Can veganism ever be sustainable?

The ever-growing global population poses serious problems, one of which is agriculture. Intensively farmed meat and dairy are a blight, but so are fields of soya and maize. In the long term, the amount of agricultural land currently on Earth will be nowhere near enough to supply everyone with sufficient food. It's clear that, as a result, we need to change our eating habits. If we chose to cultivate foods that required less land, we'd be able to feed more people with less land. Vegetarianism is more environmentally sustainable than veganism While veganism may not be the most sustainable option, that doesn't mean rethinking your diet isn't beneficial for the environment: the widespread abandonment of animal products does, indeed, push up the number of people who can be fed on existing farmland.

Veganism has rocketed in the UK over the past couple of years – from an estimated half a million people in 2016 to more than 3.5 million – 5% of our population – today. Influential documentaries such as Cowspiracy and What the Health have thrown a spotlight on the intensive meat and dairy industry, exposing the impacts on animal and human health and the wider environment.

But calls for us all to switch entirely to plant-based foods ignore one of the most powerful tools we have to mitigate these ills: grazing and browsing animals. Rather than being seduced by exhortations to eat more products made from industrially grown soya, maize and grains, we should be encouraging sustainable forms of meat and dairy production based on traditional rotational systems, permanent

pasture and conservation grazing. We should, at the very least, question the ethics of driving up demand for crops that require high inputs of fertiliser, fungicides, pesticides and herbicides,

while demonising sustainable forms of livestock farming that can restore soils and biodiversity, and sequester carbon.
 A recent study by 6 universities using a biophysical simulation model  that represents the US as a closed food system, in order to determine the land requirements per capita of human diets and the potential population fed by the agricultural land there established which diet is most sustainable and which would most improve the prospects for sustaining human life on Earth. While a vegan diet may be the most ethical when it comes to animal welfare, it's not the most sustainable.

In short, the message was clear: if you want to save the world, then veganism isn’t the answer.

One would assume the vegan diet is, all-round, the best of the three but, while it may come out on top
when it comes to animal rights, it's actually not as sustainable as one would expect. Diets with small amounts of meat, as well as lacto-vegetarianism and ovo-lacto-vegetarianism, can feed more people, therefore making them more environmentally sustainable. The reason for this is simple: the vegan diet leaves too many resources unused. Different crops require different types of land for an adequate yield. Very often nothing can  be cultivated on standard pastureland due to the fact that the soil doesn't provide the necessary nutrients.

Currently, many crops used in vegan meal options, such as soybeans, aren't produced sustainably.

The researchers' overall conclusion? The most sustainable diets according to the study were vegetarian diets, with lacto-vegetarianism occupying first place.

Altering our consumption habits as a global population will significantly improve our chances of providing future generations across the globe with adequate nutrition. While both veganism and regular, substantial meat consumption would lead to severe food shortages, a lacto-vegetarian diet may be the most efficient way to maintain sufficient nutrition across the globe in the long run.

Not only does this system of natural grazing aid the environment in terms of soil restoration,  biodiversity, pollinating insects, water quality and flood mitigation – but it also it guarantees healthy lives for the animals, and they in turn produce meat that is healthy for us. In direct contrast to grain-fed and grain-finished meat from intensive systems, wholly pasture-fed meat is high in beta carotene, calcium, selenium, magnesium and potassium and vitamins E and B, and conjugated linoleic acid  (CLA) – a powerful anticarcinogen.

It is also high in the long-chain omega-3 fatty acid DHA, which is vital for human brain development
but extremely difficult for vegans to obtain.  Much has been made of the methane emissions of livestock, but these are lower in biodiverse pasture systems that include wild plants such as angelica, common fumitory, shepherd’s purse and bird’s-foot trefoil because they contain fumaric acid – a compound that, when added to the diet of lambs at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, reduced emissions of methane by 70%.

In the vegan equation, by contrast, the carbon cost of ploughing is rarely considered. Since the industrial revolution, according to a 2017 report in the science journal Nature, up to 70% of the carbon in our cultivated soils has been lost to the atmosphere.  So there’s a huge responsibility here: unless you’re sourcing your vegan products specifically from organic, “no-dig” systems, you are actively participating in the destruction of soil biota, promoting a system that deprives other species,
including small mammals, birds and reptiles, of the conditions for life, and significantly contributing to climate change.

