Producing so much beef involves many ecological costs. Farmers are tilling land with pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough grain to fatten cattle quickly. Waste from feedlots is polluting local waterways and air. Growth hormones are tainting food chains, and antibiotics are flowing through ecosystems. The nutritional value of beef is inconsistent and declining in some places. Ranches and feed crops like soybeans are deforesting biodiversity hotspots like the Amazon. And grazing, fattening, and slaughtering billions of cattle every few years is depleting water supplies and emitting vast quantities of greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide.
These impacts are intensifying as the globalization of beef markets creates opportunities to expand commercial ranching even further. Plantations for animal feed crops like corn and soybeans are spreading in response. This in turn is contributing to a surplus of cheap vegetable oils, with incentives for firms to get people to consume more, whether as salad or cooking oil, in margarine and processed food, or in bakery shortening. What the health consequences will be is an ongoing experiment.
Much of this growth in industrial ranching and agriculture is occurring in developing countries; the beef and feed grains produced there are then exported primarily to developed or transitional economies. Many of these operations are supported by government subsidies, foreign aid, and by multinational companies, whose “support” is increasing the foreign debt of these developing countries and profiting the multinationals disproportionately. Prices that do not account adequately for the social and environmental costs—most notably, the impacts on water, land, and climate—are also stimulating overconsumption as cheap beef becomes more common in more cultures. This globalization of industrial beef production, this chapter argues, is intensifying the shadow effects of consuming beef, with the costs increasingly deflected into developing countries, the global commons, and people’s future health.
The increasing global capacity to produce grain during the twentieth century was essential for feeding a rising human population. It also began to alter animal feeding practices. Worldwide, about one-tenth of grains went to feeding farm animals in 1900—mostly for animals working in the fields. This share had risen to one-fifth by 1950. The switch to feeding beef cattle on grain in the First World was spurred along as chemical fertilizers increased grain yields. By the 1960s, developing countries were also beginning to produce grain surpluses, as new seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides of the green revolution allowed crops to grow faster and in harsher conditions. Foreign aid, technical advice from organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization, and low-interest loans from organizations like the World Bank—along with the investments of companies like Ralston Purina and Cargill—encouraged many developing countries to focus on growing grain for animal feed and even to switch to coarse grains more suitable for livestock.
As a result, the share of grain fed to livestock in the developing world tripled in the second half of the twentieth century (exceeding 21 percent by the end of the century). Over this time, many developing countries also began to export grains to animal-feed markets in developed countries. Countries like Ethiopia, for example, began to produce grain meals to feed livestock in Europe rather than growing food for their own people (with sometimes grave consequences, such as during the 1984 famine in Ethiopia).
These changes occurred even though many industrially produced grains are not natural foods for farm animals. Feeding corn to cattle, for example, can cause bloating, digestive disorders, sometimes even death. Compared to grass feed, corn feed also tends to produce beef higher in fat and lower in omega-3 fatty acids (which have been found to prevent heart disease and to strengthen the immune system). Still, over the last half century, farmers in many countries have been turning increasingly to grains—especially corn—as a cheap and effective way to fatten animals quickly.
Worldwide, over one-third of grain production now goes to feed livestock, with countries like the United States devoting over 60 percent to that purpose, and countries like India less than 5 percent.1 Feeding beef cattle so much grain is an efficient means of fattening, but it’s an inefficient use of environmental resources. On an industrial ranch, it generally takes 11-17 calories of feed to produce a calorie of beef. Typically, this means it takes one-third more fossil-fuel energy to produce a calorie of beef than, say, a calorie of potatoes. It requires far more water as well. Producing a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of beef can require as much as 125,000 liters (33,000 gallons) of water. And even the more average case of 10,000 liters (2,650 gallons) of water to produce a kilogram of beef is far higher than, say, the water it takes to grow a kilogram of rice or wheat.2
Grains are not, moreover, the only agricultural crops used to feed domesticated animals. Farmers over the last half century also began to mix increasing amounts of soybean protein meal with grain, primarily because this can nearly double the efficiency of grain to convert into animal protein. A glance at the global soybean industry over the last 50 years reveals how changing agricultural practices are impacting the nutritional characteristics of global food supplies.
