Can we produce more beef without increasing its environmental impact? Argentina as a case study

Fischer, Carlos González; Bilenca, David

doi:10.1016/j.pecon.2019.12.002

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Grasslands are one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide (Díaz et al 2019 ), but their grazing can help maintain them to provide valuable ecosystem services such as habitat for biodiversity, water regulation, and carbon sequestration (Bengtsson et al 2019 ). In this sense, Argentina has suitable grazing lands and an historical tradition of beef production, with recent studies suggesting that by improving management practices, the Argentine beef cattle sector can produce more meat without increasing its environmental impact (Pacín and Oesterheld, 2015 ; González Fischer and Bilenca 2020 ). Nevertheless, the displacement of cattle ranching from the Pampas towards less productive rangelands has in the past increased the pressure over native forests and the dependence on grains to increase the energy intake of the cattle (Viglizzo et al 2011 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The health, environmental, and economic dimensions of future dietary transitions in Argentina

Arrieta

Fischer²,

Aguiar

et al. 2022

Sustain Sci

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Diets link human health with environmental sustainability, offering promising pressure points to enhance the sustainability of food systems. We investigated the health, environmental, and economic dimensions of the current diet in Argentina and the possible effects of six dietary change scenarios on nutrient adequacy, dietary quality, food expenditure, and six environmental impact categories (i.e., GHG emissions, total land occupation, cropland use, fossil energy use, freshwater consumption, and the emission of eutrophying pollutants). Current dietary patterns are unhealthy, unsustainable, and relatively expensive, and all things being equal, an increase in income levels would not alter the health dimension, but increase environmental impacts by 33–38%, and costs by 38%. Compared to the prevailing diet, the six healthier diet alternatives could improve health with an expenditure between + 27% (National Dietary Guidelines) to -5% (vegan diet) of the current diet. These dietary changes could result in trade-offs between different environmental impacts. Plant-based diets showed the lowest overall environmental impact, with GHG emissions and land occupation reduced by up to 79% and 88%, respectively, without significant changes in cropland demand. However, fossil energy use and freshwater consumption could increase by up to 101% and 220%, respectively. The emission of eutrophying pollutants could increase by up to 54% for all healthy diet scenarios, except for the vegan one (18% decrease). We conclude that the health and environmental crisis that Argentina (and other developing countries) currently face could be mitigated by adopting healthy diets (particularly plant-based), bringing in the process benefits to both people and nature. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-01087-7.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The health, environmental, and economic dimensions of future dietary transitions in Argentina

Arrieta

Fischer²,

Aguiar

et al. 2022

Sustain Sci

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“…These are some of many international transactions that take place in the world economy for satisfying EU's demand for food, in turn resulting in spillover effects (Figures 3, 4). The agri-food sector is contributing to environmental pressures worldwide, for example, quinoa demand in Peru is driving land use impacts (Bedoya-Perales et al, 2018), agriculture is contributing to degradation of water quality in Brazil (de Mello et al, 2020), cocoa production in Ghana has implications for soil, air and water quality (Boakye-Yiadom et al, 2021), environmental impacts from livestock farming in Mexico (Giraldi-Díaz et al, 2021), impacts related to biodiversity and ecotoxicity from beef production in Argentina (Fischer & Bilenca, 2020), soil erosion in Kenya due to agricultural expansion (Maeda et al, 2010). These are just selected examples that demonstrate the wide-ranging impacts driven by the agri-food sector, and the need to devise strategies for ensuring that livelihoods can be sustained without putting pressures on Earth's ecosystems.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…and water quality (Boakye-Yiadom et al, 2021), environmental impacts from livestock farming in Mexico (Giraldi-Díaz et al, 2021), impacts related to biodiversity and ecotoxicity from beef production in Argentina (Fischer & Bilenca, 2020), soil erosion in Kenya due to agricultural expansion (Maeda et al, 2010). These are just selected examples that demonstrate the wideranging impacts driven by the agri-food sector, and the need to devise strategies for ensuring that livelihoods can be sustained without putting pressures on Earth's ecosystems.…”

Section: International Spillovers: Country and Sector Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global environmental and social spillover effects of EU's food trade

Malik

Lafortune²,

Dahir³

et al. 2023

Glob. Sustain.

