SOUTH AMERICA:
How to Atone for Beef's
Sins
By Mario Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO (Tierramérica)
- The global food crisis
and climate change have
cast the spotlight on
negative aspects of the
cattle industry, such as
the high consumption of
vegetable protein to
generate relatively
little meat, and the
sector’s role in global
warming.
Because of its cattle,
Brazil is among the
world's leading emitters
of greenhouse gases. The
livestock industry has
encroached on the Amazon
rainforest and is a
leading cause of
deforestation. According
to its first national
inventory, in 1994,
logging represented 75
percent of Brazil's
greenhouse gases.
The destruction of
forests, which has
accelerated since the
1980s, coincides with
the expansion of
cattle-raising. From
1994 to 2006, the
national herd grew from
158 million to 205
million head, and 82
percent of that increase
took place in the Amazon
region, according to the
study "The Cattle
Kingdom" by the
environmental group
Friends of the
Earth-Brazilian Amazon,
released in January.
Cattle in the country’s
Amazon jungle region,
which numbered 73.7
million head in 2006,
occupied 74 percent of
the total deforested
area.
However, the original
cause of deforestation
is not cattle-raising,
but rather the lack of
incentives for
sustainable production
in the Amazon, said
Mario Menezes, assistant
director of Friends of
the Earth and co-author
of the study. Without
agricultural regulation,
state oversight and
development policies,
"the expansion is
chaotic," he told
Tierramérica.
Most land in the Amazon
region is publicly
owned, but the
government does little
to monitor it. Many
ranchers occupy areas
illegally, and spend
little to clear the
forests, says Paulo
Barreto, a researcher
with the Institute of
Man and the Environment
in the Amazon.
Meanwhile, restoring
degraded pasture land
costs two and a half
times more, Barreto
said.
With productivity at
little more than one
head per hectare,
Brazilian cattle hunger
for cheap land.
Deforesting the land --
which carries little
risk of penalty -- then
becomes a logical route.
In the Amazon,
furthermore, cattle have
found "sun, heat and
water year round," which
means cheaper beef,
"competitive despite the
distance" to industrial
centres, Assuero Veronez,
head of the environment
committee of the
Agriculture and
Livestock Confederation
of Brazil, told
Tierramérica.
To attribute
three-quarters of
Brazil's greenhouse gas
emissions to
deforestation is a
mistake, Veronez
believes, because the
calculation includes all
of the area's biomass,
ignoring the fact that
before the "quemadas" or
slash-and-burn technique
used to clear land, the
useful lumber is removed
and what burns is just
30 to 40 percent of the
original biomass.
Tito Díaz, an animal
health and protection
officer with the United
Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) in Latin America,
also underscored that
"pastures fix carbon in
their roots at a volume
that is quite
considerable and is not
taken into account."
But now "everything is
banned" because of
environmental issues,
which leads to a
"stranglehold on the
Amazon region economy,"
Veronez complained.
And the pressure is
growing stronger.
Brazil's Consumer
Defence Institute (IDEC)
launched a campaign in
March, "Change
Consumption, Don't
Change the Climate",
urging the public and
supermarkets to track
beef origins and reject
any that comes from
cattle that have
contributed to
deforestation.
According to Lisa Gunn,
IDEC information
manager, beef "is not
sustainable" because it
comes from the
conversion of a much
greater quantity of food
and plant protein into
meat, and requires too
much land. But it is
only possible to change
habits gradually, she
says, which is why the
institute is calling for
reducing consumption of
beef instead of
eliminating beef from
the diet altogether.
In pasture-fed cattle
operations like those of
South America, one
kilogramme of beef is
produced with 18 to 20
kilos of grass. For
feedlot cattle, where
the diet is based on
grain, six to eight
kilos are needed to
produce one kilo of
meat, according to
Francisco Santini,
veterinarian at
Argentina's National
Institute of
Agricultural Technology.
Cattle that are raised
confined in feedlots
require less space, but
they also cause
deforestation because
they are fed soybeans,
of which Brazil and
Argentina are major
producers. This effect
is evident in the
increase in deforested
area in the Amazon each
time there is a rise in
the international price
for soybeans.
Brazil's greenhouse gas
emissions tally must
also include methane and
nitrous oxide from
cattle manure, which
represent a relatively
small volume of total
emissions, but are 20
and 300 times more
destructive,
respectively, than
carbon dioxide produced
by forest fires.
In Argentina, 11 million
hectares that previously
served as pasture land
for cattle have been
converted to farmland
over the last 14 years,
while the national herd
stands at 54 million
head today. Methane
emissions have declined
with the increase in
grain feed, said Santini.
But the most recent data
available indicate that
agriculture generates 44
percent of the country's
greenhouse gas
emissions, with an
increased share from
methane from cattle
manure.
In Uruguay, which has 10
million head of cattle
-- three times the
country’s population --
in addition to 15.2
million sheep,
agriculture accounts for
91 percent of the
country's methane
emissions and is the
country's second leading
source of greenhouse
gases.
A 2006 FAO report
estimated that livestock
generated 18 percent of
the world's greenhouse
gases, surpassing
transportation as an
emissions source. The
calculation included the
effects of
deforestation, food
production and its
chemical inputs
(pesticides and
fertilisers), gases
produced by livestock,
meat processing and
agricultural transport.
Across most of Latin
America forests have
been lost to livestock
and soybean production,
but Chile and Uruguay
have increased their
tree-covered areas,
which indicates that
livestock can expand
"without putting an end
to forests," Díaz, the
FAO expert, told
Tierramérica.
The region has the
advantage of feeding its
herds with grass and
other forage, which
don't compete with human
food, given the high
prices of the grains
that Europe and the
United States utilise in
their heavily subsidised
cattle industries, he
said.
But, to avoid missing a
key opportunity, Latin
America should promote
"sustainable
cattle-raising systems"
and recover degraded
pasture land, Díaz
added.
Sustainability is being
pursued in Acre, a state
in northwest Brazil, by
integrating agriculture,
pasture and forestry,
which improves the
productivity of small,
medium and large
properties. The yield
reaches three head of
cattle per hectare,
three times the national
average, reports Judson
Valentim, head of the
local centre of the
government's
agricultural research
agency, Embrapa.
Valentim admits that
livestock production
leads to deforestation
as a result of cheap
land, but says this can
be corrected with higher
productivity and with
measures like the ban
(beginning Jul. 1) on
loans to farmers or
ranchers who are
involved in illegal
logging.
Brazilian cattle-raising
could be made
sustainable with more
productive technologies,
with ranching limited to
appropriate areas, and
leaving aside land that
is better suited to
growing crops, he says.
But Barreto and Veronez
agree that this would
require policies that
compensate for what has
been invested in
recovering degraded or
more costly land, paying
farmers and ranchers for
environmental services,
and changing the
economic logic that
currently favours
deforestation.
(*Mario Osava is an IPS
correspondent. Marcela
Valente in Buenos Aires
and Raúl Pierri in
Montevideo contributed
reporting. Originally
published by Latin
American newspapers that
are part of the
Tierramérica network.
Tierramérica is a
specialised news service
produced by IPS with the
backing of the United
Nations Development
Programme, United
Nations Environment
Programme and the World
Bank.)
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