Industrial Livestock Production: Laying Waste All Around Peter Stevenson Compassion in World Farming

Industrial Livestock Production High levels of meat consumption → heart disease, obesity, certain cancers Industrial meat often of poorer nutritional quality than free range meat Factory farming’s reliance on routine antibiotic use contributes to antibiotic resistance in humans

Undermines food security Industrial Livestock Production Feeds human-edible cereals to animals 100 cereal calories fed to animals produces meat calories

180 kg per person per year Food waste: distribution & consumers Kg per person per year Food waste in the EU at distribution & consumer levels

180 kg per person per year Food waste: distribution & consumers Food wasted by feeding cereals to farm animals * Kg per person per year Food waste in the EU at (i) distribution & consumer levels and (ii) by feeding human-edible crops to animals Note (*) This does not refer to the total cereals fed to animals; it is the amount that is wasted due to several plant- derived calories being needed to produce one calorie of meat.

Feeding cereals to animals is a form of food waste

Industrial Livestock Production Overuses & pollutes ground & surface water Wasteful use of arable land Erodes biodiversity Fuels intensive crop production, monocultures & agro-chemicals → Soil degradation

High levels of meat and dairy consumption among key drivers of climate change By 2050 agriculture’s emissions alone will, on business- as-usual basis, take us above Paris ‘well below 2°C’ target Major shift to healthy diets with reduced meat & dairy essential if we are to meet ‘well below 2°C’ target

© Chatham House: From Chatham House presentation by Antony Froggatt “Putting Meat on the Climate Negotiating Table”, December 2015 Reduced meat & dairy consumption could bridge over a quarter of the gap between emissions pledged & emissions needed to meet ‘well below 2°C’ target

Industrial Livestock Production Terrible animal welfare

Our new report: Cheap Food Costs Dear Examines one of the key factors that allows industrial livestock production to survive despite its detrimental impacts: our skewed economic system

Distorting Mirror Economics Reflects some costs (feed, housing) while ignoring others (ill health, deforestation, nitrogen pollution) Neglecting to take certain costs into account leads to market failure – production of unwanted outcomes in either private sphere (bowel cancer) but mainly in public sphere (GHG emissions) Private gains seen as more important than public losses Lord Stern, 2015, referring to routine use of antibiotics in farming and the resultant resistance to drugs that are key to human medicine: “It is a classic example of short-term private interest in conflict with medium-term public good. In this case, the private gains are modest and the public damage is huge.”

Costs associated with farming’s negative externalities are borne by third parties or society as a whole In some cases the costs are borne by no-one and key resources such as soil and biodiversity are allowed to deteriorate undermining the ability of future generations to feed themselves

Need to move to True Mirror Economics This accurately reflects all relevant costs & internalises them in the costs paid by farmers and hence in the price paid by end consumers of livestock products If this were done factory farmed meat & milk would no longer be the cheaper option Foresight Report: “There needs to be much greater realisation that market failures exist in the food system that, if not corrected, will lead to irreversible environmental damage and long term threats to the viability of the food system. Moves to internalise the costs of these negative environmental externalities are critical to provide incentives for their reduction.”

Mending Our Price System Olivier De Schutter: “any society where a healthy diet is more expensive than an unhealthy diet is a society that must mend its price system” Applies equally to a society where environmentally damaging, low animal welfare food is cheaper than food that respects natural resources & animals’ well-being Our report examines wide range of studies that calculate the cost of farming’s negative externalities

Mechanisms for mending our price system Much better public info about the consequences of today’s farming Mandatory labelling as to farming method Supportive public procurement CAP subsidies: must be used to steer us to new model of farming Taxation

Use tax breaks to encourage desired outcomes Levy tax equal to negative externality For farmers eg extra tax-free income for quality farming For consumers: low or zero VAT on quality food Two intertwined approaches

Transforming Food & Farming: Opportunities for Change Defra 25 year plan for food & farming EU: Circular Economy & CAP reform Global: Implementation of Paris Climate Agreement & the new Sustainable Development Goals