Global production of soybeans was 16 million metric tons in 1950. Since then, the industry has steadily built new markets: by 2005, production had risen to 220 million metric tons—nearly 14 times higher.3 Surpluses of soybeans in the United States over the last half century partly explain these expanding markets: the United States, for example, exported surplus soybeans into Europe under the Marshall Plan after World War II. American government subsidies for soybean farming have caused some of these surpluses. Even today, these subsidies remain substantial, with the soybean sector receiving $13 billion between 1998 and 2004.4
The phenomenal growth of the soybean industry was made possible in the 1940s, after scientists discovered how to deactivate the enzyme inhibitor in soybean meal so that animals could tolerate it as feed. Soybean meal constitutes nearly 80 percent of the crushed beans after the oil is extracted. Today, it’s by far the world’s largest source of protein feed for chickens, cattle, pigs, and fish—accounting for 65 percent of global supplies. Around 98 percent of soybean meal goes into livestock feeds in countries like the United States.
Indeed, the United States produces and exports more soybeans than any other country does—around 35 percent of the world’s total supply, worth some $19 billion per year in recent years; soybeans are second only to corn among U.S. crops (farmers commonly rotate soybean and corn crops). Three American companies—Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, and Cargill—dominate the soybean market in the United States. These firms have managed to increase the share of soybean meal in livestock and poultry feed in the United States from less than 10 percent in 1964 to almost 20 percent today.5
The influence of these companies, however, extends far beyond the United States. They control nearly 80 percent of Europe’s soybean-crushing industry and nearly 80 percent of its animal feed manufacturing. In producing soybean meal for animal feed, the soybean-crushing industry produces oil for industrial processes and human consumption. The production of soybean oil rose rapidly alongside soybean meal from 1965 to 2005, especially after the industry was able to improve the oil’s smell and taste—increasing almost sevenfold, from 5 to 34 million metric tons.6
Soybeans are currently the world’s largest source of vegetable oil.7 Soy in some form is now found in a wide range of foods, including break-fast cereals, breads, noodles, soups, cheeses, mayonnaises, and sausage casings. Over 60 percent of processed food now contains soy in countries like Britain. The fast-food industry uses hydrogenated soybean oil for deep-frying, too. Soybeans now account for about 90 percent of oilseed production in the United States—with canola, cottonseed, rapeseed, peanuts, and sunflower seed trailing far behind. Indeed, soybean oil, used mainly as cooking and salad oil, in margarine, and in bakery shortening, now accounts for about two-thirds of total U.S. consumption of vegetable oils and animal fats. Few consumers seem to worry about this trend; many see soy as a healthy choice. As tofu, in veggie burgers, and in soy milk, it is the basis of many vegetarian diets. And, in countries like the United States, it constitutes nearly one-fifth of infant formula.8
But is soy really healthy? The American soy industry wants consumers to think so: it spends almost $80 million every year to research ways to promote more consumption—research the industry finances from a mandatory levy on producers. A glance at Japan, where soy plays a central culinary role—and where life expectancy, at over 80 years, is one of the world’s highest—would seem to suggest that soy is indeed a healthy source of protein.
But, because soy contains toxins and plant estrogens, some researchers are now wondering whether, as with so many foods, too much soy might prove unsafe. Some experiments have linked high soy consumption to thyroid damage and disruptions in menstrual cycles. In 2002, a British expert committee reported on the risks of high soy consumption for some age groups. Still, the soy industry continues to expand; new soybean plantations now reach deep into the rainforests of Brazil. Driving this expansion, the American firms ADM, Bunge, and Cargill now account for some 60 percent of Brazilian soybean exports.9
The increase in soy output, then, is changing patterns of global nutrition, directly by flowing into processed, fast, and even health foods, and indirectly by helping farmers to produce more kilograms of beef more cheaply and quickly—and causing them to alter the nature of that beef. Fattening cattle with grain and soybean meal, moreover, requires regular doses of antibiotics to keep the bloated and confined herds “healthy” and fast growing.
