6.5 Meat and fish production
Meat production is increasing
Global the three most consumed meets are pros, poultry, and beef
The UN food and agriculture organization projects that total meat production is likely to double again by 2050
About half of the world's livestock grazing on grass unfenced rang lends and encolase pasture, but the other half is produced by industrialized, intensive farming
Feedlots: outdoor intense feeding Factory farms: huge buildings of crowded pens and cages
Industralized meat production has largely been made possible by
The green revolution= more feed
Antibiotics
In feedlots and factory farms, animals are fed grain, soybeans, fishmeal, or fish oil, ad some of this feed is doctored with growth hormones and antibiotics to accelerate livestock growth
Health risks:
- Growth hormones and antibiotics enter the human food chain with potential health risk
- Even more of a concernis antibiotic resistance
Industralized fish and shellfish production
Fishery is a concentration of a particular aquatic species suitable for commercial harvesting in a given ocean area or inland body of water
Aquaculture or fish farming is the practice of raising fish in freshwater ponds, lakes, reservoirs, and rice paddies, ad in underwater cages in coastal and deeper ocean water
Industralized meath production harms the environment
Meat productions requires a huge amount of agriculture o produce feed. But there are even more problems on tope of these
Habitat destruction
Overgrazing
Water consumption
Water pollution
Climate change
Water Pollution: Livestock waste is washed away straight into waterways- eutrophication (animal water), and pollution due to antibiotics, hormones, and pesticides
Huge amounts of water are used to irrigate the crops that feed livestock
Meat production produces more greenhouse gases than all of the world's vehicles combined
Fisheries and aquaculture can harm aquatic systems
Overexploitation-species like tuna and cod are endangered
CO2 the world's fishing fleets use about 12.5 units of energy to put 1 unit of food energy from seafood on the table
Many fish are contaminated with toxins like heavy metals, PCBs and dioxins
A third of all fish caught in oceans is used to make fishmeal/fish oil to feed farmed fish and livestock
To meet this demand, thousand of tons of krill are cooped up from the oceans each year
- Krill form the base of the food chain in Antarctic water-all species there depend on them including penguins and whales
Problems with aquaculture
Some species produce large amounts of water that damage aquatic ecosystems
Important habitat is often destroyed to make way for fish farms
Farm fish can be contained by pesticides meant to kill water pests or leached from farm soil
Farm fished are often fed large amounts of antibiotics that damage the ecosystem and promote antibiotic resistance
How can we produce food more sustainably
Reduce desertification, don't have so many cattle in one area
Spread feeding and watering areas out so crowds o cattle don't turn areas into mud/dust pits=soil erosion
Do not feed cattle antibiotics and growth hormones
Ensure waste does not end up in rivers/lakes and use it as fertilizer or for producing biogas
Only eat line-caught fish
Meat isn't sustainable, eat less meath, fish and shellfish products
More sustainable Aquaculture
Protects mangrove forests and estuaries
Improve management of waste
Reduce escape of aquaculture especies into the wild
Set up self-sustaining poluaquaculture systems that combine aquatic plants, fish, and shellfish
Certifi sustainable forms of aquaculture
More sustainable for production
Choose sustainably produced herbivorous. fish
Use organic farming to grow some of your food
Buy certified organic food
Eat locally grown food
Compost food water
Cut food waste