Rinderpest, a cattle disease that for centuries felled herds in Europe, Africa and Asia and caused periodic human famine, has been eradicated, veterinary epidemiologists announced this week.I always wonder how they prove eradication beyond a reasonable doubt. But nevertheless, a huge triumph. I spent some time last year with some folks who were instrumental in beginning this campaign back in the late 1980s/early 1990s - here is to them and their hard work over two decades.
Eradication is the Holy Grail of disease prevention and has been successful only once before. Smallpox, an equally devastating human scourge, was eradicated in 1980, proving it is possible to stamp out a microbe across the entire planet.
Showing posts with label cattle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cattle. Show all posts
Great news for cows
The undiversified economy
... is vulnerable, even if historically successful:
From the Stationary Bandit, via the Roving Bandit.
Now, a 7% downturn amidst the greatest economic crisis in generations is not the end of the world, especially if you managed to average 9% annual GDP growth for over three decades. On the other hand, even the staunchest efficient market skeptics and industrial policy promoters would have to concede that "happen to have and focus your economy on a small basket of commodities that will outperform over the coming decades" is not a viable (or at least generalizable) economic development strategy to start with.Botswana’s economy contracted by 6.7 percent last year as revenue from diamonds plummeted, Central Bank Governor Linah Moholo said.This succinctly summarizes the problem for Botswana. Although its growth record for decades has been impressive, it remains too undiversified. Diamonds and cattle remain large sectors of the economy. When diamond revenues plummet, the economic consequences are severe. Add in the HIV/AIDS situation with a contracting economy can quickly turn an African success story into another African Growth Tragedy.
“Mining was hard-hit, with its share of gross domestic product dropping from 41.2 percent to 24 percent,” she said.
From the Stationary Bandit, via the Roving Bandit.
Quick-and-dirty calculation of ag footprint
Following a comment discussion on resource footprints over at Greed, Green and Grains, I felt the urge to do a very rough calculation of the relative per capita agricultural footprints of a few countries (U.S., China, India, and Brazil). Here’s what came out:
I’m not surprised by this result – back-of-the-envelope is that U.S. eats ~70% more calories, gets 23% of calories from meat/dairy compared to 6% in India, and uses 3.4 kg of feed per calorie of animal product vs. 1.8 kg since U.S. is more heavily weighted toward meat. Add these factors up and the overall gap not much bigger than double.
I didn’t include waste because while consumer waste is much lower in developing countries, harvest and post-harvest waste is much higher. Even if we do assume the U.S. wastes 40% and India only 10% of food production, the ratio only jumps to 3.3x – still an order of magnitude less than the oil consumption differential of ~30x.
India is about as extreme an example as you can get – not only low average caloric intake (people tend to forget that India has worse malnourishment than Sub-Saharan Africa), but abnormally low meat consumption when adjusted for income level due to cultural/religious factors. So unless my calculations are totally off (and I’ll lay out the details below, so someone can point out if they are), we can say with confidence that rich-poor differential in per capita agricultural footprint is an order of magnitude smaller than the rich-poor differential in energy footprint.
(If you adjust calories consumed for local yields, the gap will be even smaller due to low agricultural productivity in many developing countries… but that's an entirely different topic.)
Calculation details
To simplify I made the assumption that a calorie of grain has a fixed “agricultural footprint.” I used FAOStat data on per capita caloric consumption and FAPRI data on per capita meat and dairy consumption. Conversions for calories/kg and feed conversion are from internet and personal knowledge – please let me know where they’re wrong.
I’m missing fish and eggs. There are probably other errors as well – tell me!
Oil footprint, by the way, is based on barrels of oil consumed per capita per day.
Update: How convenient - the FAO's 2009 State of Food and Agriculture report (entitled "Livestock in the balance") has a chart showing calories of livestock products consumed by region. My estimates were within 100 calories for each, which gives me incremental confidence in my answer above.
| U.S. | Brazil | China | India | |
| Caloric consumption (Kcal/capita/day) | 3,855 | 3,118 | 2,970 | 2,348 |
| Ag footprint (Kcal/capita/day) | 6,024 | 4,819 | 3,979 | 2,597 |
| Relative ag footprint (U.S. to country) | 1.0x | 1.3x | 1.5x | 2.3x |
| Relative oil footprint (U.S. to country) | 1x | ~5x | ~12x | ~30x |
I’m not surprised by this result – back-of-the-envelope is that U.S. eats ~70% more calories, gets 23% of calories from meat/dairy compared to 6% in India, and uses 3.4 kg of feed per calorie of animal product vs. 1.8 kg since U.S. is more heavily weighted toward meat. Add these factors up and the overall gap not much bigger than double.
