global food waste and factory farming

I read a letter in today's Daily Mail that expresses the most important points that I have been trying to make in this blog. Food waste is an issue prominent in the news recently, and Philip Lymbery of Compassion in World Farming wrote that feeding so much grain and soya to farm animals is another way that we waste food. I would have liked to place a link to this letter (Feed the world) in this post but couldn't find one, so I shall link to a post in his blog that has the same message.

I shall give a few of the facts stated in the letter

• a third of the world's cereal harvest is fed to farm animals
• 90% of the world's soya beans are destined for factory-farmed animals
• for every 6kg of plant protein such as cereals fed to livestock, we get back, on average, only 1kg of meat or other livestock products
• for every 100 food calories of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30 calories in meat and milk
• factory farms are food factories in reverse, they waste food rather than make it

There were two letters in New Scientist recently that interested me. The first was a response to a review of a book 'One Billion Hungry: Can we feed the world?' by Gordon Conway. The review said that we need to double global food production by 2050 (Separating the wheat from the chaff by Fred Pearce New Scientist 13/10/12).

Alistair McCaskill wrote a letter (10/11/2012) saying that if today's population stands at 7 billion and is forecast to rise to 9 billion by 2050, why would it take a doubling of food production to feed this extra 2 billion? Fred Pearce answered, and said we have to allow for rising demand - especially for meat.

Clive Semmens replied to this (01/12/12) by saying that it would be much better to try to reduce consumption - especially of meat - in the more affluent. That would be good for the global environment and for health too. He went on to say that he's not advocating vegetarianism, merely moderation.

This is exactly my point of view. It seems to me that trying to double global food production is just not going to work. It doesn't matter how much genetic modification you have, it's simply not going to happen. Making meat more expensive by taxing it and refusing to allow the opening of more factory farms will help enormously. We tax ice cream and put VAT on it because it is a luxury. We should recognize that meat is just as much a luxury.

That is not going to harm poor people. Firstly, the really poor are the 1 in 8 of the global population who go hungry. Secondly, if meat is twice as expensive but people eat half the amount it isn't going to cost them, and it won't affect them aversely in nutritional terms - just the opposite. The same is true of cheese and butter. Meat, cheese and butter are not and can never be cheap calories or cheap protein.

Maize, soya, wheat and anchovies are the cheap calories and protein. That's why they're fed to animals, after all. The almost billion people who go hungry would be quite happy to have extra calories and extra protein from whatever source. They have the knowledge of how to make these things taste wonderful, whether it's traditional Mexican cuisine or the traditional East Asian cusines. The more affluent of the world might desire burgers and other processed foods, but they should be encouraged to move away from the flavours of fat, sugar and salt. I know what I would rather eat, especially now that we know what goes into beefburgers, and I'm not just talking about horse meat.

more madness to do with our food supply

A recent edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme (11 September) Costing the Earth is most enlightening. The Chinese used to buy vast amounts of farmed salmon from Norway. When the Nobel peace prize was given to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese government retaliated by putting up trade barriers that resulted in Norwgian salmon rotting in warehouses. Scotland could be the beneficiaries of this.

This is an example of the way that politicians play around with the world's food supply. It is quite disgusting that this should happen. The same thing could happen to Scotland.

Later on in this programme Andrew Robertson has a company Fish From and is hoping to start salmon farming. He said this:-

"You have to understand that in the next 18 years, the United Nations have identified that there is going to be a huge shortfall in aquaculture-produced food. And unless it grows by 60 million tonnes there is going to be absolutely a shortfall of nutrition. Now in 2050 when there's 9 billion people or so on the planet there isn't going to be a way of feeding these people without innovative ways of growing high-quality nutrition. And that's really one of the most sentient points of what we're trying to achive here."

This is exactly the sort of nonsensical justification of fish farming and factory farming that we have heard many times before. Pretending that we need their technology in order to 'feed the world' but in reality they are making it worse. If you feed salmon or pigs on anchovies, soya or maize then you are wasting both protein and calories. People can eat anchovies, soya and maize, and by feeding these to farmed fish or farm animals you are removing the food supply of poor people to feed the affluent of the world. Fish farming and factory farming are part of the problem of world hunger and are not part of the solution.

I didn't realize that a lot of seabass is farmed. Supermarkets want their seabass almost perfectly plate sized, but these are immature fish. It is supposed to be illegal to catch seabass under 32 inches in the wild. But I have seen seabass recently in a fishmonger's that looks smaller than that and was labeled 'wild seabass'.

The New Economics Foundation have produced a report that says if we stopped fishing for a few years, fish stocks would improve so much that we could make a much bigger profit in the long term. Barry Deas - chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations (NFFO) - has argued against the proposal though. He said we are already moving towards maximum sustainable yields. Aniol Esteban, who co-authored the NEF report, said that was like saying "that instead of driving a car over a cliff at 100mph we are driving it at 90mph". He also said "Overfishing is not being tackled for the majority of affected stocks, or at a fast enough pace".