Our ecology evolved with large herbivores – with free-roaming herds of aurochs (the ancestral cow), tarpan (the original horse), elk, bear, bison, red deer, roe deer, wild boar and millions of beavers. They are species whose interactions with the environment sustain and promote life. Using herbivores as part of the farming cycle can go a long way towards making agriculture sustainable.

There’s no question we should all be eating far less meat, and calls for an end to high-carbon, polluting, unethical, intensive forms of grain-fed meat production are commendable. But if your concerns as a vegan are the environment, animal welfare and your own health, then it’s no longer possible to pretend that these are all met simply by giving up meat and dairy. Counterintuitive as it may seem, adding the occasional organic, pasture-fed steak to your diet could be the right way
to square the circle.

Veganism is not the key to sustainable development; natural resources are vital.

Lives and livelihoods the world over hinge on livestock, and efforts to reduce our dietary impact can still include some meat, milk and eggs.  Veganism is not the simple solution to sustainability; if only it was that easy. While I commend those taking steps to change their diets to reduce their environmental footprints, a vegan world – where no one consumes animal-derived meat, milk and eggs – is not how we will achieve sustainable global development.

Some argue that, because of its low environmental footprint, veganism is the best dietary choice to feed the world’s growing population. Research suggests otherwise. An investigation published in the US last month compared 10 different eating patterns and concluded that diets incorporating some animal source foods (especially milk and eggs) use less land than their vegan alternative.

This is because more inclusive diets make optimal use of all existing land to feed people. That includes croplands and rangelands where grain and hay can be grown to feed livestock. A lot of meat and milk that would remain unproductive in a vegan context is produced on these marginal rangelands. For example, 60% of sub-Saharan Africa is covered only, land use option available.

Decades of research have shown that medium levels of livestock grazing, rather than none at all, are better for the health, productivity and biodiversity of these rangelands. When managed well, such areas also sequester large amounts of carbon in their soils. People in high-income countries could do much to reduce their dietary impact on the world. They could moderate their intake of all foods and reducing the amount they waste, for example. Food waste accounts for up to 50% of total production globally and 7% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Above all, livestock are essential to many of the world’s poorest people and can’t simply be cast aside. In low- and middle income economies, where livestock account for 40-60% of agricultural GDP, farm animals provide livelihoods for almost 1 billion people, many of whom are women. Cows, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry are scarce assets for these people, bringing in regular household income, and can be sold in emergencies to pay for school or medical fees. For those who would otherwise have to subsist largely on cheap grains and tubers – risking malnutrition and stunted children – livestock can provide energy-dense, micronutrient-rich food. Animal-source foods
are especially important for pregnant women, babies in their first 1,000 days of life, and young children.

When so many lives and livelihoods depend on these animals, should we really envision a scenario where an African household is denied the chance to raise a few chickens or a couple of stall-fed dairy cows? Or an Asian family is prevented from keeping a dozen pigs on a tiny plot? Or pastoralists are
prevented from herding goats, sheep and cattle across drylands?

Like any other sector, livestock production faces challenges. It is a big user of water and other natural resources, and its greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change. Moreover,  infectious diseases originate in livestock and other animals. There is also the overuse of antibiotics in intensified livestock production systems, and the welfare of animals themselves, to consider.

These challenges, all of which are being addressed today in multi-institutional initiatives, should not persuade us to turn away from livestock. They should instead encourage us to pay much greater attention to the sector, enabling it – through scientific advances and enlightened policy-making – to provide the greatest benefits for the world’s people at the least cost environmentally and socially.

Many people in wealthy countries who advocate veganism, or indeed any other single kind of diet, do so in a context of food excess. Let’s remember the many, many other people who are not so fortunate. It would be a tragedy if good intentions were to end up hurting some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Whatever our passions and whatever “side” of the vegan debate we fall on, we must overcome the temptation to find simple answers to the world’s complex and context-specific sustainability challenges. Demonising livestock is one such misguided simple response. To achieve true sustainable development, we are going to have to make good use of livestock – and all the other natural resource assets we have at our disposal.

References

1. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/veganism-environment-veganuary-friendly-food-diet-damage-hodmedods-protein-crops-jack-monroe-a8177541.html
2. https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/millennial-veganism/
3. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/veganism-intensively-farmed-meat-dairy-soya-maize 
4. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/16/veganism-not-key-sustainable-development-natural-resources-jimmy-smith