''Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options'' is a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

report, released by the

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

(FAO) of the United Nations on 29 November 2006, that "aims to assess the full impact of the

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...

sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation". It stated that livestock accounts for 18% of anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...

, a figure which FAO changed to 14.5% in its 2013 study ''Tackling climate change through livestock''.

Report

''Livestock's Long Shadow'' is an assessment of research, taking into account direct impacts of livestock production, along with the impacts of feed crop cultivation. The report states that the

sector is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to serious environmental problems. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of

land degradation Land degradation is a process in which the value of the biophysical environment is affected by a combination of human-induced processes acting upon the land. It is viewed as any change or disturbance to the land perceived to be deleterious o ...

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

and

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different typ ...

water shortage Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is wher ...

and

water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. ...

, and

loss of biodiversity Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...

. Senior author Henning Steinfeld stated that livestock are "one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems" and that "urgent action is required to remedy the situation." Following a life-cycle analysis approach, the report evaluates "that livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions." Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arise from feed production (e.g. chemical

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

production,

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

for

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...

and feed crops, cultivation of feed crops, feed transport and soil erosion), animal production (e.g.

enteric fermentation Enteric fermentation is a digestive process by which carbohydrates are broken down by microorganisms into simple molecules for absorption into the bloodstream of an animal. Because of human agricultural reliance in many parts of the world on anima ...

and

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Ea ...

and

nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or nos, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula . At room temperature, it is a colourless non-flammable gas, and has ...

emissions from

manure Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the Soil fertility, fertility of soil by adding organic ma ...

) and as a result of the transportation of animal products. Following this approach the report estimates that livestock "is responsible for 18 percent" of total anthropogenic

carbon dioxide emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and la ...

, but 37% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions. The main sources of emissions were found to be: * Land use and land use change: 2.5 Gigatonnes

carbon dioxide equivalent Global warming potential (GWP) is the heat absorbed by any greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as a multiple of the heat that would be absorbed by the same mass of carbon dioxide (). GWP is 1 for . For other gases it depends on the gas and the time ...

; including forest and other natural vegetation replaced by pasture and feed crop in the Neotropics (CO₂) and carbon release from soils such as pasture and arable land dedicated to feed production (CO₂) * Feed Production (except carbon released from soil): 0.4 Gigatonnes CO₂ equivalent, including fossil fuel used in manufacturing chemical fertilizer for feed crops (CO₂) and chemical fertilizer application on feed crops and

leguminous A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock for ...

feed crop (N₂O, NH₃) * Animal production: 1.9 Gigatonnes CO₂ equivalent, including enteric fermentation from

ruminant Ruminants (suborder Ruminantia) are hoofed herbivorous grazing or browsing mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The ...

s (CH₄) and on-farm fossil fuel use (CO₂) * Manure Management: 2.2 Gigatonnes CO₂ equivalent, mainly through manure storage, application and deposition (CH₄, N₂O, NH₃) * Processing and international transport: 0.03 Gigatonnes CO₂ equivalent

Controversy

A 2009 article in the

Worldwatch Institute The Worldwatch Institute was a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Su ...

magazine by authors Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, then employed at the World Bank, claimed that the FAO report was too conservative and that livestock sector accounts for much more of global GHG emissions, at least 51%, taking into account animal respiration and photosynthetic capacity of the land used for feeding and housing livestock. A 2011 response to this was published by FAO and an international coalition of scientists, discrediting the magazine article and upholding the 2006 assessment. But this response was fully answered back in the journal ''Animal Feed Science and Technology'' (''AFST''), and they reiterated their estimate while FAO scientists declined to continue the debate despite ''AFST'''s Editor's invitation. In 2013 FAO publicly partnered with International Meat Secretariat and the International Dairy Federation and many of the same authors of the first report published a subsequent (2013) study for the FAO, revising their estimate of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions due to livestock downward to 14.5% without addressing any of the alleged errors pointed out in Goodland and Anhang's report or in the ensuing peer-reviewed debate. The results of ''Livestock's Long Shadow'' had an error in methodology as the authors only evaluated the tailpipe emissions of cars, while for meat production a comprehensive life-cycle assessment was used to calculate livestock's green house gas effect. This underestimated transportation therefore inflating meat productions contribution. This issue was raised by Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

. In an interview with BBC Pierre Gerber, one of the authors of ''Livestock's Long Shadow'', accepted Mitloehner's criticism. "I must say honestly that he has a point - we factored in everything for meat emissions, and we didn't do the same thing with transport, we just used the figure from the IPCC..." he said. However, this information was the inspiration behind movements such as "Meatless Monday" Mitloehner is the author of a 2009 study on the topic of livestock and climate change. Five percent of the funds for said study were provided by the livestock industry, according to a press release by Mitloehner's university. FAO cites him as a representative of the International Feed Industry Federation, whose "vision is to provide a unified voice and leadership to represent and promote the global feed industry as an essential participant in the food chain that provides sustainable, safe, nutritious and affordable food for a growing world population."

References to the report

The report was the main scientific source for the documentary ''Meat The Truth'', narrated by Marianne Thieme (2007). It was frequently cited in the documentary ''

Cowspiracy ''Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret'' is a 2014 American documentary film produced and directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn. The film explores the impact of animal agriculture on the environment—examining such environmental concerns as ...

'' (2014)."Cowspiracy: The Facts"
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References

External links

* * {{Portal bar, Books, Food, Politics, Environment Environmental non-fiction books Environmental reports Sustainable food system Food and the environment United Nations reports 2006 documents 2006 in the environment 2006 in international relations Climate change and agriculture Livestock

Report

Controversy

References to the report

See also

References

External links