Industrial meat - Let’s make the most of this change

AS CERTAINTIES crumble every day it may be asking a lot for us to consider, much less accept, that one of the everyday pleasures of Irish life has become a threat to the environment.

It is difficult to imagine that what we take for granted, that which sustains so many family businesses, is having a huge impact on climate change because of increased demand and new production methods.

Industrial meat production, especially in the Americas, has assumed unimaginable proportions and is having a negative impact on the environment, third world economies, human and animal health and the efficient use of protein. So much so that we in the West may all have to ask ourselves if we are entitled to consume as much meat — especially beef — as we do.

This is a challenging question in a country where our traditional, grass-based beef production is seen as the way forward. The Irish way of producing beef, without the awful consequences of the 100,000-plus animal feed lots — more satanic mills than Old McDonald’s Farm — is more part of the solution than the problem.

However, the world demand for beef cannot be met by conventional, grass-based production.

The figures are startling and can’t be avoided. Global demand has multiplied. Assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

In recent months Brazil imposed emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of rain forests for crops and grazing land. In the past five months of 2008 the Brazilian government says 1,250 square miles of forest were lost to beef production. In Ireland it cost about €2 billion to make farmyards pollution proof and compliant with EU nitrates directive.

Although 800 million people face hunger every day, the majority of corn and soy grown feeds cattle, pigs or chickens. This is despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption. It is as much as 10 times more for grain-fed beef in the United States.

Livestock production is estimated to account for 18% of global greenhouse gases and beef is the biggest culprit. Even though beef only accounts for 30% of meat consumption in the developed world it’s responsible for 78% of farm emissions. If we were to switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70%.

There is another way to reduce our impact: if meat consumption in the developed world was cut from about 90kg a year to the recommended level of 53kg a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44%. We might well be healthier too.

So, what has all of this got to do with a rangy lump of a bullock stretching to sniff the burgeoning spring in a fattening house in east Limerick or Kilkenny? And, more importantly, what has it got to do with the farmer hoping to make a profit when the animal is sold?

All of the figures quoted above suggest that industrial meat production has a finite future and that, in time, grass-reared beef will be in great demand. It may also mean that beef will become so expensive that domestic consumption will decrease. In a time of pessimism there seems to be a great opportunity for Ireland to replace industrial meat with something better and more wholesome, something more valuable and sustaining.

Let’s be ready when the time comes.