The Sustainability Minefield: How we can make better choices
This is an essay I wrote for the Wholesome Food Association which was published back in 2012, as part of a series of cookery columns. I see no great shift in the political landscape since then and the challenges facing consumers are still the same.
I start this column with a confession: I have always felt a little intimidated buying meat or fish away from the safe confines of the supermarket. This from someone who has actually worked in a local firm of family butchers: I have stood shoulder to shoulder with fat-fingered men making pies; bantered over the mopping pail with surly youths in blood-stained aprons; even entered into the confidences of the lovelorn boss. But, when it comes to choosing what’s for dinner, I would much rather just point at something familiar and run, than enter into a conversation about what the animal was fed on, or the merits of blade versus brisket. Whatever the reason – lack of knowledge, ‘habit bias’ (industry jargon for habits which are hard to change), or, in my case, a very British type of politeness, which triggers panic at the thought of taking up too much of someone’s time – I am not alone. In a (very unscientific) survey of mums at the school gate, 100% said that, unless specifically directed by a recipe, they buy what they know (roasting joints; chops; sausages) and avoid anything obscure (such as ‘neck or shoulder’). Similarly, the Marine Conservation Society lists over thirty different types of fish which can be fished freely during certain months of the year from UK waters, yet just five types account for 80% of the fish bought in the UK, much of it imported (salmon, tuna, cod, haddock and prawns)[i]. Notwithstanding the occasional surges in demand for less popular foods championed by a few celebrity chefs, we are a generation that sticks to what it knows, which is not very much, and when it comes to meat, definitely not its arse from its elbow. But does it matter?
The consequences of passive consumption
Passive consuming – unthinkingly buying the same thing week in week out – does have consequences. Once upon a time, the pattern of supply of and demand for food was dictated by the rhythms of nature. Produce that thrived in our climate was eaten all the year round (or supplemented in times of scarcity with preserved gluts and shipments from overseas). Produce with infrequent harvests or high labour costs, for example beef, were enjoyed as special treats, and every part of the crop or animal put to good use. Yes, it was monotonous at times, requiring harder work (but the parties sure were good, with communities coming together much more – think of all that wassailing and cider drinking). Nowadays, however, nature can be manipulated – growing seasons can be extended (for example tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, asparagus, mushrooms and strawberries are commonly grown under heat for many months of the year); yields can be increased (e.g. by high-protein feeds and antibiotics used to stimulate growth) – or circumvented, by importing from countries with cheap labour costs. In short, the produce we want – seasonal treats and prime cuts – can be supplied all year round, at relatively low prices. And if we keep buying it, retailers – largely unfettered by regulation (give or take a few quotas here or there), and hugely enabled by advances in science and technology – will keep supplying it.
This is a marvellous model for those living in a world with unlimited resources; for those of us on planet earth, however, where resources are finite, but the number of consumers is expanding (the population is set to reach nine billion by the year 2050), it is somewhat problematic. There are all sorts of consequences to the scramble to supply us with the produce we want at the low prices we expect: serious issues of animal welfare (sentient beasts fed unnatural diets, confined in spaces which restrict natural behaviour and encourage disease); loss of livelihoods (as communities are forced off their land or fisheries collapse); the disappearance of diversity (over two thousand different varieties of apple have been grown in Britain over the years[ii], yet since 1950 nearly two thirds of England’s orchard area has disappeared[iii]). Many of these, taking place in far-away places, bear little relevance to our every-day lives. There are three big issues, however, which touch us all:
Issue one
Overexploitation of resources. The world’s resources are being consumed at unsustainable rates, that is to say, at some point in the future they will be in very short supply, with price hikes for all. The vast quantities of synthetic fertiliser used in intensive farming systems (for example to grow corn and soy for livestock feed) are hastening the march towards the day when oil production goes into irreversible decline. But it is the issue of land which really stirs up campaigners. Nowadays, most of the world’s livestock is fed on grain, requiring huge amounts of crops: in the US, for example, more than 70 percent of the grain produced is fed to livestock[iv].
