Tag Archives: Food Security

Let’s Raise a Glass to the Dairy Cow

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAToday is Cow Appreciation Day and Elanco Animal Health have kindly asked me to write a few words for their 360º blog in praise of the magnificent foster mother of the human race. Here’s a short extract to whet your appetite:

“…My 3-year-old daughter often tells me: “Mummy, milk is important to help me grow” and, although we are incredibly lucky to live in a world with myriad food choices, it’s important to bear in mind that not all foods positioned near to dairy products in the supermarket have the same nutritional benefits.

In conversations with fellow parents, I have often heard the suggestion that young children should be transitioned away from dairy milk towards soy or other beverages, in the belief that any drink sold as “milk” is nutritionally-equivalent. The European Court of Justice recently ruled that plant-based beverages such as soy, almond or rice juice can no longer be labelled as “milk”, therefore this may reduce parental confusion, yet it seems that replacing dairy products with plant-based foods has already had significant effects…”

The full text (with many other great commentaries) is available here. Enjoy!

The Future’s Bright; The Future’s…Meaty? A Response to Breakthrough’s Essay on Meat Production

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jims-charolais-in-feedyardThis week I was asked to respond to an excellent Breakthrough article on the environmental impacts of beef production. As ever, I hope the comments below provide food for thought (pardon the pun) and I urge you to read the full Breakthrough article as well as the other comments by Jayson Lusk, Maureen Ogle and Alison van Eenennaam.

Every food has an environmental impact, whether it’s cheeseburgers or tofu, coffee or corn.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us and, as a scientist, sustainability consultant and parent, I don’t have a problem with food production being one of the biggest contributors to global environmental impacts. Why? Because food production is one of the few industries that are absolutely essential for human life. However, it’s clear that we need to take steps to reduce environmental impacts from human activity, and as such, the livestock industry is often criticised for both resource use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Although meat production is predicted to increase from now until at least 2050, it should be noted that the trends for improved productivity and efficiency within global livestock industries also reduce environmental impacts. As described in Marian Swain’s essay on meat production, the US beef industry cut resource use and greenhouse emissions considerably between 1977 and 2007. Meanwhile, the rise of modern feedlot-finishing systems cuts land use, water use, and emissions per unit of beef compared to grass-finished meat.

These findings may seem intuitively incorrect as we’re constantly exposed to marketing and media messages suggesting that only grass-fed meats are environmentally sustainable, and that intensive livestock systems are undesirable. The data speak for themselves however—the majority of extensive systems finish cattle at lighter weights (thus requiring more total animals to maintain beef supply), have lower growth rates (so cattle take longer to grow to their finish weight) and often have lower reproductive performance in female cattle.

All these factors combine to increase environmental impacts. But when I presented this data to a group of French Masters-level Livestock Engineering students earlier this month, they were (in their own words) shocked. Even among experts and students, there remains a great deal of misunderstandings when it comes to meat production.

Does this mean that every beef producer worldwide should embrace feedlot-finishing and reduce pasture use? Absolutely not. One of the major benefits of cattle compared to swine and poultry is that they digest and use human-inedible forages, such that dairy and grass-fed beef cattle actually produce more human-edible protein in the form of milk and meat than they consume; and feedlot-finished beef cattle have a ratio of human-edible feed intake to human-edible protein output similar to that of swine, despite their greater overall land use. In keeping with the themes discussed in the Swain’s essay, there is no magic bullet—it is essential to fit production systems to the cattle, climate, market, and culture within each region and to improve productivity within each and every system.

So rather than reducing animal protein consumption as we move towards 2050, we might ponder keeping total consumption relatively stable, with a more equitable distribution across the globe? This would allow for a decrease in over-consumption in high-income regions, while providing a greater quantity of milk, meat, and eggs to those who have dire need for adequate animal proteins to maintain health and to promote adequate child growth and development. While the environmental impact of beef production is a key concern, we also have to examine the role of livestock in economic and social sustainability.  For billions of small-scale farmers, cattle provideeconomic viability, improved nutrition, social status and a means to diversify agricultural production as well as tangible benefits in terms of fertilizer, hides and other by-products.