The feed for the beef industry is flooding ecosystems with antimicrobial drugs, including antibiotics. In the United States, for example, cows, chickens, and pigs receive 50-70 percent of all antimicrobial drugs. Farmers have been adding antimicrobial drugs to livestock feed and water since the 1950s, both to allow animals to gain weight faster on less feed and to prevent illnesses and diseases from spreading, especially in farms with large and homogeneous herds living in tight quarters with poor ventilation. Antibiotics allow ranchers, in the words of one staff veterinarian in Kansas, to “feed” cattle “hard” on corn, soybean meal, and other protein supplements while avoiding a high “death loss” in animals whose delicate digestive systems were designed to convert grass into protein.10
Worldwide, half of all antibiotics (by weight) go to livestock and fish in an effort to prevent disease. The use of antibiotics like penicillin, tetracycline, and erythromycin has been rising over time: in the case of beef cattle in the United States, for example, farmers now use at least 28 percent more antimicrobial drugs than in the 1980s. Many of these seem to flow into animal waste undigested—one study found between 25 and 75 percent did—along with bacteria resistant to antibiotics, which can then pose a threat to the health of humans. Some researchers, such as David Wallinga at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, see antibiotics as a growing danger. “We’re sacrificing a future where antibiotics will work for treating sick people,” he says, “by squandering them today for animals that are not sick at all.”11
Heavy doses of antimicrobial drugs don’t necessarily make feed safe for cows—or people. For example, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) is transmitted when bone and other waste tissue from infected carcasses is mixed into cattle feed. Mad cow and other diseases impervious to antimicrobials can spread quickly through vast herds of similar breeds living close to one another—with beef exports and imports multiplying the potential for rapid spread across the globe. Injecting cattle with hormones to stimulate rapid growth also poses health risks to consumers, directly from the beef consumed and indirectly from contamination when farm waste seeps into surrounding water and soil and then into food chains.
Industrial ranching has other consequences for the global environment. The artificial feed leaves the cattle bloated and, without antimicrobial drugs, often sick. Belching and flatulent livestock now account for one-quarter to one-third of worldwide methane emissions from human-related activities. Meanwhile, decomposing manure emits nitrous oxide, which, like methane, is a primary greenhouse gas driving climate change.12 Most of the energy to raise cattle (growing grain for feed), to process the carcasses (running the slaughterhouses), and to distribute beef (trucking and refrigerating) is generated by burning fossil fuels, which adds still more to global emissions of carbon dioxide. Livestock and livestock waste as a whole contribute to somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Fattening cattle in feed-lots in particular tends to produce large amounts of carbon dioxide—by one analysis, more than twice as much as grazing them on open range-or pastureland. Burning down forests to create pastures in places like the Amazon is also an increasingly large source of carbon dioxide emissions—and an increasingly serious threat to biodiversity.13
The Brazilian AmazoN, comprising nine states and covering 500 million hectares (1,930,000 square miles; over 50 percent of Brazil’s total land area), holds some of the world’s highest concentrations of biodiversity.14 The Amazon region lost over 17 million hectares (65,500 square miles) of forest in the 1990s alone—an area about the size of Uruguay. By 2000, the total deforested area in the Amazon was nearly 59 million hectares (227,500 square miles).