The next edition of Costing the Earth mentioned that vast numbers of farm animals are being slaughtered because animal feed has become more expensive. I think what they mean is that farm animals that are slaughtered are not being replaced; vast numbers of farm animals are being slaughtered every day. This Guardian article has more to say about it. Meat prices are set to increase, but I think that is a good thing.

the problem with super farms

There was an interesting article in The Guardian on the 5th of June. Super farms are needed in UK, says leader of National Farmers Union Britain urged to ape countries such as the US and Saudi Arabia and build farms housing tens of thousands of cows or pigs.

 The article states that concerns about large-scale animal farming fall into four categories

1. animal welfare
2. super units destroying small farms and rural communities
3. farms straining soil and water resources and requiring mass transport of chemicals, generating more greenhouse gas pollution
4. such units being unsightly and emitting foul smells

I am concerned with these four things too, but there is something of even greater concern to me. That is that these super farms are a wasteful use of agricultural resources. It might seem like a good idea if British farmers produced more home-grown pork. Currently Britain is 40% self-sufficient in pork. However, for every kilo of pork we produce in Britain, we would need to import several kilos of maize and soya from across the Atlantic.

There are a billion pigs on the planet, compared to 7 billion people, and pigs are fed on a high calorie and high protein diet consisting mostly of maize and soya. These two crops are grown in vast quantitities in America (where they are subsidised), Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. If we had more pigs in Britain we would need to have more ships crossing the Atlantic full of maize and soya. That is not what I call self sufficiency.

It would be much better if the global population of pigs and chickens was cut to, let's say, 10% of what it is today. That would enable us to do three things.

1. It would free up vast quantities of maize and soya for human consumption. Maize and soya can be made very palatable; people have been eating them in different forms for thousands of years.
2. We would be able to grow other grains and other pulses because we wouldn't need so much land for maize and soya.
3. We could have a less intensive form of agriculture that protects topsoil better and requires fewer expensive agricultural inputs such as high nitrogen fertilizer. One simple way of putting the problem is that we have so many farm animals we have to farm them more intensively than we would want, and they eat so much food that we have to grow crops more intensively than we would want.

Another way of putting it is that factory farming is a way of converting a large amount of healthy food (maize, soya, wheat, barley) into a smaller amount of unhealthy food (meat and cheese), and making it more expensive. If you think of a factory farm as a system with inputs and outputs, you get out of it fewer calories and less protein than what you put in. Meat can never be cheap protein, it is soya that is the cheap protein, and we are wasting it.

Of course, people will say that not everybody wants to eat soya. We have to make our minds up what it is that we are trying to achieve. If we don't we will achieve nothing. What is totally unacceptable is for people to say we need GM to 'feed the world', and when we suggest perfectly practical methods of feeding the world (unlike GM which is pie in the sky), the priorities suddenly switch.

One argument that I heard went something like this. Anchovies are caught in vast numbers (overfished in fact) and used to feed farmed salmon. The obvious thing is for people to eat more anchovies and less farmed salmon. That is a practical method of feeding the world that we could start putting into practice right now. But what was the response? I like to have anchovy of my pizza but I am unable to persuade my family likewise, so why not give people what they want?

We can't pretend that our priority is the needs of the poor when really our priority is the whims of the affluent. There are reasons why affluent people tend to want to eat lots of meat, cheese and farmed salmon. It's partly do do with fashion, possibly what Delia said last night on the telly. It's partly to do with the mistaken idea that people need more protein than they actually do. It's partly to do with people wanting to be modern and westernized. It's also because only added value products get advertized.

A starchy staple such as rice or pasta, together with beans and vegetables, and flavoured with herbs and spices, is cheap, tasty and nutritious. These things should be kept cheap whereas meat and cheese should be regarded as luxury items and have VAT put on them. Planning permission for factory farms should be refused. These are practical methods to help feed the world. If we don't do this, nothing will change. GM crops, even if eventually we get one that is more productive, won't change anything. All it will mean is that there will be even more farm animals.

more meat, please?

In this blog I have argued that the best way to provide food for an increasing global population is for us to feed less grain and soya to animals and to eat more of it ourselves. I'm not the only person who says this, it seems just common sense, but some have argued against it.

I have been listening to two radio programmes as podcasts where this issue has been debated. Recently on 29th of October on BBC World Service there was an episode of The Forum. On 24th of January on Radio 4 there was an episode of Farming Today entitled 'Feeding the world in 2050'.

On The Forum Bridget Kendall asked Jason Clay should we not be eating less meat and more veg. Jason Clay works with the World Wildlife Fund. This is what he said in reply:-

"Let's use science and math to help us think this through. Most animal protein in the world, for example most beef, is produced on pasture. Not in feedlots, not with grain. 85 to 90% of global beef is actually produced on grass. By simply switching away from that most of that pasture would never be possible or should be used to grow food crops because you'd have too much erosion, you'd have too many other environmental problems that come from that. And, while vegetables are very good, let's look at the form we eat those vegetables. Fresh vegetables have spoilage and loss rates of 50 to 80%."