Should we insist that global beef production is abandoned in favour of increased legumes, nuts or lab-created proteins? No. We simply need to give producers worldwide the education, tools and technologies to make the best and most efficient use of their resources. Only then will we have a truly sustainable (environmentally responsible, economically viable and socially acceptable) global meat industry.

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.

Seeing the Bigger Picture – Why One-Dimensional Panaceas Do Not Solve Sustainability Issues

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This week, another paper has been released claiming that we should change to a vegetarian diet in order to “…cut global food emissions by two thirds and save millions of lives“. As ever, media coverage of the paper by Springmann et al. ignored salient points regarding the importance of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption and reducing energy intake in reducing deaths from heart disease, cancer and diabetes; and simply focused on the claim that reducing meat intake would improve health and cut greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). The simple message to the consumer? Go vegetarian.

So are GHGs the only important environmental metric? Absolutely not. What about land use? Air quality? Fossil fuel consumption? Water use? Biodiversity? The myopic focus on GHGs as the only arbiter of environmental sustainability completely ignores these factors, yet the results of the current study (and similar papers) are promoted worldwide as a panacea to solve all environmental issues.

Can you imagine a world where we only look at one consequence of our actions? Where our only consideration when buying a car is the colour of its paint? Or the criteria for accepting a new job is whether they have good coffee in the canteen? Surely a ridiculous idea – all of our actions have direct and indirect consequences, some predictable, some entirely unforeseen, and we weigh up these outcomes with every decision that we make – including dietary choice. If we examine a number of the assumptions and recommendations within the current paper, it’s apparent that the negative consequences of the one-dimensional GHG focus may outweigh any benefits gained.

Although a regional approach was used to assess population health impacts, greenhouse gas emissions in the paper were based on reference values for various foods, with the inherent presupposition that all livestock production systems are equally productive and efficient. This is a fatally-flawed assumption. If we take beef as the example: in the USA, 90% of cows have a calf every year, cows first calve at 24 months of age and growing cattle are slaughtered at 15 months of age. By contrast, in Brazil, 60% of cows have a calf every year, cows first calve at 36 months of age and growing cattle are slaughtered at 42 months of age. Both systems are suited to the resources and market available, but have wildly different efficiencies. Consumption of a US-produced steak (16.7 kg CO2/kg) will therefore have a far lesser contribution to the average person’s carbon footprint than a Brazilian steak (62.0 kg CO2/kg).

All food have an environmental impact

Replacing milk, meat and eggs with plant-based foods (legumes, nuts, etc) is entirely possible, yet it does not occur at zero environmental cost. Every single food that we consume has an environmental impact, and although the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a unit of lettuce or beans may be less than pork or beef (asparagus is a notable exception), the land required to produce equivalent energy or protein from plants is significant.

We cannot simply remove cattle from the low-quality range and pastureland that they occupy in the majority of grazing regions and assume that we can plant brussels sprouts or soybeans instead. Only a small percentage of pastureland is productive enough to produce human food or fibre crops (8.0% in the USA and 10.8% in the UK). The fact that pastureland would have to be converted to cropland, releasing sequestered carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and increasing the use of fertilisers and irrigation water, was not accounted for in Springmann et al.’s study. Indeed, from where would we source fertilisers for crop production if we significantly cut meat consumption and thus livestock populations? Is an increased reliance on dwindling reserves of inorganic N, P and K really a sustainable solution?

