Comfortably Unaware (15 page)

The third concern requires a more in-depth response. Let us consider sustainability as it relates to our food choices. What is it? And exactly who is it that determines what human practices are sustainable? Along my many journeys, I have found that most often, those who use the term “sustainable” are those who truly do not know what is sustainable and, more important, what is not. They simply are not aware of all the variables that need to be factored in when determining true sustainability. It's extremely unfortunate that these same individuals or institutions are placed in a position where public opinion is influenced; even policy-making is based on their opinions. Many examples of this are found routinely in the United States and around the world.

One such example involves the policies with regard to whale killing adopted by a few Caribbean islands. In 2008, St. Lucia was one of six islands that voted to lift the 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban on hunting whales, which
essentially allows Japan to use St. Lucia's surrounding waters to kill whales again commercially or for “scientific research” purposes. In exchange for the use of their waters, Japan subsidizes St. Lucia and five other Caribbean island countries by funneling in $100 million to the economies of these island nations.
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Japan, Norway, and Iceland now kill collectively three thousand whales annually.
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Most are still slaughtered by using the painful and inhumane penthrite grenade harpoon technique developed in the 1800s, which is an important topic of discussion in and of itself. During my last conversation with officials of St. Lucia, I asked how they could possibly allow hunting in their waters of these very intelligent, sensitive, and social beings, and I encouraged the officials instead to further invest in the growth of whale watching and ecotourism. Chief Fisheries Officer of St. Lucia, Ignatius Jean, responded with hostility, stating, “We allow harvesting of whales in a sustainable manner … and both industries [whale killing and whale watching] can coexist in our waters.” This is an interesting statement from the one person who influences the policies made to allow the taking of another life off the shores of the island, as no one actually knows the real population numbers of sperm whales.
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Nor does anyone know the sperm whales' social, feeding, breeding and migratory traditions that have been established for thousands of years.
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We will not realize that this hunting practice is
not
sustainable until the whales are all gone, as has happened with many other whales and other species. Additionally, how sensible is it to think that a highly intelligent and acutely sensitive creature like the sperm whale would feel comfortable and cooperative with whale-watching boats nearby on any given afternoon, when that same morning its entire pod was attacked and its mate was viciously killed right next to him by
a Japanese whale-hunting boat. The reason many whales have become extinct and others are now endangered is because those individuals who influence public opinion or decisions and policies on sustainable practices actually do not have all the answers and thereby miscalculate. In the case of species such as the whale, it is a double miscalculation that results in not only loss of strict numbers but also in the individual act of allowing humans to take the life of another living, peaceful, and innocent being. I believe the rule to follow is that nature has a balancing equation of its own that we humans are incapable of fully comprehending, and that whenever we get involved in this equation by creating subtractions (of land, animals, or other resources), it most likely will generate an irreversible imbalance somewhere—whether or not we are capable of measuring this imbalance. With whales, as with our inanimate resources, even baseline projections of availability are disputable, let alone all those tangible and intangible variables that our human interferences affect along the way.

As it becomes more apparent that our current method of producing livestock is unhealthy for one reason or another, the attention will be turned invariably toward grass-fed, “organic,” or essentially pastured animal production. This is already justified as being the healthy alternative to our current practices, as it is purported to be “fully sustainable.” Again, who is in the supervisory position to proclaim that this would be sustainable and thereby will misdirect public perception? Why is this endorsed by highly publicized and influential individuals?

This thinking is wrought with many misconceptions that can, for the most part, be grouped as follows:

•  That killing and eating any animal is healthier for us than eating plant-based foods, whether or not those animals have eaten pasture

•  That somehow transferring the production of animals for food to another mode can be accomplished in a fully sustainable fashion, meaning without the loss of land, water, air quality, or any other resource

Let's look more closely at these misconceptions. The small local farm and grass-fed livestock movement is quickly gaining momentum, in part because of the promotion by various organizations and authors and lecturers, such as Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Joel Salatin, and Jonathan Safran Foer. On its surface, this movement appears to be a remedy for much of what they convey as a concern for a healthier diet. After all, modifying our demand for meat to be raised in small farms and on pasture, according to them, accomplishes many things:

•  Creates a more “sustainable” way for this type of food to be produced

•  Less contribution to pollution

•  Provides a “healthier” type of meat

•  Breaks down the economic monopoly of our current large agro-businesses in support of the local and small farmer

•  Establishes a more humane way for animals to be still used for food

Growing food on a small farm was partially sustainable a hundred years ago—“partially” because at that time, we really did not have a precise method of evaluating the exact effect
this style of farming had on individual ecosystems throughout the world. And certainly, eating quantities of animal products was most likely not sustainable to people's health. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived and “sustained” themselves on a small farm. They grew just enough food, some of it animals, to eat off of their own land—as did 37 percent of the U.S. population in 1910, and as did 80 percent of the population in 1870. Today, less than 2 percent garner their income from agriculture, yet the vast majority of our food (84 percent of the total value of food production per year) is now produced by large agro-businesses, which comprise 12 percent of all farming operations in the U.S. (Economic Information Bulletin # EIB-66, 72 pp, July 2010).