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Non-technical summary Globalisation has narrowed the gap between producers and consumers. Nations are increasingly relying on commodities produced outside of their borders for satisfying their consumption. This is particularly the case for the European Union (EU). This study assesses spillover effects, i.e. impacts taking place outside of the EU borders, resulting from the EU's demand for food products, in terms of environmental and social indicators. Technical summary Human demand for agri-food products contributes to environmental degradation in the form of land-use impacts and emissions into the atmosphere. Development and implementation of suitable policy instruments to mitigate these impacts requires robust and timely statistics at sectoral, regional and global levels. In this study, we aim to assess the environmental and social impacts embodied in European Union's (EU's) demand for agri-food products. To this end, we select a range of indicators: emissions (carbon dioxide, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide), land use, employment and income. We trace these environmental and social impacts across EU's trading partners to identify specific sectors and regions as hotspots of international spillovers embodied in EU's food supply chains and find that these hotspots are wide-ranging in all continents. EU's food demand is responsible for 5% of the EU's total CO2 consumption-based footprint, 9% of the total NOX footprint, 16% of the total PM footprint, 6% of the total SO2 footprint, 46% of the total land-use footprint, 13% of the total employment footprint and 5% of the total income footprint. Our results serve to inform future reforms in the EU for aligning policies and strategies with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement. Social media summary Significant environmental and social spillover effects embodied in the EU's food supply chains.

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“…At one extreme, undisturbed habitats could be impacted by the conversion of primary forests into pastures or feed crops [4][5][6]. At the other extreme, in places with a long livestock history, many organisms have specifically adapted to habitats associated with the presence of domestic herbivores, and they now play important roles in maintaining permanent grassland habitats with high biodiversity levels, as in Europe [7][8][9][10], America [11,12], Africa [13,14], and Oceania [15,16]. Occasionally, livestock can play a similar ecological role to that of wildlife (i.e., bison in North American rangelands [17]) or play important roles in seed dispersion [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Theory to Practice: Can LEAP/FAO Biodiversity Assessment Guidelines Be a Useful Tool for Knowing the Environmental Status of Livestock Systems?

et al. 2022

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Biodiversity loss is a global concern, and agriculture is one of the economic sectors responsible for this impact. The assessment of ecosystems under the influence of livestock production is essential for knowing their integrity and ability to provide ecosystem services. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the application of LEAP/FAO guidelines for quantitative assessment of biodiversity in the livestock sector at the local scale (farm level) in a group of six study cases in Uruguay. A set of 20 indicators was used, including seven key thematic issues: habitat protection, habitat change, wildlife conservation, invasive species, pollution, aquatic biodiversity, off-farm feed, and landscape-scale conservation. The results show that the LEAP biodiversity assessment guidelines can be useful to characterize the state of ecosystems under pastoral use and some specific components of their biodiversity, as well as assess the interaction of the production system with the environment and plan management accordingly. This work also provides an analysis of the methodology used and recommendations to facilitate its application by the sector. The results from the application of the indicators show a great deal of wild biodiversity that uses grazing systems based on native grasslands as habitats and the acceptable integrity of these ecosystems. On average, farms have 83% of their native ecosystem, with a value of 3.5 for the Ecosystem Integrity Index. In terms of the richness of different groups, there was an average number of species of 112 herbaceous plants, 48 woody plants, 48 spiders, 150 birds, and 14 fish. The main goal of this work is to help in the wider application of the guidelines by facilitating decisions about methodology, necessary resources, and technical support. Moreover, another goal is to show the importance of native grasslands-based livestock systems for biodiversity conservation.

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Can we produce more beef without increasing its environmental impact? Argentina as a case study

Cited by 9 publications

References 26 publications

The health, environmental, and economic dimensions of future dietary transitions in Argentina

The health, environmental, and economic dimensions of future dietary transitions in Argentina

Global environmental and social spillover effects of EU's food trade

From Theory to Practice: Can LEAP/FAO Biodiversity Assessment Guidelines Be a Useful Tool for Knowing the Environmental Status of Livestock Systems?

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