But the big guns in the industry's arsenal are "free trade" agreements. These trade deals artificially prop up production and consumption by promoting the dumping of cheap meat and dairy into poor countries' economies. They include clauses that eliminate protections for local farmers from foreign competitors. They also make it illegal to grant preference to local suppliers or products and they make government regulations subject to investor-state dispute settlement under which a foreign company can sue governments that adopt social or environmental legislation that they think undermines their profits.
Contrasting the broader carbon footprint of factory farm animals vs animals from small-scale, mixed farms using a systems lens. (Click for larger image.)
Not all meat production is the same, of course. Small scale mixed farmers and herders who graze animals on land where crops often cannot be grown are the sustainable old-guard. Their production and consumption systems contribute relatively few greenhouse gases, while improving family nutrition and livelihoods and forming an integral part of people's cultural and religious traditions.
But even if they're better for the planet, small-scale farmers and ranchers don't have the political clout that industry has. Factory farms are the most rapidly growing segment of meat and dairy production, accounting for 80 percent of the growth of global meat and dairy in recent years. Industrial livestock production has grown at twice the annual rate of traditional, diversified farming systems, and at more than six times the annual growth rate of production based on grazing.
Change is Possible
Yet it's not unimaginable to shift, at scale, away from industrial meat. Last month, Friends of the Earth and Oakland Unified School District published the result of a unique two-year experiment. The district reduced animal protein on school menus by 30 percent while increasing fruit, vegetables, and legumes. When kids ate meat, it came from local organic producers. The result: a 14 percent reduction in the school's food carbon footprint and $42,000 savings in the cost of the meals. Perhaps most remarkable: the children reported increased satisfaction with the healthy, regionally sourced meals.
The Oakland school initiative is smart and, unlike the U.S. meat industry's practices, deserves to be shared and spread widely. But we can't just default to letting our children solve climate change for us. Voting with one's fork or school menu is important, but that alone won't restore small-scale production, and it won't detoxify agricultural politics of corporate influence. Larger-scale policy change is vital. Some governments--including Sweden, the Netherlands and China--have started formulating recommendations that people eat less meat in the interest of reducing climate emissions.
De-meatifying the world will require more from legislators, and more from consumers. It will mean rejecting the meat-marketing and the fertilizer, feed, and fossil fuel industries, too. It will mean pushing back on the trade agreements of which these industries are so fond--and doing so without backing into the nationalism of the right. (It is striking that earlier this year we saw a Trump supporter go head-to-head against the U.S. meatpacking industry in defense of sustainable beef.)
The rift between the left and the right around climate change turns on whether you think industrial meatification is an unintended consequence of the food system or its embodiment. If it's no accident that today's food system exploits animals, humans and nature, then it's clear that a radically transformed system--one that moves beyond capitalism--is what's needed.
Buying America First won't save us from the worst of Big Meat. But it looks as if there are many ranchers, educators, and small-scale farmers who are ready to take a more radical stand. If consumers are ready to boycott Big Meat for good, permanently choosing to support sustainable animal raising by paying more for it, there's hope for us all.
Cattle photo CC-licensed by Alex Proimos.
Originally published in Civi Eats
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