On the surface, then, transforming our current agro-business systems to be more local small-farm–oriented is on the right track for many reasons—but not if these systems include raising animals for food. Reduction of the waste (fossil fuel, time, money, etc.) that occurs in transportation, processing, and packaging could be accomplished by becoming more local farm-dependent. Local, small, family farms would also benefit economically, especially if governmental incentives were provided for them. But these incentives should be provided only if they produce food that is the most sustainable for our planet—which would have to be plant-based foods. Raising pastured livestock may seem to be sustainable locally regarding use of resources, but upon closer examination, it is not. And certainly it is not sustainable on a global scale, where more and more people will need to be fed with less land and fewer of our natural resources. Additionally, it is not sustainable for our own health.

Upon closer examination, we can see exactly how grass-fed livestock would affect each of the various areas of global depletion.
Land use would simply increase dramatically. We already know how inefficiently we currently use land to raise livestock. And regardless of whether we use mob grazing, juvenile grass growth rotational pasturing, or any other technique to improve land quality while raising grass-fed livestock, it would still require between two and twenty acres of land to support the growth of one cow, depending on which area of the country or world is involved.
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I found these figures consistent, whether discussing the topic with the more than thirty experts I contacted in agricultural academic institutions or with the many farmers who have been working with grass-fed livestock for the past few decades. Now, on a global scale we will need to multiply the two to twenty acres per cow times the billion that are currently raised in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, or factory farms), and you will quickly see that there is not enough land on earth—or even
two
earths—to support this. It would require well
beyond
the 30 percent of all the land mass on earth that livestock are using now.

In the United States alone, there are 98 million cattle per year raised for eventual slaughter.
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Additionally, there are 70 million pigs raised each year for slaughter, and while no objective studies have shown how many acres of land are needed to allow the growth of one pig, a fair assumption would be five to fifteen acres.
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And since those proponents of grass-fed cows are concerned about keeping their animals “happy,” we should indeed include pigs in any of the discussions related to the continual and supposedly sustainable practice of producing only pasture-fed animals. Pigs actually enjoy walks, foraging as they go, and can use all fifteen acres quite easily for feeding, as well as adequate movement. Most would not be aware of this because, unfortunately, most pigs are never allowed the freedom of pasture.

So, let's just do some simple math here. With just the cows and pigs we currently raise to eat each year, placing them all in “fully sustainable” pastured conditions at the appropriate acreage per animal would require 2,520,000,000 acres of land, just in the United States alone (that's 168 million pigs and cows combined, multiplied times an average of fifteen acres per animal required to sustain it). To put this into clear perspective, it's interesting to note that the United States only has 2,260,994,361 total land acres in its entire mass.
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You can see it is more than absurd, just from a land-use basis only, to presume that somehow eating all pasture-produced meat is even remotely “sustainable.” To be consistent, as well as fair to other animals, we can't omit the raising on pasture of the 250 million turkeys, seven million sheep, and eight billion chickens that we consume each year, which would obviously require even more land than has been used in our calculations for cows and pigs.
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This merely points out the land-mass use requirements. It is not just the quantity, however, but also the quality of land that is heavily impacted by grazing animals. There would be continued and extensive habitat loss, with its subsequent effect on loss of biodiversity and minimizing of oxygen production/carbon dioxide sequestration because of the continued loss of forests. All of this would simply exacerbate our world hunger issues, because land use inefficiencies will continue. In a grass-fed livestock scenario, only a few hundred pounds per acre of animal tissue would be produced, instead of thousands of pounds per acre of plant-based foods, which have more health benefits for us as well.

Whenever any discussion is undertaken regarding sustainable food production operations, let alone “fully sustainable,” there must be inclusion of the measurable effects they would
have on our water and air quality. The move to pasture-fed cows would, if anything, simply increase the methane production per cow, as it generally requires the rumen bacteria to work longer to digest grass, in order to produce the same energy content found in grain. Some researchers have found, for instance, that greenhouse gas production is 50-60 percent higher in grass-fed beef.
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We must also remember that when discussing cattle, each animal, when grass-fed, will need to live an additional twelve to thirteen months beyond the ten to twelve months that is considered routine when grain-fed. That means every cow that is producing 50–60 percent more methane will be doing so over twice as long a period. Additionally, every one of the billions of animals raised for us to eat each year, grass-fed or not, also will use oxygen and produce CO
₂
as part of their normal respiration process. Knowing livestock's current contribution to our global warming concerns and our need to
reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, continued raising of animals in a grass-fed manner is not healthy or sustainable for our atmosphere.

Those who support continued but pastured livestock use also are completely overlooking the use of water that is still needed by these animals. Remember, the water currently used to support our livestock industry is not sustainable—why would that change with animals raised more on pasture? It would not. There is still the enormous drain on our water supply by the slaughtering and transfer processes requiring as much as another 400 to 500 gallons per cow. And the proponents of this must think that the animals, if free-ranging, will mysteriously not need to drink the same outrageous thousands of gallons of water per animal per year. If anything, the amount would most likely be increased because of the higher activity level of each cow or pig, and they
may need to live longer to achieve the appropriate weight gain prior to slaughter. All of this water will need to come from somewhere—aquifers or surface water (lakes, ponds, rivers, streams). Whether the animals are grass-fed or not, this is water that could be used directly for human consumption or to much more efficiently produce plant-based foods. We have seen that it requires up to 5,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef (650–1000 gallons per burger). If this figure is adjusted to reflect pasture only that is being fed to the livestock, it will still require 21,000–22,000 gallons over a 24-month period to raise just one cow. That amount of water is the equivalent of a person taking a five-minute shower each and every day for 6.7 years. So, raising grass fed livestock really is not sustainable from a water-usage standpoint.