World Bank discusses livestock, Part 2: Meeting demand for meat

One of the top quotes of the day at Tuesday's livestock and the environment workshop at the World Bank was "intensify, but don't concentrate." Cees de Haan, an agriculture expert with more than 40 years of experience working on livestock science and development issues at the Bank, the International Livestock Research Institute, and other agencies, repeated this statement twice to those of us assembled to hear him speak. He said that the intensification of animal agriculture is "essential" to satisfy the rising demand for meat among the world's rapidly growing urban populations. While "intensifying" production doesn't necessarily mean shifting to factory farming methods, it does mean producing more animals per unit of land-a change that usually occurs by confining more animals indoors and feeding them high-protein grain.

But de Haan also advised that intensification should not be accompanied by "concentration," noting that we need to reconnect
livestock with the land and think of their waste as a resource. Unfortunately, most CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) produce far too much waste for the surrounding land to be able to utilize it effectively as fertilizer-one pig alone produces about two tons of manure per year. Moreover, most factory farms and feedlots today are concentrated in particular regions: in the U.S., pig and poultry farms dominate rural landscapes in North Carolina and Iowa, while 80 percent of China's factory farms are located near cities on the east coast. Manure from factory farms can also contain a virtual drugstore of antibiotics and hormones, as well as heavy metals making it dangerous to use on crops.

As workshop panelist Sara Scherr of Ecoagriculture Partners (and co-author of Farming with Nature) advised on Tuesday, reducing ivestock's impact on the environment requires thinking of animal agriculture as "ecosystem management." Extensive grazing systems for beef and dairy cattle, for example, can actually improve plant and wildlife biodiversity and restore degraded lands. Scherr also suggested that eco-certification labels for meat and other animal products, such as the Conservation Beef label, might encourage consumers to think more about the ecological consequences of how their food is raised and pressure producers and retailers to provide more eco-friendly products.