Finally, and most importantly, cattle do not simply exist as a source of milk or meat. In many developing countries, immense cultural significance is placed upon livestock ownership and ruminant animals play a vital role in supplying draught power, capital assets and agricultural enterprise diversification. Should a single mitigating factor for reducing GHG emissions overcome the moral obligation to support and assist subsistence farmers in developing regions? It’s vital that we take a holistic view that encompasses environmental responsibility, economic viability and social acceptability in order to improve food system sustainability rather than simply focusing on one aspect of the problem. Rather than taking a whole-system approach to environmental and human health, the study by Springmann et al. is akin to amputating both legs in order to try and cure arthritis. Short-term pain may be reduced, but long-term suffering is inevitable.

Cutting Meat? Or Just Cutting Corners?

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DexterIt is equally interesting, inevitable and lamentable to see that another study has come out claiming that the only way to reduce climate change is to cut meat consumption per person.

Meat consumption appears to be the only human activity subject to continuous “we must cease/reduce this” claims on the basis of environmental impacts. If we compare to other greenhouse gas sources, a considerable proportion come from transportation. Yet rather than insisting that every car-owner cut their annual mileage by 25%, the focus has been on reducing emissions by producing more fuel-efficient vehicles. Similarly, no one has yet claimed that we should reduce household lighting by four hours per day, but the compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL) has become the poster child for improving household energy efficiency.

We have demonstrable proof that beef and dairy producers have improved greenhouse gas emissions (as well as land use, water use, energy efficiency, etc) over time through improved efficiency, and can continue to do so into the future. So why are the gains made by livestock producers dismissed, and reduced meat intakes seen as the only solution? I have an absolute hatred of conspiracy theories, but it is difficult not to see an latent agenda in the preponderance of “Cut meat consumption” papers. Jumping on the bandwagon? Promoting individual dietary opinions as science? Or simply bowing to NGO/media opinions and looking for easy funding and publicity?

As the global population increases to over 9.5 billion people by 2050, with the majority of this growth occurring in the developing world, the demand for milk, meat and eggs is going to increase by 60%. If we are serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, it’s time to examine the impacts of all of our actions and concentrate on further efficiency improvements rather than constraining dietary choice.

Who Needs Scientists? Just Let Mother Nature Design Your Greek Yogurt.

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Chobani.jpg“How you get to 100 calories matters. Most companies use artificial sweeteners. We think Mother Nature is sweet enough”. Clever marketing from the greek yogurt company Chobani, simultaneously disparaging alternative brands, and playing the ultimate caring, sharing, natural card with the mention of “Mother Nature”. However, earlier this week, Chobani’s #howmatters hashtag set the twitter feeds alight after their new “witty” tagline on the underside of yogurt lids was posted (below).

howmattersThe wording plays beautifully into what is fast becoming a universal fear of science intruding on our food supply – we want real food; food like our grandparents ate; food from traditional breeds and heirloom varieties – providing it doesn’t take us over 2,000 cal per day or increase our cholesterol levels. Rightly or wrongly, many people blame processed foods with hidden sugars and added chemical preservatives for many health issues in developed countries – the epitome of a #firstworldproblem, given that the corresponding #thirdworldproblem is hunger and malnutrition.

However, this time the twitter anger wasn’t from rampaging mommy bloggers, or infuriated activists, but scientists. After all, without science, would Chobani have a product? Yogurt was first developed in ancient times, but the modern pasteurized, long-shelf-life, greek yogurt is rather different to the cultured milk our ancestors would have enjoyed.

FAGEI have a 100-calorie greek yogurt from a rival brand in my fridge, so let’s examine the ingredients (left). Simply pasteurized skimmed milk and live active yogurt cultures (note, no added sweeteners). Louis Pasteur, a 19th century French scientist developed pasteurization (in addition to his discoveries relating to vaccines and microbial fermentation); biologists developed methods to identify and classify the bacteria that ferment milk into yogurt; and food scientists experimented with the exact mixture of bacteria to produce the desired flavor, texture and color of yogurt,  as well as developing the range of other processes needed to make the yogurt safe, appealing and shelf-stable.

