled.

There’s no doubt that this ticks an entire list of ethical boxes – who doesn’t want to imagine that cows live a happy life browsing the buttercups once they’re too old to produce milk? Yet, given the critical need to produce food sustainably (in terms of economic viability, environmental responsibility and social acceptability), it also leads to a number of questions.

While there may well be a niche market of consumers who are prepared to pay £4.50 per litre for slaughter-free milk; in an era when we primarily choose foods based on price, is this endeavour going to achieve long-term economic sustainability?

Food purchases for EU consumers

The environmental impact of dairy production increases with the proportion of non-producing (dry cows, growing heifers or “retired” cows) in the population – keeping retired cows out on pasture would be expected to add a huge quantity of greenhouse gases to the carbon footprint per litre of milk produced. Carbon footprint and resource use per litre is also negatively correlated with milk production – the low yields associated with this type of hand-milking operation would further add to its environmental impact. How do we, as consumers, balance the relative values of animal welfare and planetary health?

FAO LCA 2

In a system where no cattle are slaughtered, but where cows need to have a calf on a regular basis to produce milk, the herd size will increase exponentially over time. In two, five or ten years time, how will the owners reconcile philosophical arguments against slaughter with the difficulty of supplying enough feed to fulfil the requirements of an ever-expanding herd using a fixed quantity of pasture?

Finally, and most importantly, animal welfare should be the cornerstone of any dairy farm. Euthanasia is upsetting, yet is the only option when animals are too sick or injured to survive. As consumers, we need to take responsibility for the fact that slaughter of both healthy animals (for meat) and sick animals (for humane reasons) is an unavoidable, if unpalatable truth. Just as the recent ban on cattle slaughter for beef in India is going to have negative impacts on food security, economic sustainability and environmental impacts, it’s time that we faced up to the reality of food production and stop thinking that we can have our slaughter-free dairy and eat it!

If You Try To Eat, I’ll Tax Your Meat – Antibiotic Resistance, As Sung By The Beatles?

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“If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street; if you try to eat, I’ll tax your meat…” Apologies to The Beatles for flagrant misuse of “The Taxman” lyrics, yet as reported in The Conversation based on this study, taxing conventionally-produced meat* is the newest solution proposed to tackle antibiotic resistance.

At first glance, the premise seems like a logical solution. If somebody’s individual choice confers a societal cost, e.g. person A’s decision to eat meat raised in a system where antibiotics are used increases the risk that person B will incur negative health consequences because drugs do not effectively treat bacterial infection, then it is logical to suggest that person A should be morally responsible for that economic cost. Taxing conventionally-produced meat and using the tax to fund research into alternative treatments therefore appears to make sense.

However, the first and most obvious issue arising from this premise is that we have not yet been able to accurately quantify the comparative impacts of humans, companion animals and livestock on antibiotic resistance. Indeed, a recent paper in Royal Society Open Science concluded that curtailing antibiotic use in livestock would have little impact on the level of resistance in humans. Therefore, although there is consensus that shared-class antibiotics (those used in both human and animal medicine) should be phased out of livestock production and that any reduction in antibiotic use can potentially have mitigating effects, we cannot state with any degree of certainty the relative impacts of completing (or, more seriously, not completing) one course of human antibiotics, compared to treating a bacterial infection in a cat or using antibiotics to treat a lame cow.

The study authors suggest that people who buy conventionally-raised meat are morally responsible for antibiotic resistance. This is rather a stretch, especially given the knowledge gaps around human/companion animal/livestock impacts described above. Does this mean that children treated for throat or ear infections are morally responsible for cases of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in elderly people? Tax those toddlers immediately! 

The tax mechanism has not been implemented elsewhere, at least not in the UK under the National Health Service. For example, patients who are morbidly obese or contract lifestyle-related diseases (e.g. smokers with lung cancer) do not pay a greater economic cost towards healthcare than those who have breast cancer or require a hip transplant. Without a precedent for this type of action, the hypothesis remains entirely theoretical.

