My perspective - I鈥檝e got a beef
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- Published on Friday, June 21, 2019
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
Neepawa Banner & Press
The Canadian beef industry took a bit of flack in the regional media last week. It鈥檚 part of a larger problem鈥� many Canadians have lost their connection to the farm and how food is produced. They don鈥檛 know what 水果视频 cattle producers are actually doing and why turning our province鈥檚 pastures into fields of soy might not be the best idea.
Last summer, a study was published in Science titled, 鈥淩educing food鈥檚 environmental impacts through producers and consumers鈥�. The study consolidated international data from five environmental indicators, 38,700 farms and 1,600 processors, packaging types and retailers. The study concluded, 鈥淭he impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes.鈥� The study also points out that while livestock take up 83 per cent of farmland, they only produce 18 per cent of the world鈥檚 calories. Some of the more prominent news coverage ran with pictures of cattle grazing on slashed Amazon rain forest and pushed the need to switch from animal to plant proteins.
There are extremely damaging ways of producing meat, including grazing illegally slashed Amazon rainforest, but what gets considerably less attention is the role that animal agriculture plays in helping to conserve the environment and species at risk. The 鈥淩educing food鈥︹�� study found that the problems weren鈥檛 evenly distributed鈥� looking at beef herds, the highest-impact 25 per cent of producers represented 56 per cent of the beef herd鈥檚 GHG emissions and 61 per cent of its land use. There is a large need for change among these producers.
One of the biggest positive roles cattle and other ruminant animals play is that they utilize natural resources that humans can鈥檛. They break down the cellulose in grass for energy, this is something that many mammals, including humans, can鈥檛 do. It鈥檚 more complicated than just turning fields of grazing into crops, because not all land is created equal. All told, the FAO estimates that as much as 70 per cent of the world鈥檚 agricultural land can only be utilized as grazing land for ruminant livestock. This land has no other productive options.
Grazing animals play a vital role in the ecosystem and since the large herds that used to graze the plains no longer exist, today, domestic animals fill the role. The Canadian Wildlife Federation recognizes the more than 20 million hectares of pasture in Canada, which is important habitat to thousands of species of birds, mammals, reptiles, plants and insects. Some of the country鈥檚 largest conservation agreements cover pasture and at the Alberta/Saskatchewan border, beneficial cattle grazing has been one of the key factors in efforts to rebuild the decimated population of sage grouse. Sheep are being used to combat the encroachment of invasive plants and ensure the health of the tall grass prairie at the Living Prairie Museum in Winnipeg.
In our area, it鈥檚 not unusual to see prime crop land sell for $3,000 or more an acre, it just doesn鈥檛 pay to graze animals on such valuable land. It鈥檚 why as seed varieties and fertilizers allow more marginal land to be turned into something it really isn鈥檛, more and more pasture is being converted into crop land, often after being cleared, drained and levelled.
Today, Canada鈥檚 cattle ranchers are producing more with less. In 2011, it took 29 per cent less breeding stock, 27 per cent fewer slaughter cattle, 24 per cent less land and 15 per cent less green house gas to produce the same amount of beef as it did two decades before. This is not an industry stuck in the past.
There are over 205,000 farms in Canada and their diversity is only a fraction of that seen around the world. This isn鈥檛 to say that there isn鈥檛 more we could all be doing, but to advocate that 水果视频鈥檚 pastures should be converted to fields of soy ignores the realities鈥� those that can, or should, already have been.