Yes, we could make greek yogurt without scientists – after all, the original recipe didn’t originate in a corporate experimental kitchen. But without hundreds of years of scientific input, could we make Greek yogurt that, at 100 calories per serving, is desirable to the consumer and is a safe, affordable source of vitamins, minerals and protein? No. To imply that we could does a huge disservice to food scientists.

It appears that being a modern-day scientist appears to be somewhat equivalent to clubbing baby seals to death. Caring little for human suffering and illness, the cold and clinical scientist rubs his hands together with glee as he removes all nutrients from real food, replacing them with chemicals, additives and genetically-modified ingredients. As a side-line, he develops cocktails of toxic elements, pesticides and embalming fluid and markets them as vaccines. Yes, science is the enemy. Just remember that next time you take an aspirin for a hangover from pasteurized, fermented beverages.

How Long is Long-Term? Are We in Danger of Sacrificing Food Security to Satisfy GMO Paranoia?

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FrankenfoodsMy Twitter feed is being taken over by two things: 1) arguments and 2) comments that are going to cause arguments. Almost every tweet appears to draw a contrary comment – I’m tempted to post “Elephants have four legs and one trunk” just to see how many people reply “No, there’s an elephant in South Africa called Minnie who only has three legs but has two trunks…”

The latest discussions (debates? arguments? long drawn-out 140-character battles?) have related to the safety of GMOs. Without exception, the argument from the nay-sayers comes down to “We don’t know what the long-term effects are, so we should ban them until we can conclude that they’re safe.”

In other words, we’re trying to prove a negative – show me that there’s no adverse effects whatsoever and I’ll believe it’s ok. Utterly impossible. Can you be absolutely sure that the screen you’re reading this on isn’t causing constant, minute but irreparable damage to your eyes? Water, that essential nutrient without which humans, animals and plants would die, can kill through drowning or intoxication. Even oxygen, without which brain cells are irretrievably damaged in just 10 minutes,  causes seizures and death when inhaled at high pressures. Should we ban these, just in case?

Perhaps we should take a long-term approach to all new technologies. iPhones were only introduced seven years ago, yet many of us spend considerable amounts of time typing on them, or holding them to our ears when they’re not in our pockets – what health-damaging consequences could these shiny new toys confer? What about the now-ubiquitous hand sanitizer? Once only the province of hospitals and germophobes, it’s now sloshed around by the gallon. Touted to kill 99.9% of harmful bacteria – what harm could those chemicals be doing to our fragile physiology?

I’ve yet to meet anybody who, when scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery, demanded that the surgeon only used techniques developed in 1964; or a type I diabetes sufferer who would only use insulin produced from pigs, as it was originally in 1923. When I was treated for breast cancer, I jumped at the chance to be part of a clinical trial involving a new monoclonal antibody treatment, regardless of the very slight risk of heart damage. In medicine, we seem happy to trust that science has the answers – not surprisingly, we prefer to survive today and take our changes with side-effects tomorrow.

With regards to food however, the opposite appears to be the case. The first commercial GMO (the Flavr Savr tomato) was introduced in 1994, GM corn and soy were commercialized in 1996, and not one death or disease has been attributed to any of these crops. Yet the “what are the long-term effects?” concern still persists. So how long-term is long enough? 10 years? 20? 50? Should we keep researching and testing these crops for another 80+ years before allowing them onto the market around the year 2100?

If your answer is yes, just pause for a moment and ask your parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents what life was like during the Great Depression in the USA, or World War II in Europe. Consider what life was like when food was scarce or rationed, when, for example, a British adult was only allowed to buy 4 oz of bacon, 8 oz ground beef, 2 oz each of butter and cheese, 1 fresh egg and 3 pints of milk per week. Those quantities of meat and cheese would only be enough to make two modern bacon cheeseburgers.