In 1700, just seven percent of the world's land was used for farming[v]. Nowadays, food production takes up almost half of the planet’s land surface[vi], with an area roughly the size of South America being used for crop production, while even more land—3.2 to 3.6 billion hectares—being used to raise livestock[vii]. The World Bank estimates that cereal production needs to increase by 50% and meat production by 85% between 2000 and 2030 to meet demand.[viii] But most of the world’s best agricultural land is already used, much of it to feed the industrialised west, which means that increased agricultural production is likely to be at the cost of increased tropical deforestation.[ix]
Issue two
Irreversible damage to ecosystems. Human life depends on the optimal functioning of ecosystems. For example, forests store billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere; the sea-bed is rich in marine life, essential to the food chain. In 2005 the UN reported that 60 per cent of 24 ecosystems examined were being degraded or exploited beyond ecological limits, with symptoms including the irreversible decline of fish stocks, the spread of disease, soil erosion, the loss of water quality and shifts in regional climate[x]:
85% of global fish stocks and over 75% of Europe’s fish stocks are over-fished.[xi] Many once common species such as skate, European eel and blue-fin tuna are now assessed by IUCN (World Conservation Union) as Critically Endangered.[xii]
Global forest area has shrunk by about 40 per cent over the past 300 years. Twenty-five countries have completely lost their forests and 29 countries have less than 10 per cent of their forest cover.[xiii]
The world has lost 35 per cent of its mangrove area – vital habitats for juvenile fish – since 1980[xiv].
Practices to blame include:
Deforestation for livestock and crop production (e.g. soy, for animal feed; palm oil plantations).
Use of coastal habitats for aquaculture (for example tropical mangroves for prawn farming).
Intensive farming and aquaculture practices (linked to the erosion of soil fertility; pollution from animal/ fish waste and chemical discharges; the spread of disease).
Aggressive fishing methods, whereby enormous nets, such as mile-long purse-seine nets, catch vulnerable species (‘bycatch’, for example dolphins and sharks), immature fish and low-value fish (with low-market value, but of great importance to the food chain), or are dragged along the sea-bed, reducing it to barren wasteland (for example, for every kilo of north sea sole caught by beam trawl, up to 14 kilos of other seabed animals are caught;[xv] the quantity of bycatch resulting from tuna fishing is enough to fill the equivalent of one out of every tenth tin of tuna[xvi]).
Issue three
Global warming. Most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years has been caused by the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG);[xvii] the food supply chain belches out millions of tonnes of these annually. The two main culprits cited are livestock production, in particular beef and dairy (accountable for almost a fifth of all GHG according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), from the burning of forest; nitrous oxide released from manure and fertilizer; and methane discharged by livestock )[xviii] and the transportation of our food. The FAO claims transportation contributes 11% of all GHG (15% in the UK according to the Cabinet Office[xix]); others believe the figure to be significantly higher[xx].
Buying Guide
Surely, though, it’s the job of government to worry about the environment, and see to it that the food industry edits out any problems before the product reaches the shelf? Evidence shows this is what consumers expect: in one survey, 60% of consumers thought that retailers should make it easier for them to make sustainable choices by introducing higher standards in some product areas[xxi]. The four supermarkets from which 75% of us buy our groceries arguably ought to shoulder some of the responsibility, and indeed, some are doing brilliant work in a number of areas. However, the last government’s food strategy spells it out clearly: “The environmental impacts of the food system are all, ultimately, a consequence of consumption decisions…The decisions of consumers and the values and preferences of society at large, are critical in any change to the food sector”[xxii]. In the words of Carlos Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement: “Anyone who thinks of themselves as a food lover but does not have any environmental awareness is naïve”[xxiii].
So what can consumers do? Feeding the world is a complex problem. But a simple philosophy, coined by the team working on the Sustainable Fish City project at Sustain, may offer a workable guideline when it comes to buying food: Avoid the worst; create demand for the best.[xxiv] What might that look like in practice?
