Meatless Monday. You have probably heard this idea lately. What's it about? Are they (whoever "they" are) trying to conspire to turn us all into vegetarians and vegans? Yes. We (as in part of "they") attend weekly underground meetings and plot to trick you into eating the way we want you to, one meatless day at a time. Not really (and if you were saying, "I knew it!" you probably have some pretty interesting conspiracy theories).
What is it really all about then? While I do happen to be vegetarian, I recognize that not everyone wants to be an organic vegan...wah, wah. So, why bother asking you to skip meat one day a week then? What good will that do? Conceivably, a lot. I won't bombard you with images of tortured animals or link you to some gut-wrenching Peta video. Instead, I'd like to focus on the environmental reasons why eating a little less meat can make a huge impact. And your body may thank me too.
Most of the meat you can pick up at the grocery store and almost all "meat" that you grab at the drive thru comes from factory farms. Many of the packages adorn pictures of a small farm or a smiling cow, evoking images of rolling meadows and sparse animals happily grazing. For most big producers this is just not the case.
In a healthy farm system, agriculture works in harmony with the natural environment. This begins with healthy soil that stores water and nutrients and provides a stable base to support plant roots. In a sustainable system, soil is kept in balance. Crops are rotated through the fields to replace nutrients in the soil. Where there is livestock, animals graze the land, then waste from those animals is used to fertilize the soil. The idea is that as farmers take from the land they also give back.
Animal Manure and Pollutants
Factory farms concentrate an unnatural number of animals in one place, which creates an unmanageable amount of waste. For example, a single hog excretes up to 17.5 pounds of manure and urine each day (wow, right?). Put 1,000 hogs together, and that’s six million pounds of waste each year. On a factory farm containing 35,000 hogs, over four million pounds of waste are produced each week, and over 200 million pounds each year. The creation and disposal of such enormous quantities of waste has a devastating effect on the air, water and soil surrounding factory farms. Unlike human waste, livestock manure is not processed for sanitation. On factory farms it is commonly mixed with water and held in pits (called “lagoons”), and then spread or sprayed on cropland. But the system often suffers from an excess of manure: the lagoons can leak or spill, for instance, or the manure is over-applied to fields, which can cause it to run off into surface waters.
Manure carries with it other substances that are used on industrial farms such as antibiotics and artificial growth hormones, which contaminate waterways and affect the plants and animals that live in them. Nutrients and heavy metals present in animal feed are also excreted by livestock. These include zinc, copper, chromium, arsenic, cadmium and even lead. In balanced amounts, some of these elements can be good for soil and promote plant growth. But as factory farms over-apply manure to fields, a significant quantity of nutrients builds up in the soil and can actually reduce the soil’s fertility. This damage is difficult to reverse, and ultimately puts fertile cropland out of use.
Air and Water Pollution
Factory farms emit harmful gases and particles such as methane and hydrogen sulfide, which can contribute to global warming and harm the health of those living or working nearby. Air pollution results from the overuse of machinery, the mismanagement of manure, and the irresponsible feeding practices that characterize industrial farming. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have turned agriculture into a leading source of water pollution in the United States. Runoff from factory farms kills fish, degrades aquatic habitats and threatens drinking water supplies. Additionally, factory farms use tremendous amounts of water, which cuts into our precious supplies of water that are not contaminated.
Feed Crops
Factory farms also harm American farmland through their consumption of massive quantities of feed crops. Consider this: The average cow eats roughly 30 pounds of food each day. The beef industry raises more than 30 million cows each year. Some of those cows feed themselves by grazing on pasture, but the vast majority are raised in feedlots, where they eat corn and soybeans. The result: American cropland is pushed hard to produce an extraordinary amount of grain.
Currently, the average rate of soil erosion on US cropland is seven tons per acre per year. This is a serious problem, because erosion causes fertile farmland to lose nutrients and water retention ability. Because the first thing to go is precious topsoil, the soil removed by erosion contains about three times more nutrients and 1.5 to five times more organic matter than that which remains behind. The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service writes that erosion is the single greatest threat to soil productivity in the United States.
Now That I Know, What Can I Do To Help?
You may be wondering with such staggering statistics, will one day a week even make a difference? Yes! Take water usage for instance. It takes about 60 pounds of water to produce a pound of potatoes, 108 for a pound of wheat, 168 for a pound of corn, 229 for a pound of rice, and 12,000 gallons for a pound of meat. If we all skipped just one day a week imagine the impact that could have!
The rest of the week when you choose your meat choose quality over quantity. Support your local sustainable farmer. You will not only be helping the environment, but supporting small business and helping your community. Use this great website to find a local farmer near you. If you choose local organic meats they may be more expensive, but they will also be free of antibiotics, hormones, and other dangerous elements such as arsenic. That's right, much of the chicken sold in the US contains arsenic. So do your health, your community, and the environment a favor and eat less meat and choose organic free range meats when possible. Less is more!
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