Meat, monopolies, mega farms: how the US food system fuels climate crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/30/us-food-production-climate-crisis-meat-monopoly-farming
By Amanda Schupak, The Guardian.
Excerpt: Food and the climate crisis are locked in a tangled web of cause and effect. Globally, food systems contribute about a third of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, yet they are also uniquely vulnerable to climate impacts: from soaring temperatures and drought to intense rainfall and flooding. Food production is caught in a battle between people and profits, as an increasingly industrialized system prioritizes low operating costs and high profits. ...Agriculture contributes less than 1% to GDP in the US – yet it is responsible for 11% of the country’s GHG emissions, polluted waterways and millions of acres of degraded land. ...The average American eats about 57lb of beef in a year, nearly twice the average of other high-income countries. ...But beef is a climate disaster. It takes an enormous amount of land to raise cattle – land that would sequester more carbon as grass that doesn’t get grazed and forests that are not felled for pasture. It also takes an enormous amount of food to feed cattle. About 55% of the grain grown in the US goes to fattening cows (and other animals). And as the ruminants chew, they burp out methane, a powerful planet-warming greenhouse gas. Meanwhile, animal waste and fertilizer runoff pollute rivers and poison drinking water supplies. ...industrial agriculture continues to pump methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, while weakening soil, crushing biodiversity and sucking aquifers dry.…