Meat: Evaluating in detail the conflicting arguments on meat production is beyond the scope of this column. Needless to say, the debate is heavily polarised. In one corner are those who claim a case can no longer be made for eating meat, which, with its high feed conversion ratio (i.e. it takes much more land to produce food from livestock – in particular beef and dairy – than from crops) is taking food away from the starving millions (it is estimated that the grain fed to animals a year, two thirds of which is used in the industrialised countries, would be enough to feed about 1.3 billion people, at least 300 million more than the number of people estimated to be malnourished)[xxv]. In the other corner, are the huge suppliers of feed and fertiliser and the GM lobby, equally convinced that intensive farming is the only way to meet the increased production – 50% more cereal and 85% more meat – which the World Bank predicts will be needed by 2030[xxvi]. Skirting round the edge of the ring are those, armed with powerful research and the practical experience to back it up, who believe in a third way: eat less; farm better[xxvii]. Will these voices be heard above the din of big business? Already the EU has relaxed its ban on cattle imported from the US raised intensively in enormous feedlots. Where does this leave the consumer?
The analysis does seem to add up to eating less red meat and dairy. Advocates of having one meat free day a week claim it would have the same impact on GHG emissions as purchasing all household produce locally[xxviii]. When you do buy meat, arguably the best option is livestock which hasn’t been fed on fertiliser-gobbling, rainforest-depleting grain and soy. Perhaps one day it will be possible for British pigs and chickens to once more be fed on food waste, such as the tonnes of bread, fruit and veg disposed of daily by retailers and caterers (Defra is currently working on a project to this end with some of the supermarkets). In the meantime, good options are poultry (which has a comparatively low grain to yield ratio) and animals which eat a diet high in foraged food, such as wild game animals and birds, free-range mutton and lamb and cattle which has been fattened on grass or pasture (and labelled as such). Food supply constraints vary by country, but in the UK a good case can be made for pasture-based livestock farming systems: two-thirds of UK farmland is grass, [xxix] with little alternative agricultural use. Furthermore, in a recent report study by the National Trust, well-managed grass pasture was found to actually remove carbon from the atmosphere, thus reducing net farm emissions (including methane) by 94%[xxx]. And it’s better for you, with pasture-fed beef containing more antioxidants, lineolic acid, and omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed beef[xxxi]. Buying less popular cuts, or stretching out the meat with pulses and vegetables in dishes such as stews and curries, are ways of getting better value for money.
Fish: When it comes to fish, the list of species to avoid, according to the Marine Conservation Society, is, sadly, rather long. Don’t buy fish during months when they are breeding (e.g. haddock from February to June; plaice from January to March), fish whose stocks are low (e.g. Atlantic salmon; Atlantic halibut; Mediterranean mackerel; cod from anywhere except the NE Arctic, Eastern Baltic and Iceland) and fish caught before they have grown to maturity (e.g. whitebait). Avoid species caught by aggressive methods (such as Fish Aggregation Devices; purse-seine nets; demersal/ beam trawling; dredging) and those farmed intensively. That leaves fish caught by traditional or less aggressive methods (e.g. drift nets; pole and line; handlines; pots) whose stocks are plentiful (e.g. Cornish Pollack; coley; Alaskan salmon; NE Arctic or North Sea haddock; N or NE Atlantic mackerel; otter trawled plaice from North/ Irish Sea) or fish with a low market value which is often discarded, for example red gurnard (a meaty white-fleshed fish, delicious with garlic butter), dabs, flounder and whiting. Shellfish (e.g. crabs, mussels, langoustines (scampi) and scallops), and small oily fish (e.g. sardines, herrings and mackerel), which haven’t been dredged, beam-trawled or farmed intensively, are great options, as they breed and grow quickly. For a seasonal chart of what’s good to buy, look on the Marine Conservation Society’s website (http://www.goodfishguide.co.uk/eating-fish), or if that gives you too much of a headache, let someone else do the work for you by buying Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fish. All fish with the MSC label is from well-managed, sustainable stocks, and widely available in some of the supermarkets (all of whom are working closely with the MSC to increase the amount of MSC certified fish they stock).
