Battery-farmed
pigs in an enclosure
From
2015 to 2020, global meat and dairy firms received more than US$478bn in
backing, according to the Meat Atlas. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
20 meat and dairy firms emit more greenhouse gas
than Germany, Britain or France
Livestock companies with large emissions receive
billions of dollars in funding, campaigners say
Sophie
Kevany
Tue 7 Sep
2021 09.00 BST
Twenty
livestock companies are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than
either Germany, Britain or France – and are receiving billions of dollars in
financial backing to do so, according to a new report by environmental
campaigners.
Raising
livestock contributes significantly to carbon emissions, with animal
agriculture accounting for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientific reports have found that rich countries need huge reductions in meat
and dairy consumption to tackle the climate emergency.
Stew
Leonard’s Amid Potential Meat Shortages And Supermarket Safety
Implementations<br>A worker stacks sliced beef steaks on a tray in the
butcher section of a Stew Leonard’s supermarket in Paramus, New Jersey, U.S.,
on Tuesday, May 12, 2020. Stew Leonard Jr. said that meat packing plant the
company uses is operating at about 70 percent capacity, and he expects it to
rebound to full capacity in about a month, CT Post reported.
Between
2015 and 2020, global meat and dairy companies received more than US$478bn in
backing from 2,500 investment firms, banks, and pension funds, most of them
based in North America or Europe, according to the Meat Atlas, which was
compiled by Friends of the Earth and the European political foundation,
Heinrich Böll Stiftung.
With that
level of financial support, the report estimates that meat production could
increase by a further 40m tonnes by 2029, to hit 366m tonnes of meat a year.
Although
the vast majority of growth was likely to take place in the global south, the
biggest producers will continue to be China, Brazil, the USA and the members of
the European Union. By 2029 these countries may still produce 60% of worldwide
meat output.
Across the
world, the report says, three-quarters of all agricultural land is used to
raise animals or the crops to feed them. “In Brazil alone, 175m hectares is
dedicated to raising cattle,” an area of land that is about equal to the
“entire agricultural area of the European Union”.
Largest
producing companies of animal products, annual average 2017-19 - map
Across the
world, three-quarters of all agricultural land is used to raise animals or the
crops to feed them, the report says. Photograph: Meat Atlas 2021/OECD, FAO
The report
also points to ongoing consolidation in the meat and dairy sector, with the
biggest companies buying smaller ones and reducing competition. The effect
risks squeezing out more sustainable food production models.
“To keep up
with this [level of animal protein production] industrial animal farming is on
the rise and keeps pushing sustainable models out of the market,” the report
says.
The recent
interest shown by animal protein companies in meat alternatives and substitutes
was not yet a solution, campaigners said.
“This is
all for profit and is not really addressing the fundamental issues we see in
the current animal protein-centred food system that is having a devastating
impact on climate, biodiversity and is actually harming people around the
globe,” said Stanka Becheva, a food and agriculture campaigner working with
Friends of the Earth.
The bottom
line, said Becheva, is that “we need to begin reducing the number of food
animals on the planet and incentivise different consumption models.”
More meat
industry regulation is needed too, she said, “to make sure companies are paying
for the harms they have created throughout the supply chain and to minimise
further damage”.
On the
investment side, Becheva said private banks and investors, as well as
development banks such as the World Bank and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development needed to stop financing large-scale, intensive
animal protein production projects.
Responding
to the report, Paolo Patruno, deputy secretary general of the European
Association for the Meat Processing Industry (CLITRAVI), said: “We don’t
believe that any food sector is more or less sustainable than another. But
there are more or less sustainable ways to produce plant or animal foods and we
are committed to making animal protein production more sustainable.
“We also
know that average GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions in the EU from livestock is
half that of the global average. The global average is about 14% and the EU
average is 7%,” he added.
In England
and Wales, the National Farmers’ Union has set a target of reaching net zero
greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture by 2040.
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