He went on to say how important frozen foods are is avoiding waste and preserving nutrients. What is wrong with his argument is that nobody is saying we should plough up grassland and plant lettuces or cauliflowers. We're not even saying that we should plough up grassland and grow grain and pulses. We are saying that much more of the grain and soya that is already grown should be eaten by people, and not fed to animals who then produce meat and dairy products. That is a much more efficient use of resources.

He said that most animal protein is produced on pasture. It's unclear if he is talking about farm animals generally or cattle. Pigs and chickens don't eat grass, they eat mostly maize and soya. He doesn't mention them, though. He says that 85 to 90% of global beef is produced on pasture. At first I thought those figures are wrong, but I can see that globally that could be true. There are a lot of cows in India, for example.

In North America and in Europe, however, very large numbers of cattle are kept in feedlots. Like pigs and chickens they are kept intensively indoors and fed mostly maize and soya. The population of farm animals is getting higher and they are eating more and more grain and soya. So I don't think that science and math support Dr Clay's arguments, and I think it is patronizing of him to imply that his opinion is the only rational one.

Another patronizing man is Professor Maurice Moloney. On Farming Today he was discussing with Sandra Bell of Friends of the Earth. Sandra was saying how we should eat less meat and dairy. This is what he said in reply:-

"I'm certainly not, as a scientist, prepared to risk the lives of 9 billion people by relying upon the idea that we may be able to change behaviours across a very complex social and cultural matrix that exists in the world. And so we've got to be pragmatic and practical about the other solutions we can offer."

He said that more intensive agiculture is the way forward. There are a number of things wrong with this argument. We need to distinguish between intensive crop production and intensive meat and dairy production. It is difficult to argue against intensive crop production. I think it is a wonderful thing that has saved humanity from a lot of mass hunger. We could talk about the problems of the increasing price of necessary inputs like nitrogen fertilizer and decreasing availability of irrigation water, but on the whole I support it. Intensive meat and dairy production is a different thing altogether.

He says that eating less meat and more grains and pulses would require a change in behaviour globally. That is not necessarily true. A change in government policy would do a lot to help. We could forbid new mega dairies and other CAFOs. Apparently the mega dairy at Nocton is not now going ahead. We could treat grain and soya fed meat as a luxury and put VAT on it. We already have VAT on luxuries like ice cream.

Perhaps Dr Clay and Professor Moloney don't realize how important government policy has been in shaping our eating habits. At one time in America beef burgers were made with pig fat. The beef lobby managed to get this banned. Beef however didn't have enough fat to make the burgers palatable, so farmers started keeping cattle in feedlots and feeding them grain. Pig fat is a bit healthier than beef fat, and also pigs are more efficient at converting grain and soya into meat or fat. So we have poorer health and wasted resources because of stupid government policy. And yet if we suggest sensible government policy it is dismissed.

It's not so much that we need to change people's behaviour. Traditionally most people have eaten a starchy staple (usually a grain) together with pulses and vegetables. They have also had a small amount of animal protein. This should continue, but an emerging middle class often want to be Western and what they think is modern.

What is wrong with educating people about nutrition? Nobody is saying that this should be our only method of combating world hunger. It's people like Professor Moloney who seem to be ruling out options. We should educate people that they don't need as much protein as they think they need, that grains and pulses will provide all the good-quality protein people require, and that meat can never be cheap protein compared to something like tofu. While we're at it we can teach them about beta-carotene.

I think both Dr Clay and Professor Moloney believe that technology and the free market will always find solutions to the problems of humanity. The idea that a change in global food policy and mass education are part of the answer is alien to them. They are not being pragmatic and practical about the other solutions and so they are risking the lives of 9 billion people.

the Foresight report into future food supply

Last month a report by scientists was published which attempted to find solutions to the problem of feeding an ever growing global population. The Foresight report, Global Food and Farming Futures suggest a number of different ways.

1. allowing more genetically modified crops
2. avoiding food waste
3. more spending on agricultural research

The report doesn't seem to be recommending that less food in the form of grains and soya should be fed to animals. The article in the Independent newspaper states "This urbanisation in developing nations will be coupled with an increase in wealth and a shift towards diets rich in meat and dairy produce, which require more farmland to produce compared to more vegetarian diets." Yet there isn't any suggestion that this shift should be countered.

In fact 'grain, roots, tubers and pulses' are termed 'poor-quality food', which is nonsense. Grains and pulses, together with vegetables and fruit, should form the basis of a healthy diet. Animal protein isn't necessary at all.

To say that genetic modification is going to be the solution to the problem of world hunger is like saying that nuclear fusion is going to be the solution to energy demand and carbon dioxide production. I hope power stations that use nuclear fusion can be built in the future, and I support governments spending billions of dollars on research into it, but the fact is that it might never happen. There are no genetically modified crops that are higher yielding than conventional crops yet. Just as we need wind turbines and other renewable energy sources now, so too we need non-GM solutions to food production now.

Not allowing big animal farms such as the proposed mega-dairy at Nocton would be a start. Getting rid of all of them is a goal for the future. We could put VAT on all meat where the animals have been fed on grain and soya. This would mean that grain prices would not continue to increase as much as they have done, giving the poorer people of the world the chance to feed their families.