Summary
This report aims to assess the full
impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with
potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment
is based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into
account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture
required for livestock production.
The livestock sector emerges as one of
the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious
environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The
findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus
when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air
pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.
Livestock’s contribution to environmental
problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their
solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to
be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved
at reasonable cost.
Executive summary
This report aims to assess the full
impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with
potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment
is based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into
account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feedcrop agriculture
required for livestock production.
The livestock sector emerges as one of
the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious
environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The
findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus
when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air
pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity.
Livestock’s contribution to environmental
problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their
solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to
be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved
at reasonable cost.
Global importance of
the sector
Although economically not a major global
player, the livestock sector is socially and politically very
significant. It accounts for 40 percent of agricultural gross domestic
product (GDP). It employs 1.3 billion people and creates livelihoods for
one billion of the world’s poor. Livestock products provide one-third of
humanity’s protein intake, and are a contributing cause of obesity and a
potential remedy for undernourishment.
Growing populations and incomes, along
with changing food preferences, are rapidly increasing demand for
livestock products, while globalization is boosting trade in livestock
inputs and products. Global production of meat is projected to more than
double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/01 to 465 million tonnes in 2050,
and that of milk to grow from 580 to 1 043 million tonnes. The
environmental impact per unit of livestock production must be cut by
half, just to avoid increasing the level of damage beyond its present
level.
Structural changes and
their impact
The livestock sector is undergoing a
complex process of technical and geographical change, which is shifting
the balance of environmental problems caused by the sector.
Extensive grazing still occupies and
degrades vast areas of land; though there is an increasing trend towards
intensification and industrialization. Livestock production is shifting
geographically, first from rural areas to urban and peri-urban, to get
closer to consumers, then towards the sources of feedstuff, whether
these are feedcrop areas, or transport and trade hubs where feed is
imported.
There is also a shift of species, with
production of monogastric species (pigs and poultry, mostly produced in
industrial units) growing rapidly, while the growth of ruminant
production (cattle, sheep and goats, often raised extensively) slows.
Through these shifts, the livestock sector enters into more and direct
competition for scarce land, water and other natural resources.
These changes are pushing towards
improved efficiency, thus reducing the land area required for livestock
production. At the same time, they are marginalizing smallholders and
pastoralists, increasing inputs and wastes and increasing and
concentrating the pollution created. Widely dispersed non-point sources
of pollution are ceding importance to point sources that create more
local damage but are more easily regulated.
Land degradation
The livestock sector is by far the single
largest anthropogenic user of land. The total area occupied by grazing
is equivalent to 26 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the
planet. In addition, the total area dedicated to feedcrop production
amounts to 33 percent of total arable land. In all, livestock production
accounts for 70 percent of all agricultural land and 30 percent of the
land surface of the planet.
Expansion of livestock production is a
key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America where the
greatest amount of deforestation is occurring – 70 percent of previous
forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and feedcrops cover
a large part of the remainder. About 20 percent of the world’s pastures
and rangelands, with 73 percent of rangelands in dry areas, have been
degraded to some extent, mostly through overgrazing, compaction and
erosion created by livestock action. The dry lands in particular are
affected by these trends, as livestock are often the only source of
livelihoods for the people living in these areas.
Overgrazing can be reduced by grazing
fees and by removing obstacles to mobility on common property pastures.
Land degradation can be limited and reversed through soil conservation
methods, silvopastoralism, better management of grazing systems, limits
to uncontrolled burning by pastoralists and controlled exclusion from
sensitive areas.
Atmosphere and climate
With rising temperatures, rising sea
levels, melting icecaps and glaciers, shifting ocean currents and
weather patterns, climate change is the most serious challenge facing
the human race.
The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of
greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher
share than transport.
The livestock sector accounts for 9
percent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The largest share of this
derives from land-use changes – especially deforestation – caused by
expansion of pastures and arable land for feedcrops. Livestock are
responsible for much larger shares of some gases with far higher
potential to warm the atmosphere.
The sector emits 37 percent of
anthropogenic methane (with 23 times the global warming potential (GWP)
of CO2) most of that from enteric fermentation by ruminants. It emits 65
percent of anthropogenic nitrous oxide (with 296 times the GWP of CO2),
the great majority from manure. Livestock are also responsible for
almost two-thirds (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which
contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.
This high level of emissions opens up
large opportunities for climate change mitigation through livestock
actions. Intensification – in terms of increased productivity both in
livestock production and in feedcrop agriculture – can reduce greenhouse
gas emissions from deforestation and pasture degradation. In addition,
restoring historical losses of soil carbon through conservation tillage,
cover crops, agroforestry and other measures could sequester up to 1.3
tonnes of carbon per hectare per year, with additional amounts available
through restoration of desertified pastures. Methane emissions can be
reduced through improved diets to reduce enteric fermentation, improved
manure management and biogas – which also provide renewable energy.
Nitrogen emissions can be reduced through improved diets and manure
management.
The Kyoto Protocol’s clean development
mechanism (CDM) can be used to finance the spread of biogas and
silvopastoral initiatives involving afforestation and reforestation.
Methodologies should be developed so that the CDM can finance other
livestock-related options such as soil carbon sequestration through
rehabilitation of degraded pastures.
