Yesterday I came across an article in NPR’s The Salt blog which I found to be somewhat disheartening. In Why Farmers Can Prevent Global Warming Just As Well As Vegetarians, factory farming-like practices are touted as the best solution for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock industry.
In no way am I questioning the logic behind the article’s source. As the demand for animal products rises globally, so will the already vast emissions from the livestock industry due to feeding, raising, transporting, and the creation of new grazing lands. Thus, per the findings of the study, animals should be raised in an industrial facility on grain, and the creation of new grazing land for livestock should be avoided. (It should be noted that “grain” may not mean what you think it means.) It makes sense that deforestation is not good, and that “…transitions toward more productive livestock production systems…” should be more efficient and economical, but at what cost ethically? Neither the article nor the abstract of its (pay walled) primary source explicitly mention the practices that factory farms are notorious for; however, it’s fairly easy to make that connection when their recommendations rely heavily on limiting land use and altering livestock diets. Is this really a solution that we should be suggesting to developing nations?
Through all of this, I am still having trouble understanding how the factory farming of meat can somehow be just as eco-friendly as non-consumption, and it saddens me to realize that the escalation of these farming practices are the likely outcome when compared to simple restraint.
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