Although dairy consumption is relatively inflexible with regards to economic cost, taxing meat has been shown to cut consumption. Placing a tax upon conventionally-produced meat would therefore not necessarily generate the billions of pounds required to develop new drugs or treatments. Cutting consumption might reduce antibiotic use simply as a consequence of fewer animals being raised, but also penalises those people who have lower incomes – should they be forced to forgo meat simply because they cannot afford it? If ethical and moral responsibilities are the major issue, how do we justify removing high-quality protein that demonstrably improves cognitive development and scholastic achievement  from the diets of growing children, particularly those in developing countries where animal protein consumption is already significantly below nutritional targets?


There is no realistic all-or-nothing solution to antibiotic resistance. Demanding that all antibiotics used in livestock production are banned instantly is not a viable solution on a national nor a global basis, nor is continuing with present levels of antibiotic use. However, the paper’s authors underestimate the potential for improvements in disease surveillance and livestock management to cut antibiotic use, without incurring additional costs to the producer. Building upon existing initiatives by groups including RUMA,  NOAH, academics at the University of Bristol, and animal health companies; and working with farmers to discover, disseminate and adopt practices that allow antibiotic use to be reduced or eliminated while maintaining and improving livestock health and welfare is essential for ensuring human, animal and food safety, and can be achieved without putting food security at risk.

*The Conversation refers to “meat that contains antibiotics” several times. This is a misnomer that really needs to be addressed as strict withdrawal periods exist for antibiotics used in livestock production to ensure that residues are not present in either milk or meat.

Where’s the Beef? Not in Danish Diets.

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Culvers burgerFor those of us in the UK, mentioning Danish livestock production almost inevitably leads to thoughts of Danish bacon (be still my beating heart) – a considerable proportion of their 90% of domestic pork products that are exported. However, any beef lovers in Denmark may be in trouble, as recent news articles suggest that red meat (beginning with beef) will soon be taxed in order to cut consumption and meet greenhouse gas targets.

Despite the number of voices clamouring for reduced meat consumption, it seems clear that the average consumer isn’t going to forgo meat and dairy simply because a new study is publicised in the lay press. I’m firmly of the opinion that the only way that meat consumption will decline is if it becomes too expensive to include in the weekly shopping basket. Indeed, although meat consumption per capita has declined in the USA over the past 10 years, demand (as measured by the price that the consumer is willing to pay) has increased over recent years.

So will taxing meat lead to a reduction in consumption? For those who routinely order a 16 oz (454 g) steak in a restaurant or think nothing of tucking into a chateaubriand, probably not. High end cuts of beef are associated with celebrations and luxury dining, and going out for a broccoli pasta bake just doesn’t have that same ring to it.

However, we live in a world where 793 million people (10.7 % of the global population) are undernourished – and that isn’t simply confined to people in developing regions. That means that almost 1 in 9 people do not have enough food. To low-income consumers, food availability isn’t simply a function of what is on the shelf in the supermarket, it’s directly related to economic cost and convenience. If red meat is taxed, it will still be eaten, but there will be a disproportionate shift towards consumers with a greater income and away from those who are in most need of affordable high-quality protein, including growing children.

Do beef alternatives exist? Absolutely – protein can be supplied from other meats, fish or vegetable-based foods. Yet here’s where the convenience aspect comes in – most of us can probably think of a quick and easy recipe involving beef, but how many can you think of involving tofu or lentils? That’s not to say that we shouldn’t expand our cooking repertoires, but when time is at a premium, quick easy recipes that will feed a family win every time.

If beef becomes unaffordable, it will have to be replaced by another protein – but this substitution does not occur at zero cost. Can tofu or lentils be produced on low-quality pastureland where we can’t grow other human food or fibre crops? Do pork or poultry make such efficient use of forages, pastures and by-products from human food and fibre production that, far from competing with humans for food, the animals produce more human-edible energy or protein than they consume? No. The only livestock that do this are those pesky greenhouse gas-belching bovines.

Greenhouse gases are important, but they are not the only factor that we should consider when advocating for sustainable dietary choices. In a world where millions of people are food-insecure, removing a protein choice from the table of those with low incomes simply adds to the problem of how to feed the world – sustainably.