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Cheap meat kills the Amazon: UK dinners destroy rainforest
photo by Leonardo F. Freitas (leoffreitas on Flickr Creative Commons)
Much of the feed for British livestock comes from soybeans imported from South America – mainly Brazil and Argentina. According to an article in the Telegraph, 350,000 hectares of rainforest is being cut down to grow soy for UK animal feed.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth (FoE) has published a report entitled ‘Pastures New’ detailing how the British meat and dairy industry indirectly causes rainforest destruction in South America.
The report incorporates new research by the Royal Agricultural College stating that only 8% of the UK’s agricultural land is used to grow animal feed. FOE urged the government to support farmers who graze cattle rather than feed them imported soy.
From an article in the Ecologist:
The UK could cut its dependency on imported soy in half by encouraging farmers to switch to home-grown alternative protein crops like oilseed rape meal, lupin, sunflower, linseed, beans and peas.
98% of imported soy animal feed for Britain’s poultry, pig and dairy comes from South America, where soy farming has been linked to deforestation.
From a Press Association report:
Animals should be born, bred and fed British – but pressure from supermarkets and biased EU subsidies force farmers to rely on damaging imports. The government must listen to growing calls for it to restore a thriving meat and dairy sector by helping farmers switch to planet-friendly practices
–Sandra Bell, senior food campaigner, Friends of the Earth
Animal farming contributes to climate change in manifold ways, including deforestation, CO2 from transportation and infrastructure and methane emissions from the livestock. FoE urges consumers to adopt a more vegetarian diet.
Graham Land
Additional resources:
New York Times – Ranchers and Drug Barons Threaten Rain Forest
Tags: amazon, animal, beans, Brazil, British, dairy, deforestation, Earth, farmers, feed, FoE, Friends, meat, rainforest, South America, soy, UK
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wow…. All my life I thought haystack, corn grounds are just the basic foods for cattle and some vegetables for supplement. but because of the huge demand that has to be met , the diet of these cattle has to be fortified with a lot of protein content. (protein takes responsibility for a fast growth and development of the muscles as well as the entire organs.) the more protein intake the leaner meat you’ll produce. I remember some lessons during high school about proper farming which has to be done in an interval .ex. after planting rice or corn the next to be planted has to be leguminous plants , so as to replenish the protein content of the soil . so it means South America is definitely intoxicating not only their farmlands but the entire mass land….
Good points and thanks for your input, apasolini.
I have just come back from a trip to the Amazon and every authority rep I spoke to says it is cattle ranching that is destroying the Amazon. As consumers we can do our share and stop buying products from the livestock industry.