From Livestock's Long Shadow

From Livestock’s Long Shadow

According to this United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, the livestock sector generates the most greenhouse gas emissions and is a major source of land and water degradation.  With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products.  The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agriculture sub-sector

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture and land used to producing feed for livestock.  Forests are cleared to create new pastures causing deforestation, especially in Latin America where 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.  Herds cause wide-scale land degradation through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. 

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources.  The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray crops. 

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass.  Livestock’s presence contributes to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock the culprit.

This does not take into consideration the immense suffering of these innocent individuals who are exploited to provide their bodies for human consumption.  This then causes heart disease, diabetes and cancer in the humans who eat them and drink their milk.