I didn’t include waste because while consumer waste is much lower in developing countries, harvest and post-harvest waste is much higher. Even if we do assume the U.S. wastes 40% and India only 10% of food production, the ratio only jumps to 3.3x – still an order of magnitude less than the oil consumption differential of ~30x.
India is about as extreme an example as you can get – not only low average caloric intake (people tend to forget that India has worse malnourishment than Sub-Saharan Africa), but abnormally low meat consumption when adjusted for income level due to cultural/religious factors. So unless my calculations are totally off (and I’ll lay out the details below, so someone can point out if they are), we can say with confidence that rich-poor differential in per capita agricultural footprint is an order of magnitude smaller than the rich-poor differential in energy footprint.
(If you adjust calories consumed for local yields, the gap will be even smaller due to low agricultural productivity in many developing countries… but that's an entirely different topic.)
Calculation details
To simplify I made the assumption that a calorie of grain has a fixed “agricultural footprint.” I used FAOStat data on per capita caloric consumption and FAPRI data on per capita meat and dairy consumption. Conversions for calories/kg and feed conversion are from internet and personal knowledge – please let me know where they’re wrong.
| Animal product | Kcal/kg | kg feed/kg product |
| Beef | 1,500 | 8.0 |
| Pork | 2,800 | 4.0 |
| Mutton/Goat meat | 2,070 | 4.0 |
| Chicken | 1,440 | 2.0 |
| Milk | 600 | 1.5 |
| Cheese | 3,300 | 1.5 |
| Butter | 7,720 | 1.5 |
I’m missing fish and eggs. There are probably other errors as well – tell me!
Oil footprint, by the way, is based on barrels of oil consumed per capita per day.
Update: How convenient - the FAO's 2009 State of Food and Agriculture report (entitled "Livestock in the balance") has a chart showing calories of livestock products consumed by region. My estimates were within 100 calories for each, which gives me incremental confidence in my answer above.
Dairy productivity
In Israel, we have 100,000 cows that produce the same amount of milk as the 4 million cows in Ethiopia. I’m urging them to work together to increase yields.That's Israeli PM Shimon Peres, via Owen Barder. As I note in Owen's comments, there are more than 40 million cows in Ethiopia, so perhaps he is just comparing those dedicated to dairy; in any case the difference is striking. Breeding stock, animal health, availability of feed, technology and management practices all likely contribute to some extent.
Peres' broader point is also interesting - he thinks Russia could engage more constructively abroad by selling water rather than weapons.
GHG emissions of livestock
A new report claims that livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for 51% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. But it is wrong, or, put more colorfully:
Livestock is a complicated issue - while its negative environmental impacts are myriad (see the FAO's "Livestock's Long Shadow" report for a detailed assessment), it also plays important economical and social roles, particularly in poor countries with highly rural populations and agricultural economies (like, for example, Ethiopia, where I am now). As this report illustrates, for many smallholder farmers, livestock can provide nutritious food (meat and milk), steady cash income (selling milk or eggs), labor (transport and traction), fertilizer and fuel (manure), while also serving as a store of value and a hedge against inflation. And this does not even include livestock's significant social and cultural roles.
So less meat consumption might be better within developed countries, but on a global scale the questions are more nuanced and the right paths of action are less clear.
I read about 2 pages into the report and then gave up, because its conclusions appear to be hopelessly addled.I'll guesstimate that the right number must be in the 10-20% range - agriculture and deforestation (which is mostly driven by agriculture, directly or indirectly) combine for about a third of human GHG emissions, and livestock is a significant part of that, the largest components being methane emissions from cows and emissions associated with crop production destined for animal feed.
Livestock is a complicated issue - while its negative environmental impacts are myriad (see the FAO's "Livestock's Long Shadow" report for a detailed assessment), it also plays important economical and social roles, particularly in poor countries with highly rural populations and agricultural economies (like, for example, Ethiopia, where I am now). As this report illustrates, for many smallholder farmers, livestock can provide nutritious food (meat and milk), steady cash income (selling milk or eggs), labor (transport and traction), fertilizer and fuel (manure), while also serving as a store of value and a hedge against inflation. And this does not even include livestock's significant social and cultural roles.
So less meat consumption might be better within developed countries, but on a global scale the questions are more nuanced and the right paths of action are less clear.
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