Food Systems + Climate Change

• Environment

In Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, We Are the Weather, the author argues that we can have all the knowledge pointing to a climate crisis, but without the belief that we have a personal stake in climate change, we will fail to prevent its consequences. Whistleblowers must be believed if we are to meet the challenge of global climate change.

Agriculture accounts for over 8% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. Livestock and poultry production generate over a third of U.S. methane emissions due to the digestion processes of meat animals, manure management on large-scale farms, and the fertilizers used to grow animal feed. It’s not a joke or a waste of taxpayer money – animals raised for meat are a direct source of GHGs.

Climate change also affects food production itself. It’s no secret that climate change has already altered weather patterns, contributing to stronger hurricanes, intense rain and flooding, heatwaves and droughts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported expected declines in production, leading to increased food prices by 2050.

Neither corporations nor governments have been transparent or responded adequately to the climate crisis. Still, many brave truth-tellers have stepped forward to share climate truth and tragedy with the public.

Hog CAFOs in North Carolina: Knowing the Facts and Believing Whistleblowers

Even if we know that methane from hog farms contributes to climate change, do we believe people in rural communities when they tell us they are already facing climate challenges? Communities, mostly poorer communities of color, are feeling the impacts now.

Industrial hog lagoons that store waste from industrial hog farms do not emit methane, but they can overflow in extreme weather. Meteorologists reported that climate change fueled the strength of Hurricane Florence in 2018, such that it rained and flooded more than experts forecasted. This resulted in flooded lagoons spreading livestock waste, pharmaceutical residues, and bacteria across the landscape and into people’s homes.

An overhead view of hog barns and waste lagoons in Duplin County, NC.

But the problem with waste lagoons doesn’t end there. Truth-teller René Miller, who lives in Duplin County, NC (where pigs outnumber people thirty-to-one), told the Food Integrity Campaign (FIC) about her experience living next to a hog facility. To drain the lagoons, producers spray the fluid from the lagoons onto crops near residential communities. The spray goes airborne and cakes everything in the vicinity with waste. Not surprisingly, René has had multiple health problems and routinely deals with the stench of hog waste sprayed on her home and car. Her situation is not unique. Hers is the struggle of hundreds of families of color affected by neighboring hog farms. When FIC investigators met with René in her home, she asked us to spread the word about one thing: “Please don’t support this industry.” Do we believe her?

Above: Sitting on her front porch, René Miller captured this video of hog waste being sprayed on fields just across the road.

Not-so-fun-fact: Bacon and hotdogs are American favorites, but there’s more to the story. The pork giant Smithfield, now owned by a Chinese conglomerate, dominates hog production in North Carolina, controlling the contracts for just over half of North Carolina hog farms and owning another ten percent outright. Smithfield ranks as the largest pork producer and processor in the world, owning over a million hogs.

Greenhouse Gas Intensity: The Beef with Industrialized Beef

Ounce for ounce, beef production exacerbates climate change more than almost any food. The U.S. beef industry touts environmental gains through improved “feed efficiency,” or the amount of feed required to produce the same amount of meat. Using less feed per pound of beef reduces GHG emissions involved in production – and, of course, increases profits due to decreased feed costs. Yet, any GHG reductions gained through feed efficiency have been far exceeded by the U.S. beef industry’s overall production increases, and its push for more global beef consumption through exports.

There’s a lot more to tell about how the livestock industry has worked behind the scenes to protect itself from regulations and hide its climate impact. FIC whistleblower and veterinarian Dr. James Keen revealed how the pursuit of feed efficiency came at the cost of animal welfare at a USDA research facility. Experiments allowed calves to be born weak and deformed, lambs to die in the cold, and piglets to be crushed by their mothers, all in the pursuit of profit. FIC researcher Anna Levy dived into the details of the beef industry’s leveraging of U.S. farm and trade policies for its own gain in the report, “Mapping a Decade of the Climate Policy-Livestock Industry Nexus in the United States.”

Believe that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Thinking Sustainably: Alternatives to Conventional Agriculture

An FIC researcher examined regenerative agriculture, a climate-friendly alternative to conventional agriculture. Regenerative agriculture promotes practices that capture carbon from the air to be stored in soil, a process called carbon sequestration. These practices can make farming systems a tool for fighting climate change, rather than making it worse.

That’s true even for such resource-intensive foods as beef. Well-managed cattle grazing systems can promote healthy grassland ecosystems, reducing erosion and storing carbon in plant matter. Regenerative agriculture techniques for raising beef cattle offer other improvements over the industrial model: allowing cows to express natural behaviors, improving the fatty acid profile of beef, and preventing conditions that allow E. coli to spread in cattle’s digestive tracts. For crop farmers, techniques such as cover crops can prevent erosion, sequester carbon, and even reduce costs.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has pitched soil carbon sequestration as having the biggest potential for mitigating agriculture emissions. Yet, the USDA invests far fewer resources to promote these practices than it does to maintain conventional agriculture.

USDA Suppression of Climate Science

The science behind climate change has been clear for decades, but the federal government has at times suppressed research findings and minimized their implications. Whistleblowers have played a crucial role in alerting the public to the full scope of the climate crisis, including the relationship between agriculture, climate change, and public health.

While USDA has reported on climate change impacts on U.S. agriculture and taken some actions to help farmers prepare for volatile weather, that isn’t the whole story. Shortly after President Trump entered office, USDA employees received instructions on how to avoid using terms like “climate change” and “sequester carbon.”

In 2019, Politico reported on startling instances of USDA suppressing climate research. USDA stopped publicizing and reporting on climate research by USDA’s own scientists, leading one veteran USDA scientist to resign in protest. USDA also chose to not publicly release its climate change resiliency plan for U.S. agriculture as the Obama Administration had done.

Supporting the Food Integrity Campaign protects and empowers those who protect our food’s integrity in the face of climate change. Please consider joining the conversation by signing up for our email list or making a donation to FIC.

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