Meat, Monopolies, Mega Farms: How the U.S. food system fuels climate crisis
The dysfunction in America’s food system is essentially codified in the Farm Bill. Among the law's many provisions are $424 billions in subsidies and insurance payments for farmers, from 1995 to 2020. The majority to support highly polluting industrial agriculture.
AMANDA SCHUPAK: 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…
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 US is such a huge contributor to climate change and we’re doing so pathetically little to address it, particularly in agriculture,” said Raj Patel, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, and IPES-Food expert.
When you talk about the environmental problems with the US food system, meat – particularly beef – absolutely dominates the discussion, said Marion Nestle, former chair of NYU’s department of nutrition and food studies. “There are cattle grown in every state, so the meat industry is entrenched in the country. Beef has been the iconic American food for a long time. Nobody wants to give it up.”
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…
We eat way too much meat and it’s destroying the environment. The average American eats about 57lb of beef in a year, nearly twice the average of other high-income countries… Eating less meat – primarily beef but pork and chicken, too – would free pasture and cropland, eliminate the suffering of billions of animals and improve human health by restoring clean water and reducing Americans’ calorie and saturated fat intake. Yet it’s an excruciatingly hard sell…
Four companies control 85% of the US meat market. Another four dominate grains. From seeds and fertilizer to beer and soda, a shockingly small number of firms maintain a powerful hold on the food industry, determining what is grown, how and where it’s cultivated and what it sells for.
Like any business, their priorities are efficiency and profit – and the most efficient and profitable methods are often the most environmentally costly. They incentivize farmers to plant miles and miles of single crops, decreasing biodiversity and therefore resilience to climate disasters and diseases. Planting the same crops season after season depletes soil, necessitating heavy use of fertilizer…
The dysfunction in America’s food system is essentially codified in law. The Farm Bill, a 300-plus page document… Among the bill’s many provisions are billions of dollars in subsidies and insurance payments for farmers, the majority to support highly polluting industrial commodity agriculture. Almost half of the $424bn doled out between 1995 and 2020 went to just three crops: corn, wheat and soybeans. Some sliver each year rewards largely unmonitored and temporary conservation practices. None support “specialty crops”, which… is code for “fruits and vegetables”…
Because subsidies are proportionate to production levels, they favor large operations and promote overproduction. “We subsidize things that are damaging to the environment,” said Matthew Hayek, assistant professor of environmental studies at NYU. Instead, he argued, subsidies should be tied to environmental stewardship, or farms should be taxed for negative ecological impacts. SOURCE…
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