Livestock in Evolving Foodscapes and Thoughtscapes

Abstract

Humanity's main societal and epistemic transitions also mirror changes in its approach to the food system. This particularly holds true for human-animal interactions and the consumption of animal source foods (red meat especially, and to a lesser degree dairy, eggs, poultry, and fish). Hunter-gathering has been by far the longest prevailing form of human sustenance, followed by a diffuse transition to crop agriculture and animal husbandry. This transition eventually stabilized as a state-controlled model based on the domestication of plants, animals, and humans. A shift to a post-domestic paradigm was initiated during the 19th century in the urbanizing populations of the Anglosphere, which was characterized by the rise of agri-food corporations, an increased meat supply, and a disconnect of most of its population from the food chain. While this has improved undernutrition, various global threats have been emerging in parallel. The latter include, among others, a public health crisis, climate change, pandemics, and societal class anxieties. This state of affairs is an unstable one, setting the conditions of possibility for a new episteme that may evolve beyond mere adjustments within the businessas-usual model. At least two disruptive scenarios have been described in current food discourses, both by scientists and mass media. Brought to its extreme, the first scenario relates to the radical abolishment of livestock, rewilding, a 'plants-only' diet, and vegan ideology. A second option consists of a holistic approach to animal husbandry, involving more harmonic and richer types of human-animal-land interactions. We argue thatinstead of reactive pleas for less or none -future thoughtscapes should emphasize 'more of the better.'

A review of megatrends in the global dairy sector: what are the socioecological implications?

“…These new forms of food appear better for animal welfare on the basis that there are no livestock animals harmed in the making (synthetic milk can be produced from yeast). Thus, the creation of cellular agriculture and synthetic milks offer the possibility of unfettered production of animal products without conventional spatial constraints and welfare concerns (Jönsson 2020), as no animal bodies are concealed or abstracted in the production of milk (Leroy et al 2020). These disruptions in the dairy sector may steer humanity towards radically different food systems (Leroy et al 2020) where synthetic milks compete with traditional dairy.…”

Animal as the Solution: Searching for Environmentally Friendly Dairy Cows

“…The continual view that animals are the problem has created negative connotations around animal-based production systems [30,31], which has potentially resulted in a lower rating of animal perspectives relative to other perspectives used in system design [32]. Increasingly, environmentally conscious consumers are now in a 'moral conundrum' [33] about consuming animal-based products, which has generated an increased interest in alternates to animal products as a way to address environmental issues [34,35]. Questions remain about the efficiency [36] and nutritional quality [37,38] of some of these alternate products compared to the products produced by highly efficient pasture-based ruminant production systems.…”

“…conundrum' [33] about consuming animal-based products, which has generated an increased interest in alternates to animal products as a way to address environmental issues [34,35]. Questions remain about the efficiency [36] and nutritional quality [37,38] of some of these alternate products compared to the products produced by highly efficient pasture-based ruminant production systems.…”

Mobilizing Ecological Processes for Herbivore Production: Farmers and Researchers Learning Together

“…As a result of the increasing consumption of meat and milk, livestock farming systems face unprecedented pressure to alleviate their negative impacts on the environment. Recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports (https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/), and various scientific publications (e.g., Aleksandrowicz et al, 2016;Mottet et al, 2017;Springmann et al, 2018;Dumont et al, 2019;Leroy et al, 2020), have framed the debate in terms of a tension between food security objectives, consumption ethics, and the damaging environmental and climate impacts associated with livestock production. Domestic herbivores, especially cattle, contribute to 14.5% of humaninduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Gerber et al, 2013), and livestock production systems occupy 2.5 billion ha of land, which is approximately half of the global agricultural area (Mottet et al, 2017).…”

“…The largest share of this area is comprised of grasslands, with almost 2 billion ha. In these grasslandbased systems, herbivores transform feed resources that are not directly edible by humans into proteins, vitamins, and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that help to fulfill our nutritional requirements (Mottet et al, 2017;Leroy et al, 2020).…”