G20 fears

37 per cent of all human-induced methane, which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain. Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, the report says, mostly on permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land — used to produce feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America, where former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing and arable land for feed crops. Livestock herds cause widescale land degradation, with about 20 per cent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. The figure is even higher in the drylands, where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification, the report says. The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution and eutrophication. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources and significant amounts of water are used to irrigate feed crops, the report says. While the case against meat consumption in affluent countries may be growing, there are calls to recognise the quite different situations elsewhere. Carlos Sere, executive director of the International Livestock Research Institute, has recently highlighted the dependence of many sub-Saharan subsistence farmers on their animals. “Rich and poor worlds are colliding when it comes to the value of livestock production and consumption. In this case, both points are understandable — for their own worlds. The rich world may need to cut back on livestock consumption and production, but the poor world cannot afford to do so,” he said. “Research shows that very modest amounts of animal-sourced foods in the diets of the poor can have tremendous health benefits.” But he points out that “livestock producers in rich countries practice factory farming, which can treat animals inhumanely and depends on vast amounts of resources, particularly in the forms of water, cereals and energy.” “Concern for the environment is legitimate, but it should not override concern for the livelihoods of 1.2 billion poor people.” “While people in rich nations are harming their health by eating too much fatty red meat and cheese, many people in the cities and rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America, particularly children and women in their child-bearing years, are malnourished because they are not consuming enough eggs, meat and milk,” he says. And, according to a new book called Food Policy, one of the authors, Tim Lang, told the Daily Telegraph that consumers in affluent countries may soon be facing restraints on their food availability. He warned that consumers in affluent countries may face rationing unless they reduce their consumption of meat and dairy products. Lang and his co-authors David Barling and Martin Caraher, based at City University in London, are developing a system to help consumers navigate options that are nutritious, ethical and sustainable. For British consumers, they are trying to ascertain whether, for example, a Fair Trade banana from the Caribbean is as ‘sustainable’ as a lamb shank from Wales. Lang, who first coined the term ‘food miles’ now believes the overuse of water in agricultural production presents the biggest threat to future food production. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the production of a pint of milk uses up more than 550 litres of water while the production of a hamburger uses 1,800 litres. Lang backs a call from Australian academics that consumers eat no more than 90 g of meat per day, half or less than the current level in most affluent countries. “Huge amounts of water are being used as irrigation or fed directly to animals,” says Lang. A return to rationing, though “almost unthinkable” in peace time, cannot be ruled out, he says. Behind the relief that the G20 summit came up with a number of agreed measures to tackle the global recession, there was disappointment that it failed to boost low carbon economies and tackle climate change, which appeared almost to be ignored. It was meant to, in Gordon Brown’s words, strike a ‘global green new deal’ to tackle climate change and pull the world out of recession at the same time. In fact, the G20 meeting has raised alarm bells about future progress on tackling climate change. Far from being at the heart of last month’s London summit, the looming climate crisis was relegated to a brief and vague afterthought at the very end of the communiqué. This has had an immediate dampening effect on negotiations on a new treaty supposed In spite of global plaudits, many people are concerned about the lack of environmental targets in the summit’s conclusion. Nigel Williams reports. G20 fears