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Cattle 
Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 14:56:13 PM PDT
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Apologies to John Lennon. But yes, we should eat more peas! A new study reveals what we have known for quite some time: producing one single kilogram of beef has the horrifying side effect of producing 15-25kg of greenhouse gas emissions.
Across Europe a movement towards avoiding meat one day a week to help address the impact on the climate is gathering pace and adherents. The obvious aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cattle.
This follows a similar initiative in the Belgian town of Ghent, where town officials will eat non-meat meals once a week; from September schoolchildren, too, will go meat-free for a day.
Closer to home you have the brilliant series, up every Mondays by beach babe in fl who does a stellar job of gathering mouth-watering (meatless) recipes on this site.
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Mon Jun 22, 2009 at 14:26:59 PM PDT
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The Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA) of 1921 should - in theory - regulate competition in the livestock industry. However, in 2006, the Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office both found out that - oops! - the USDA hadn't properly enforced the PSA for nearly a decade. To those who know much about the difficulties family farmers face in the livestock industry, this probably wasn't too much of a surprise. The meatpacking industry is highly consolidated (particularly the beef industry, in which 4 companies slaughter about 90% of all cattle in the U.S.) and they use a practice called captive supply (owning or controlling livestock via contracts) to keep the prices they pay to family farmers very low.
Read on, for the story of one rancher who tried to do something about this issue and ended up being retaliated against by Tyson...
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Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 00:26:24 AM PDT
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Whoa... read this:
Grass and other perennial plants may be just what the doctor ordered for farmers facing the uncertainties of climate change. And beef and dairy products from free-ranging, grass-fed cattle--along with legumes and grains grown in addition to grass--may be just what the doctor ordered for consumers.
That's the "post-oil agriculture" vision portrayed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and other participants at the Farming with Grass Conference held in Oklahoma in 2008.
Would you believe that that is advice from the USDA??? They are promoting an online book called "Farming With Grass" and the description of it given on their site is simply too good to be true.
[The authors] explain that perennial plants, in diverse agricultural systems, have great potential to enhance resilience against uncertain climate and market conditions.
[Two of the authors] are in the second year of a 5-year study to develop a system to produce grass-fed beef for the southern Great Plains... [USDA] ARS scientists... are also looking for innovative ways to include grazing cattle in economically diverse farming systems.
In summarizing stories from the conference, participants envisioned mixed livestock, perennial plants, and other crops, instead of large stands of a single-row crop monoculture. The goal is to sustain farms and rural communities both economically and environmentally, while offering local, healthy foods and other new products.
Just...wow.
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Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT
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A better question might be "Where's the rainforest?" Because where Amazon rainforest once was, you'll now find cattle ranches. And the beef ends up in some interesting places, including many I would never have suspected:
A report today from Greenpeace details a three-year investigation into these cattle farms and the global trade in their products, many of which end up on sale in Britain and Europe. Meat from the cattle is canned, packaged and processed into convenience foods. Hides become leather for shoes and trainers. Fat stripped from the carcasses is rendered and used to make toothpaste, face creams and soap. Gelatin squeezed from bones, intestines and ligaments thickens yoghurt and makes chewy sweets.
Many of the cattle ranches are violating laws that require them to retain 80% of the rainforest on their land. The area where this is occurring is quite unstable, like an Amazon wild wild West. Worse, check this out:
Cheap pasture from clearing and seeding rainforest is very attractive to farmers without easy access to the expensive agrichemicals and intensive land management techniques used in more developed countries. Within a few years, the planted pasture becomes overrun with native grass, unsuitable for cattle. Many farmers then take the cheap option and knock down adjoining forest to start again, leaving swaths of unproductive deforested land in their wake.
Most of the beef exports go to the Middle East, Russia, and Europe, so the odds are that we aren't eating this stuff here. Still, we have global markets so prices and production here in the U.S. often affect what happens abroad.
The article also mentions Amazon deforestation occurring to produce soy and biofuels. In the U.S. we've seen a recent debate about whether or not our EPA should factor in Amazon deforestation when assessing the carbon footprint of biofuels compared to oil. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said on the May 7 edition of Agritalk that he doesn't believe a farmer in Brazil based his decisions on what farmers in Iowa do. But if we truly have a global market, then that is not the case. An Iowa farmer's actions (and U.S. demand or lack thereof for biofuels) will impact the price of crops and thus affect the Brazilian farmer's decisions.
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