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One of the commenters on the thread says: "If the meat you are eating is organic, local, and grass-fed it's going to have an extremely low carbon footprint." I

One of the commenters on the thread says: "If the meat you are eating is organic, local, and grass-fed it's going to have an extremely low carbon footprint." Is this true? Does anyone know of any data that supports or refute this? I'm just wondering if a third factor -- how the meat is produced -- has a meaningful impact on its carbon footprint. I wonder how much of the carbon footprint of red meat, for example, comes from all of the petroleum used to produce fertilizer to grow corn for grain-fed cattle.

bmj 15y ago
I don't have hard facts, but if done correctly, pasturing/grass-feeding animals means it is possible raise and feed a herd without adding energy inputs (aside from the sun and rain necessary to grow the grass). This, at least, applies to animals like cows who are equipped to eat only grasses as a food source. Raising other animals (like pigs or chickens) means you may need to supplement pasture grazing with grains. But there's nothing stopping a farmer from growing those on the farm without much additional energy inputs.
- HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
  It's a matter of scale. There was a pig (and other animals) farmer who used to have a really good blog. One of the practices he used was to get free discarded milk and by-products from a local dairy to feed his pigs. Instead of the dairy having to pay to discard about-to-spoil whey, for example, he would just accept a few tons of it and feed it to his animals. But that only goes so far, and the supply has to be local or it becomes too expensive to truck in. You can feed your cows on grass, but the animal density has to be much lower, or the grass will be under so much pressure that it will die out from overgrazing. Likewise, you can pasture-raise chickens and the eggs/meat are tastier for it, but the number of chickens/sq yd of pasture is much less than you can squeeze into an indoors "battery operation." If you are concerned with animal welfare -- and I firmly believe that you should be -- these things are difficult problems. On the one hand you want to raise animals in a sustainable manner that allows them a good, if short, life, but on the other, your customers need to be able to afford the food you provide. And it's that final point that is stopping many farmers from doing it.
  - jessedhillon 15y ago
    Can you articulate for me your resolution to what appears to me to be an irresolvable conflict: on the one hand, firmly believing in the welfare of animals and, on the other hand, electing to eat them.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - jessedhillon 15y ago
      No? Okay, let's just downvote the comment then. Electively killing an animal is fundamentally incompatible with caring for it as a living thing -- as non-property; something which has the right to live it's life independent of any human's design for it. Without forgoing your intent to eat it, the best welfare you can give an animal is the treatment of property, as a valued investment. Given that you opt for these animals to be killed anyway, your call for their improved treatment is, I expect, designed first to benefit yourself and your own mental and emotional state. It has only the secondary effect of improving the animals' lives.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
        Um, yeah, whatever. It's your conflict; why do you expect me to resolve it for you? You can go into complicated justifications or simply believe that the animal should, while alive, be humanely treated. And that it should be killed quickly and as painlessly as possible. And then enjoy its expertly cooked flesh.
  - bmj 15y ago
    It is a matter of scale. I'm of the opinion that the FDA and the department of agriculture, in coordination with the factory farms, have made it very difficult for small farmers to survive (Joel Salatin is an excellent source of information on the sort of regulations that are required). The farmer fro whom we buy our meat, eggs, and milk has stated that he runs at his capacity--he does not believe he could take on more animals (even though there is a great demand for his product) without ultimately making life worse for the animals and producing an inferior product.
127001brewer 15y ago
The problem is not only the petroleum used within this industrial process, but also the other pollutants such as waste water run off and methane emissions. "Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, are urgently needed, according to a new United Nations report released today. ..."[1] It seems to me that the industrial production of any food is overly hazardous to the environment, but is there a way to meet food demands while being environmentally neutral? 1. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=warning http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=w...
AdamTReineke 15y ago
Don't forget that even organic, local, grass-fed cattle still produce methane [1], which is 25x worse than CO2 [2]. [1] http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html#1 http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html#1 [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp
- seabee 15y ago
  My memory is rusty and the link doesn't corroborate your figure from what I could see. What I remember is that methane is more potent a greenhouse gas than O2 but it has a significantly shorter half-life in the atmosphere.
  - troutwine 15y ago
    Methane has a half-life of < 10 years (7, I think) but a GWP of 25. The primary concern of atmospheric methane is, then, the possibility of a quick build-up that increases CO2 emission from natural sources; there is quite a bit of CO2 stored in bogs that only a bit of methane will release. It's the long-term side-effects of atmospheric methane that become long-term concerns, rather than the methane itself.
  - AdamTReineke 15y ago
    Sorry, the link was just to corroborate the fact that cattle produce a lot of methane. For the GWP of Methane: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp
- frankus 15y ago
  [1] doesn't really discuss whether grass-fed cattle produce more, less, or about the same amount of methane as those eating conventional feed.
r00fus 15y ago
I'd really question the "extremely low" part. Animals are at least an order of magnitude more expensive in pure energy inputs to successfully grow than veggies (this becomes apparent if you compare land usage between the two purely in solar wattage).
- euccastro 15y ago
  If it is organic, all that energy input is carbon neutral.
  - jdbeast00 15y ago
    there is a lot more energy that goes into food production than just the fertilizer.
- DougWebb 15y ago
  They're able to provide much more energy as a food source, too. That means we'd have to eat several pounds of veggies to replace the energy we get from one pound of meat. If you're going to compare the cost of growing animals vs veggies, you've got to account for needing more veggies. It's a complex equation because there are a lot of factors that have to come into play to do a fair comparison. It's probably as complex to model, and as sensitive to input-variable selection, as predicting global weather patterns.
  - r00fus 15y ago
    It's not really that complex. Due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy), you will never get more back than you put in (in fact, you'll never even break even). Larger investments of energy for less food = higher energy cost for food. update: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
  - Robin_Message 15y ago
    How many pounds of veggies do you think that pound of meat ate? Meat is only more efficient when you can't grow crops on that land, e.g. sheep and goats on mountains.

bmj 15y ago

I don't have hard facts, but if done correctly, pasturing/grass-feeding animals means it is possible raise and feed a herd without adding energy inputs (aside from the sun and rain necessary to grow the grass). This, at least, applies to animals like cows who are equipped to eat only grasses as a food source. Raising other animals (like pigs or chickens) means you may need to supplement pasture grazing with grains. But there's nothing stopping a farmer from growing those on the farm without much additional energy inputs.

HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
It's a matter of scale. There was a pig (and other animals) farmer who used to have a really good blog. One of the practices he used was to get free discarded milk and by-products from a local dairy to feed his pigs. Instead of the dairy having to pay to discard about-to-spoil whey, for example, he would just accept a few tons of it and feed it to his animals. But that only goes so far, and the supply has to be local or it becomes too expensive to truck in. You can feed your cows on grass, but the animal density has to be much lower, or the grass will be under so much pressure that it will die out from overgrazing. Likewise, you can pasture-raise chickens and the eggs/meat are tastier for it, but the number of chickens/sq yd of pasture is much less than you can squeeze into an indoors "battery operation." If you are concerned with animal welfare -- and I firmly believe that you should be -- these things are difficult problems. On the one hand you want to raise animals in a sustainable manner that allows them a good, if short, life, but on the other, your customers need to be able to afford the food you provide. And it's that final point that is stopping many farmers from doing it.
- jessedhillon 15y ago
  Can you articulate for me your resolution to what appears to me to be an irresolvable conflict: on the one hand, firmly believing in the welfare of animals and, on the other hand, electing to eat them.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - jessedhillon 15y ago
    No? Okay, let's just downvote the comment then. Electively killing an animal is fundamentally incompatible with caring for it as a living thing -- as non-property; something which has the right to live it's life independent of any human's design for it. Without forgoing your intent to eat it, the best welfare you can give an animal is the treatment of property, as a valued investment. Given that you opt for these animals to be killed anyway, your call for their improved treatment is, I expect, designed first to benefit yourself and your own mental and emotional state. It has only the secondary effect of improving the animals' lives.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
      Um, yeah, whatever. It's your conflict; why do you expect me to resolve it for you? You can go into complicated justifications or simply believe that the animal should, while alive, be humanely treated. And that it should be killed quickly and as painlessly as possible. And then enjoy its expertly cooked flesh.
- bmj 15y ago
  It is a matter of scale. I'm of the opinion that the FDA and the department of agriculture, in coordination with the factory farms, have made it very difficult for small farmers to survive (Joel Salatin is an excellent source of information on the sort of regulations that are required). The farmer fro whom we buy our meat, eggs, and milk has stated that he runs at his capacity--he does not believe he could take on more animals (even though there is a great demand for his product) without ultimately making life worse for the animals and producing an inferior product.

127001brewer 15y ago

The problem is not only the petroleum used within this industrial process, but also the other pollutants such as waste water run off and methane emissions. "Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, are urgently needed, according to a new United Nations report released today. ..."[1] It seems to me that the industrial production of any food is overly hazardous to the environment, but is there a way to meet food demands while being environmentally neutral? 1. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=warning http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=w...

AdamTReineke 15y ago

Don't forget that even organic, local, grass-fed cattle still produce methane [1], which is 25x worse than CO2 [2]. [1] http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html#1 http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html#1 [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp

seabee 15y ago
My memory is rusty and the link doesn't corroborate your figure from what I could see. What I remember is that methane is more potent a greenhouse gas than O2 but it has a significantly shorter half-life in the atmosphere.
- troutwine 15y ago
  Methane has a half-life of < 10 years (7, I think) but a GWP of 25. The primary concern of atmospheric methane is, then, the possibility of a quick build-up that increases CO2 emission from natural sources; there is quite a bit of CO2 stored in bogs that only a bit of methane will release. It's the long-term side-effects of atmospheric methane that become long-term concerns, rather than the methane itself.
- AdamTReineke 15y ago
  Sorry, the link was just to corroborate the fact that cattle produce a lot of methane. For the GWP of Methane: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=methane+100+year+gwp
frankus 15y ago
[1] doesn't really discuss whether grass-fed cattle produce more, less, or about the same amount of methane as those eating conventional feed.

r00fus 15y ago

I'd really question the "extremely low" part. Animals are at least an order of magnitude more expensive in pure energy inputs to successfully grow than veggies (this becomes apparent if you compare land usage between the two purely in solar wattage).

euccastro 15y ago
If it is organic, all that energy input is carbon neutral.
- jdbeast00 15y ago
  there is a lot more energy that goes into food production than just the fertilizer.
DougWebb 15y ago
They're able to provide much more energy as a food source, too. That means we'd have to eat several pounds of veggies to replace the energy we get from one pound of meat. If you're going to compare the cost of growing animals vs veggies, you've got to account for needing more veggies. It's a complex equation because there are a lot of factors that have to come into play to do a fair comparison. It's probably as complex to model, and as sensitive to input-variable selection, as predicting global weather patterns.
- r00fus 15y ago
  It's not really that complex. Due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy), you will never get more back than you put in (in fact, you'll never even break even). Larger investments of energy for less food = higher energy cost for food. update: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
- Robin_Message 15y ago
  How many pounds of veggies do you think that pound of meat ate? Meat is only more efficient when you can't grow crops on that land, e.g. sheep and goats on mountains.