By 2050, the global population is predicted to be over 9 billion people. I don’t relish the idea of explaining to my grandchildren that they live with food scarcity, civil unrest (food shortages are one of the major causes of conflict) and malnutrition because public paranoia regarding GMOs meant that a major tool for helping us to improve food production was removed from use. In the developed world we have the luxury of choosing between conventional, natural, local, organic and many other production systems. However, we’re in danger of forgetting that not everybody has the same economic, physical or political freedom to choose. If you gave a basket of food to a family in sub-Saharan Africa subsisting on the equivalent of $30 per week, would they refuse it on the basis that the quinoa wasn’t from Whole Foods, the meat wasn’t organic and the tofu wasn’t labeled GMO-free?

When we have sufficient food being supplied to everybody in the world to allow them to be healthy and productive, we can then start refining the food system. Until then, the emphasis should be on finding solutions to world hunger, not forcing food system paranoia onto those who don’t have a choice.

Scare Tactics – Why Do So Many “Public Health Experts” Promote Fear vs. Food?

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pork chop 1How many of us are motivated by fear every single day? We’d like to think that we’re lucky enough to live in a society where we don’t feel afraid. In contrast to inhabitants of many war-torn regions we are unlikely to be shot as we drive to work; when we’re sick we have the luxury of modern medical attention (Obamacare not withstanding); and we can buy almost any food we fancy, at any time of year and feel safe in our food choices… or can we?

Food safety is an underlying assumption of dietary choice within the USA. We buy food based on three major factors: taste, price and nutrition. Safety isn’t a defining factor in choosing between the cheese quesadilla, the chef’s salad or the T-bone steak because most of us have rarely experienced significant negative health effects as a consequence of food choice (aside from the annual Thanksgiving food coma).

Yet so many food commentators, self-proclaimed experts (I read Michael Pollan therefore I am…) or bloggers appear to exist for the sole purpose of instilling consumer fear. Take this recent article in Salon – 9 reasons why we should fear eating steak – apparently it’s riddled with antibiotics, full of heavy metals and likely to give us all mad cow disease. I’m not going to turn this blog post into a thesis, so today will simply address one of the issues raised in the article, and examine the others in future posts.

I’m a scientist by training. In my career to date, I’ve learned that the more controversial the topic, the more important it is to base claims on sound data that is peer-reviewed and published in order to gain trust. If I present data that challenges perceptions, the first questions are always “Is this published in a peer-reviewed journal? Who funded it? How do I know it’s correct?” That is not to say that science is the only way to communicate – it’s not. Yet when making claims, it’s important to have science, or at least logical and biologically-feasible arguments, to back them up.

Yet, if we’re asking a question, even if it’s a loaded question that may instill fear or doubt into the reader, apparently scientific foundation is redundant. Could combining coffee and bagels in the same meal cause impotence? Is breast cancer caused by the rise in popularity of household pets sleeping on their owners’ beds? Is your tiredness really the result of too little sleep, or could it be all the chemicals that “big food” uses every single day? Hey, I’m just asking! Not making a claim, not saying that X + Y = Z, just throwing the thoughts out there. But having read them, how many of us now are thinking about our sexual performance, the potential ill-effects of Fluffy the cat, or how we really do seem to be more tired nowadays? (note that these really are examples that I have invented, I know of no scientific foundation for any of them).

Possibly the most damaging line in the Salon article contained no data. No scientific foundation. Just a question:

Could Ractopamine, added to the food supply in 1997 with little public awareness1, be contributing to skyrocketing rates of obesity and hyperactivity in children?

The FDA approved the use of Ractopamine in swine in 1999. It’s added to the diet of finishing pigs, improving feed efficiency and partitioning more feed nutrients into lean meat rather than fat (as demanded by today’s consumer). Effectively it allows us to produce more pork using fewer resources, but it has been linked to behavioral changes in pigs.

Most of us are aware that childhood obesity is a huge issue (pardon the pun). Many of us know children that have been diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). So does Ractopamine cause these? It’s as likely as suggesting that eating alfalfa hay is going to make us lactate like dairy cows.