As more ranchers have cleared more land to graze cattle for a surging beef export market, the average annual deforestation rate has climbed. Before 1990, ranchers in the Amazon sold most of their beef within this region. The market for Amazon beef became more national in the 1990s: with rising urban incomes, beef consumption in Brazil quadrupled overall (and more than doubled per capita) from 1972 to 1997. Then, in the late 1990s, when low land prices, a devaluation of Brazil’s currency, and better control of foot-and-mouth disease made it more profitable, production of beef for export took off. Beef exports grew fivefold from 1997 to 2003—with European Union countries importing close to 40 percent of Brazil’s fresh and frozen beef in 1999-2002, followed by Chile and then Egypt.15
In 2003, Brazil produced $1.5 billion worth of beef for export—over 3 times more than in 1995. Brazil’s beef exports by carcass weight equivalence (which excludes the head, hide, and intestines) grew at an even faster rate—from 232,000 metric tons in 1997 to nearly 1.2 million metric tons in 2003—leaving Brazil ahead of Australia as the world’s largest beef exporter by volume. Four-fifths of this growth came from the Amazon. During the 1990s, the number of cattle in Brazil nearly doubled. From 1990 to 2002, the Amazon’s share of the country’s total herd grew from about 18 percent to almost one-third—or 57 million head. The Amazon region was now losing 2.5 million hectares (9,500 square miles) of rainforest a year—almost half again the average rate of loss during the 1990s: 1.7 million hectares (6,500 square miles). The director-general of the Center for International Forestry Research, David Kaimowitz, seeing this statistical picture, concluded: “Brazil’s deforestation rates are sky-rocketing and beef production for export is to blame.”16
Cattle ranching is directly responsible for over half of the deforestation in the Amazon region. But logging, clearing land for crops like soybeans, and small-scale subsistence farming remain core causes of deforestation as well. Logging in the tropics is commonly “selective,” with loggers harvesting only the most valuable timber (old-growth trees). Although such harvesting rarely involves clear-cutting, it begins the process of deforestation by degrading forest integrity and biodiversity. Opening the canopy can dry forests out and, along with “kindling” littering the forest floor, leave logged forests more vulnerable to both natural and intentional fires (burning is a cheap and easy way to clear logged forests and in the process fertilize the soil). Logging roads can also provide ranchers, slash-and-burn farmers, and plantation companies with easier access to once remote land. Still, in the Amazon, where the total pastureland is almost 6 times larger than total cropland, cattle ranching is responsible for about 10 times more damage than logging.17
Despite continued cases of foot-and-mouth disease across the country (including in the Amazon region), beef exports remain strong. Brazil appears set to hold its ranking as the world’s largest exporter of beef: it reached 40 new markets in 2004, selling $2.5 billion worth of beef to a total of 143 countries—$1 billion more than in 2003. Since then, beef exports have been regularly setting monthly records, both in revenues and in volumes, and are now worth about $3 billion a year.
A notable example of the capacity of Brazilian beef exporters to expand into new markets is Russia, which did not import much Brazilian beef before 2000. By 2005—just five years later—this market was worth over $500 million, accounting for over one-quarter of total Brazilian fresh and frozen beef exports.18 Although beef exports earn valuable foreign exchange for Brazil’s developing economy, their continuing growth is accelerating deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. The total area of rainforest lost climbed in 2004 to more than 2.6 million hectares (10,000 square miles), before falling back in 2005 to just under 1.9 million hectares (7,300 square miles)—more in line with the rate of loss from 1999 to 2001—after commodity prices declined and news of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease spread.19 Still, even with this slow-down, the deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon remains one of the world’s highest.
The global cattle industRy, then, is causing extensive ecological damage. Industrial fields of grain are covering an increasing share of the planet to feed these cattle. Antibiotics and hormones are seeping into local environments and through food chains. Manure is polluting local water-ways, and methane from the herds of bloated cattle in feedlots is polluting the upper atmosphere. Ranchers are also carving tropical rainforests into vast “grasslands” and drawing down the world’s oil reserves—a core cause of climate change—to subsidize the “efficiencies” of “producing” ever more beef ever faster. This is not to diminish efforts to mitigate these ecological impacts. But, as chapter 17 will show, these efforts are trailing far behind the stampeding consumption of industrial beef.