Animal farming causes around 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all airplanes, cars, trains and trucks combined. It is responsible for a third of biodiversity losses around the world.

Yet consumption of dairy, eggs and meat is rising. Americans and Europeans already eat more than 1,000 animals in their lifetime. There may be two billion more mouths to feed by the middle of this century. If populations in Africa and Asia adopt a “Western” diet — high on animal proteins — we would need to double the crops we grow by 2050.

How? Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, argues the debate has become polarized:

Those who favor conventional agriculture talk about how modern mechanization, irrigation, fertilizers and improved genetics can increase yields to help meet demand. And they’re right. Meanwhile proponents of local and organic farms counter that the world’s small farmers could increase yields plenty — and help themselves out of poverty — by adopting techniques that improve fertility without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. They’re right too.

High tech is the answer in some places and sectors. Organic and regenerative farming is better in others.

The one thing we should stop everywhere is factory farming. In addition to the harm it causes to the climate and our natural world, it is cruel to the animals who are reared in it.

Male baby chicks are ground up alive, because they won’t produce eggs. Cows are forcibly inseminated and kept perpetually pregnant to produce milk. Calves are separated from their mothers after birth. Most bulls are slaughtered after fifteen to eighteen months when their natural life expectancy is 18 to 22 years. Chickens and pigs live their entire lives in cages that are barely largely enough for them to turn around in. Many don’t see daylight until they are transported to slaughter.

There has to be a better way to feed the world. (more…)