Maximum residue limits (MRLs) exist to make sure that there are no human physiological effects of veterinary drugs in meat, milk or eggs from treated animals. Regulatory bodies including CODEX assess potential human effects of a drug residue in animal products by multiplying the average residue level in food by the average intake. For example, if the residue level is 2 micrograms per 100 grams and the average person eats 300 grams of that food each day, the intake would be 6 micrograms. This intake is then compared to the acceptable daily intake (ADI) – the quantity that could be eaten every day for a lifetime without human health risk. This is usually the intake that would have a physiological effect, divided by a safety factor of one hundred. The MRL for Ractopamine in meat is 0.25 parts per million (0.00000025 grams per gram) with an ADI of 1.25 micrograms per kg of bodyweight per day.

If we examine the average pork intake for a 10 year old child in the USA (detailed calculation below) we see that they’d have to eat 13.3x more pork than the daily average to even equal the ADI – remember that’s the intake at which we would expect no physiological effect. For Ractopamine to have a physiological effect, the ADI would have to be increased one-hundred-fold. So the average 10-year old child would have to eat 1,330x more than the average child’s intake of pork, equivalent to 35 lbs of pork per day, every single day (the average adult only eats 48 lbs of pork in a year), for Ractopamine to have a health effect. My little nieces adore pork sausages, but they are pushed to eat two (approx 2 oz) in a day, let alone 35 lbs worth!

Still think that we can link Ractopamine use to obesity and ADHD? We can’t prove a negative, but it’s as tenuous a link as suggesting that we could drown in a single drop of water. So why are public health “experts” like Martha Rosenberg using fear tactics to scare us rather than extolling the positive contributions that high-quality animal proteins make to the human diet? Surely there’s no agenda there….is there?

1Note that all the data relating to this is freely-available on the internet – the “little public awareness” line is simply more fear-mongering.

Details of Ractopamine calculation

Let’s examine an average child’s intake. The average 10-year-old boy in the USA weighs 32 kg (71 lbs) and needs 34 grams of protein each day. In the USA, meat contributes about 40% of protein intake and about 21% of that comes from pork. That means, on average, a 10-year-old boy would eat about 12 g of pork per day (2.9 g protein).

If Taylor eats 12 g of pork each day at the maximum residue limit of Ractopamine (note that this would be unusually high), he’s consuming 12 g x 0.25/1,000,000 = 0.000003 g Ractopamine. His ADI = 1.25 micrograms x 32 kg bodyweight = 40 micrograms, or 0.00004 grams. That’s 13.3x higher than his intake. So a child could eat 13.3x more pork than average, every single day, and not be expected to have any physiological effects. For ingested Ractopamine to have a physiological effect he would have to eat 100 times that amount – 16 kg, or 35 lbs of pork per day. To put that into context, the average adult eats 48 lbs of pork in a year.

Are We Increasing Resource Use and Taking Beef from the Mouths of Hungry Children?

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Bull eatingCan we really afford to lose the sustainability advantages that productivity-enhancing tools provide?

Beta agonists have been a hotly debated topic in the media recently, after it was suggested that the use of Zilmax™ might be related to welfare issues in supplemented cattle (see note 1), and Tyson announced that they would not purchase cattle produced using the feed supplement.

As the global population increases and consumer interest in food production sustainability continues to grow, we know that to maintain the continuous improvements in beef sustainability that we’ve seen over the past half-century, we need to ensure that economic viability, environmental responsibility and social acceptability are all in place. All cattle producers obviously have the choice as to what tools and practices are used within their operation, but what are the big picture environmental and economic implications of removing technology use from beef production? Let’s look at two tools – beta agonists and implants (see note 2 below for an explanation of these tools).