Water
The world is moving towards increasing
problems of freshwater shortage, scarcity and depletion, with 64 percent
of the world’s population expected to live in water-stressed basins by
2025.
The livestock sector is a key player in
increasing water use, accounting for over 8 percent of global human
water use, mostly for the irrigation of feedcrops. It is probably the
largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to
eutrophication, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral
reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and
many others.
The major sources of pollution are from
animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries,
fertilizers and pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded
pastures. Global figures are not available but in the United States,
with the world’s fourth largest land area, livestock are responsible for
an estimated 55 percent of erosion and sediment, 37 percent of pesticide
use, 50 percent of antibiotic use, and a third of the loads of nitrogen
and phosphorus into freshwater resources.
Livestock also affect the replenishment
of freshwater by compacting soil, reducing infiltration, degrading the
banks of watercourses, drying up floodplains and lowering water tables.
Livestock’s contribution to deforestation also increases runoff and
reduces dry season flows.
Water use can be reduced through
improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Livestock’s impact on
erosion, sedimentation and water regulation can be addressed by measures
against land degradation. Pollution can be tackled through better
management of animal waste in industrial production units, better diets
to improve nutrient absorption, improved manure management (including
biogas) and better use of processed manure on croplands. Industrial
livestock production should be decentralized to accessible croplands
where wastes can be recycled without overloading soils and freshwater.
Policy measures that would help in
reducing water use and pollution include full cost pricing of water (to
cover supply costs, as well as economic and environmental
externalities), regulatory frameworks for limiting inputs and scale,
specifying required equipment and discharge levels, zoning regulations
and taxes to discourage large-scale concentrations close to cities, as
well as the development of secure water rights and water markets, and
participatory management of watersheds.
Biodiversity
We are in an era of unprecedented threats
to biodiversity. The loss of species is estimated to be running 50 to
500 times higher than background rates found in the fossil record.
Fifteen out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed to be in
decline.
Livestock now account for about 20
percent of the total terrestrial animal biomass, and the 30 percent of
the earth’s land surface that they now pre-empt was once habitat for
wildlife. Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in
the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of
deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land
degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of
coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species. In
addition, resource conflicts with pastoralists threaten species of wild
predators and also protected areas close to pastures. Meanwhile in
developed regions, especially Europe, pastures had become a location of
diverse long-established types of ecosystem, many of which are now
threatened by pasture abandonment.
Some 306 of the 825 terrestrial
ecoregions identified by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) – ranged
across all biomes and all biogeographical realms, reported livestock as
one of the current threats. Conservation International has identified 35
global hotspots for biodiversity, characterized by exceptional levels of
plant endemism and serious levels of habitat loss. Of these, 23 are
reported to be affected by livestock production.
An analysis of the authoritative World
Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species shows that most
of the world’s threatened species are suffering habitat loss where
livestock are a factor.
Since many of livestock’s threats to
biodiversity arise from their impact on the main resource sectors
(climate, air and water pollution, land degradation and deforestation),
major options for mitigation are detailed in those sections. There is
also scope for improving pastoralists’ interactions with wildlife and
parks and raising wildlife species in livestock enterprises.
Reduction of the wildlife area pre-empted
by livestock can be achieved by intensification. Protection of wild
areas, buffer zones, conservation easements, tax credits and penalties
can increase the amount of land where biodiversity conservation is
prioritized.
Efforts should extend more widely to
integrate livestock production and producers into landscape management.
Cross-cutting policy
frameworks
Certain general policy approaches cut
across all the above fields. A general conclusion is that improving the
resource use efficiency of livestock production can reduce environmental
impacts. While regulating about scale, inputs, wastes and so on can
help, a crucial element in achieving greater efficiency is the correct
pricing of natural resources such as land, water and use of waste sinks.
Most frequently natural resources are free or underpriced, which leads
to overexploitation and pollution. Often perverse subsidies directly
encourage livestock producers to engage in environmentally damaging
activities.
A top priority is to achieve prices and
fees that reflect the full economic and environmental costs, including
all externalities. One requirement for prices to influence behaviour is
that there should be secure and if possible tradable rights to water,
land, use of common land and waste sinks.
Damaging subsidies should be removed, and
economic and environmental externalities should be built into prices by
selective taxing of and/or fees for resource use, inputs and wastes. In
some cases direct incentives may be needed.
Payment for environmental services is an
important framework, especially in relation to extensive grazing
systems: herders, producers and landowners can be paid for specific
environmental services such as regulation of water flows, soil
conservation, conservation of natural landscape and wildlife habitats,
or carbon sequestration. Provision of environmental services may emerge
as a major purpose of extensive grassland-based production systems.
An important general lesson is that the
livestock sector has such deep and wide-ranging environmental impacts
that it should rank as one of the leading focuses for environmental
policy: efforts here can produce large and multiple payoffs. Indeed, as
societies develop, it is likely that environmental considerations, along
with human health issues, will become the dominant policy considerations
for the sector.
Finally, there is an urgent need to
develop suitable institutional and policy frameworks, at local, national
and international levels, for the suggested changes to occur. This will
require strong political commitment, and increased knowledge and
awareness of the environmental risks of continuing “business as usual”
and the environmental benefits of actions in the livestock sector.
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A
UNITED NATIONS REPORT