Fish caught by traditional methods will never meet all our requirements; sustainable aquaculture looks like it has the answer. Look for farms certified by the ASC Aquaculture Stewardship Council or with organic accreditation. It takes 1.7kg of wild fish to feed every 1kg of farmed salmon[xxxii], so the new species of farmed fish which are being introduced – herbivores such as tilapia, and fast growing species such as megrim sole and stone bass – are good options.
Fruit and vegetables: The transportation of food generates the equivalent of 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year, and accounts for a third of the 20.6 million tonnes of oil used in the UK food chain each year[xxxiii]. With 40% of our food coming from overseas, isn’t ‘buy local’ the best advice when it comes to shopping for fruit and veg? Unfortunately it’s slightly more complicated than that. Firstly, low food miles can mask other issues. The natural season for British tomatoes is a few weeks in August and September; outside of these months most of the tomatoes sold in the UK are grown in heated polytunnels,[xxxiv] which use ten times as much energy, and emit nearly four times as much CO2, as producing the same quantity of tomatoes in unheated polytunnels in Spain and transporting them by road to the UK[xxxv]. Secondly, zipping around in your car to buy your local produce may undo all your good intentions: driving six and a half miles to a shop to buy food emits more carbon than flying a pack of green beans from Kenya to the UK[xxxvi]. Furthermore there is an ethical case for some imports: UK demand for fresh produce grown in Africa supports over 700,000 workers and their dependants, [xxxvii]and Fairtrade products (for example, 20% of the bananas sold in the UK[xxxviii]) provide a sustainable living for many disadvantaged producers and workers in developing countries.
The fact of the matter is, the average human simply does not have enough information to weigh-up all the trade-offs. That said, buying British produce in season – grown in fields rather than heated spaces – is definitely the least GHG-intensive option. It comes with other benefits too, often being cheaper, more delicious and better for us. Take apples, for example. Imported varieties, such as Pink Lady and Fuji, are typically bred for their keeping qualities and appearance, rather than flavour or nutrition; compare with Ashmead’s Kernel (which allegedly tastes of fruit drops), Worcester Pearmain (strawberries), Ellison’s Orange (aniseed)[xxxix] and Ribston Pippin, just one of which contains more vitamin C than a pound of Golden Delicious[xl]. Guy Watson, owner of Riverford Organic, puts it thus: “It is a nutritional and culinary tragedy that our traditional greens have been maligned in a national capitulation to the bland, seasonless, overpriced, overtravelled broccoli, peppers and mange tout that have replaced them. Never mind the latest exotic or wonder food. You are being taken for a mug. A Savoy or January King cabbage will help you live longer at a fraction of the price[xli]”
For those living in the real world…
The danger with all of this is that it turns food from being a pleasure, which is what it should be, into a source of angst and guilt. Seeking out seasonal veg cultivated without heated polytunnels, grass-fed livestock and MSC certified fish is all well and good, but in the real world, where there are many competing demands on time and money, it’s not always possible. Don’t tie yourself up in knots. Avoid the worst, when you can; create demand for the best, when you can, and when that’s not an option, consider this: 6.7 million tonnes of food, much of which could still be eaten, is thrown away each year in our homes. Eliminating household waste (most of which gets burned) would save the equivalent in GHG as taking one in five cars off UK roads[xlii], not to mention reduce the burden on the earth’s resources. When you’re faced with little choice, why not focus on making sure that what you do buy doesn’t end up in the bin?
© Mel Barrett
References
Cabinet Office Strategy Unit (2008). Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/food/food_matters1.pdf
Clifford, S. and King, A. (2007). The Apple Source Book. Hodder & Stoughton.
Defra (2012). Progress towards a sustainable future for livestock farming. http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb13756-sustainable-livestock.pdf
Fairlie, S. (2010). Meat: A Benign Extravagance. Permanent Publications.