Figure 1. Extra Cattle NeededIn a traditional beef production system using both tools, we’d need 85 million total cattle (see note 3) to maintain the U.S. annual production of 26 billion lbs of beef (see note 4). If we removed beta-agonists from U.S. beef production we’d need an extra 3.5 million total cattle to support beef production; losing access to implants would require an extra 9.9 million cattle; and removing both tools would increase total cattle numbers to 100 million (a 15 million head increase) to maintain the current beef supply (see note 5).

If we need more cattle to maintain beef supply, we use more resources and have a greater carbon footprint.

If we removed beta-agonists, we would need more natural resources to maintain U.S. beef production:

  • More water, equivalent to supplying 1.9 million U.S. households annually (195 billion gallons)
  • More land, equivalent to an area just bigger than Maryland (14.0 thousand sq-miles)
  • More fossil fuels, equivalent to heating 38 thousand U.S. households for a year (3,123 billion BTU)

If we removed implants, we would need more natural resources to maintain U.S. beef production:

  • More water, equivalent to supplying 4.5 million U.S. households annually (457 billion gallons)
  • More land, equivalent to the area of South Carolina (31.6 thousand sq-miles)
  • More fossil fuels, equivalent to heating 45 thousand U.S. households for a year (3,703 billion BTU)

If we removed both beta-agonists and implants, we would need more natural resources to maintain U.S. beef production:

  • More water, equivalent to supplying 7.3 million U.S. households annually (741 billion gallons)
  • More land, equivalent to the area of Louisiana (51.9 thousand sq-miles)
  • More fossil fuels, equivalent to heating 98 thousand U.S. households for a year (8,047 billion BTU)

Water infographic

Land infographicFuel infographicBeef production costs would also increase if these tools weren’t used. Feed costs would increase by 4.0% without beta-agonists, 8.1% without implants and 11.0% without both tools. These costs ultimately would be passed on through every segment of the beef supply chain (including the retailer or food service segment) and ultimately onto the consumer, making beef a less-affordable protein choice.

In a world where one in seven children currently do not have enough food, keeping food affordable is key to improving their health and well-being. If we use productivity-enhancing tools in one single animal, the extra beef produced is sufficient to supply seven schoolchildren with their beef-containing school meals for an entire year. Is that a social sustainability advantage that we can afford to lose?

Although animal welfare is paramount for all beef production stakeholders from the cow-calf operator to the retailer, it is possible that the consumer perception of productivity-enhancing tools  may be harmed by negative comments on media articles relating to Zilmax™. There is no doubt that we will need to use technologies within food production in order to feed the growing global population, yet we need consumer acceptance of both the technologies that we use, and the reasons why we use them, in order to continue to secure market access for U.S. beef.

Consumer acceptance therefore needs to be a key component of our mission to continuously improve beef sustainability. That does not mean giving in to the uninformed whims of those who blithely assert that we could feed the world by returning to the production systems of the 1940’s or ’50s, but does offer an opportunity to reach out, listen to and engage in a dialogue with our friends, family, customers and colleagues about the advantages that technology offers. We have a bright future ahead, but only if we keep the torch alight.

To read more conversation about the use of technologies within beef production (including the real-life experiences of feedyard operators who use these tools) and for facts and figures relating to beef production, please check out the following websites: Feedyard Foodie, Ask a Farmer, Facts About Beef, and the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance.

Footnotes

1) Merck Animal Health have since pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into the issue and have temporarily suspended Zilmax™ sales in the U.S. and Canada.

2) Beta agonists are animal feed ingredients that help cattle maintain their natural muscle-building ability and add about 20-30 pounds of additional lean muscle instead of fat. Implants (sometimes called growth promotants or growth hormones), are placed into the ear and release hormones slowly, helping cattle maintain natural muscle-building ability while also decreasing the amount of fat gained. 

3) Includes beef cows, calves, bulls, replacement animals, stockers and feedlot cattle plus calves and cull cows from the dairy system.

4) Although this is a considerable amount of beef, it’s still not enough to fulfill current demand for beef in the USA and overseas. 

5) This work was presented as a poster at the Joint Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association and American Society of Animal Science in Indianapolis, IN in July 2013. The poster is available for download here. 

Are We Producing More Food…and Feeding Fewer People?

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Waste foodI’m ashamed to admit that the picture to the left is of the lunch table that a media colleague and I left last week – after spending an hour lamenting the fact that in the US, 40% of food is wasted (30% globally). Admittedly, that waste isn’t all down to restaurant portions (in our defense, we both had to fly home, so doggie bags weren’t an option) – however, according to FAO data here, consumer waste accounts for anything between 5% (in Subsaharan Africa) and 39% of total waste (North America and Oceania). The difference (anything from 61% – 95%) is made up from losses between production and retailing.

Losses from production to retail comprise by far the biggest contribution to waste in the developing world, which makes absolute sense – if food is your biggest household cost and hunger is a constant and real danger, the concept of wasting purchased food would seem ridiculous. In the developing world, a myriad of factors play into food insecurity including low agricultural yields, lack of producer education (particularly for women, who are often the main agricultural workers), political instability and military conflict (Pinstrup-Andersen 2000). However, possibly the biggest threat to food security is a lack of sanitary and transport infrastructure (Godfray et al. 2010) – building a milk pasteurization plant is a great opportunity to improve shelf-life, but can only be effective if producers have the facilities to refrigerate and transport milk. Improving tomato yields can reap economic dividends, but if they are transported to markets packed into plastic bags on the back of a bicycle, the wastage is huge. I’m not going to pretend I have the solutions to global food wastage, but what can we do in our own households?

Just as our grandparents learned during WWI and WWII – when food is scarce, you make the most of every single drop of milk or ounce of grain. Yet in the modern developed world, we can afford to waste almost 2/5 of our household food through not understanding expiration dates (cheese does not spontaneously combust into a listeria-ridden ooze at midnight on the day of the expiration date); throwing away the “useless” parts of food waste (radish leaves and wilted celery are actually really good in soup); or simply buying more than we need. In a recent study of greenhouse gases associated with US dairy production, the carbon footprint of a gallon of milk was increased by almost 20% simply because of the amount of “old” milk that consumers poured down the sink each day.

To go back to the picture above, it’s tempting to blame the restaurants – portion sizes tend to be huge, so in this carb-conscious world, it’s not “our fault” if we forgo the last 500 calories by leaving half a plateful of potato chips – they should have just served a smaller portion in the first place, right? Well, maybe. If we’re feeding dairy cows or beef cattle and seeing more than 5-10% feed unconsumed, we’ll reduce the amount fed. I’m sure that exactly the same practice would pay dividends in the restaurant world, and I’d be willing to bet that they could charge exactly the same price.

I spend most of my time myth-busting, showing that the modern beef and dairy industries are far more efficient than the farming systems of 40 or 70 years ago and that we now produce more food using far fewer resources. However, are we really feeding more people if we’re wasting 40% of our food? To suggest that we return to a practice from the WWII era feels almost heretical, but here’s an idea – rather than defining “sustainable” systems as those producing artisan cheeses from heirloom breeds cared for by hemp-wearing liberal arts graduates, why doesn’t every restaurant (or suburb) have a small herd of backyard pigs? Collect the waste food, boil it for 30 min to avoid disease issues, feed to pigs, produce bacon. What could be better? Admittedly, my mother country has banned this practice (I’m beginning to wonder if anything will be permissible in Europe soon), but let’s start the pigswill revolution! Doesn’t “You don’t have to eat that last potato, it’ll make some really good bacon and help us feed those 1 in 7 kids in our local area who don’t have enough food” sound more realistic than “Think of all the starving orphans who would enjoy your PB&J sandwich” (to which the continual smart-a** answer was “I’ll just mail to to them). Let’s do what the livestock industry does best – recycle waste resources to make safe, affordable, nutritous meat!