The Fairtrade Foundation website. http://www.fairtrade.org.uk
Howgate, Emily (The Good Catch project – http://www.goodcatch.org.uk) and Walker, Jon. Sustainable Fish City project – http://www.sustainweb.org/sustainablefishcity/) speaking at the Sustainable Fish Workshop, Sustain, September 2012.
Howgate, et al. (2012). Good Catch…the essentials. Good Catch.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007). Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-es.html
Marine Conservation Society (MCS) website. Good Fish Guide: The consumer guide to sustainable fish. http://www.goodfishguide.co.uk
Owen, J. National Geographic News (2010). Farming Claims Almost Half Earth's Land, New Maps Show. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1209_051209_crops_map.html
National Trust (2012). What’s Your Beef. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/servlet/file/store5/item842742/version1/What's%20your%20beef.pdf
Pasture-Fed Livestock Association (PFLA) website. http://www.pfla.org.uk/pasture-fed-bites
Rifkin, J. (2002). There’s A Bone to Pick with Meat Eaters. Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/27/opinion/oe-rifkin27
Spratt, S., Simms, A., Neitzert, E., and Ryan-Collins, J. (2009). The Great Transition. The New Economics Foundation. http://neweconomics.org/sites/neweconomics.org/files/Great_Transition_0.pdf
Riverford Farm website. http://www.riverfordenvironment.co.uk/hothouse.aspx
Watson, G. and Baxter, J. (2008) Riverford Farm Cook Book. Fourth Estate.
World Watch Magazine (2004). Is Meat Sustainable? (2004). On the Worldwatch Institute website http://www.worldwatch.org/node/549.
[i] Howgate, Emily (The Good Catch project), speaking at the Sustainable Fish Workshop, Sustain, September 2012
[ii] Clifford & King, (2007) The Apple Source Book, p.15
[iii] Ibid p11
[iv] Rifkin, J. (2002). There’s A Bone to Pick with Meat Eaters. Los Angeles Times
[v] Owen, J. National Geographic News (2010). Farming Claims Almost Half Earth's Land, New Maps Show
[vi] Ibid
[vii] Ibid
[viii] Cabinet Office Strategy Unit (2008). Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century.
[ix] Owen, op cit
[x] Spratt et al (2009). The Great Transition. The New Economics Foundation
[xi] Howgate, Emily op cit
[xii] Marine Conservation Society (MCS) website. Good Fish Guide: The consumer guide to sustainable fish
[xiii] Spratt et al (2009), op cit
[xiv] Ibid
[xv] Howgate, Emily op cit
[xvi] Ibid
[xvii] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007). Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007.
[xviii] Fairlie, S. (2010). Meat: A Benign Extravagance. Permanent Publications, p 158
[xix] Cabinet Office, op cit
[xx] Ibid p 179
[xxi] Cabinet Office, op cit
[xxii] Ibid
[xxiii] Howgate, et al. (2012). Good Catch…the essentials. Good Catch.
[xxiv] Walker, Jon (Sustainable Fish City project) speaking at the Sustainable Fish Workshop, Sustain, September 2012.
[xxv] Fairlie, op cit, p 33
[xxvi] Ibid
[xxvii] For example Simon Fairlie (see Meat: A Benign Extravagance)
[xxviii] Fairlie, S. op cit p 154. From Weber and Matthews 2008 study of US GHG emissions.
[xxix] Pasture-Fed Livestock Association (PFLA) website
[xxx] National Trust (2012). What’s Your Beef
[xxxi] Pasture-Fed Livestock Association (PFLA) website
[xxxii] Howgate, Emily op cit
[xxxiii] Cabinet Office, op cit
[xxxiv] Riverford Farm website. http://www.riverfordenvironment.co.uk/hothouse.aspx
[xxxv] Cabinet Office, op cit
[xxxvi] Ibid
[xxxvii] Ibid
[xxxviii] The Fairtrade Foundation website.
[xxxix] Clifford & King, op cit, p.24
[xl] Ibid, p.17
[xli] Watson, G. and Baxter, J. (2008) Riverford Farm Cook Book. Fourth Estate, inside dust jacket
[xlii] Cabinet Office, op cit