Is a world without meat realistic?

Jean-François J.-F. Hocquette (1) , Pascale Mollier (2) , Jean-Louis Peyraud (3)

1 UMRH - Unité Mixte de Recherche sur les Herbivores - UMR 1213
2 Direction de la Communication
3 PEGASE - Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Elevage [Rennes]

Citizens have growing concerns about livestock and meat consumption. Answers cannot be simplistic solutions such as no meat, to avoid killing animals, improve human health and reduce harmful emission to the environment. First, farm animals are today well adapted to living with humans, and cannot simply return to the wild world without suffering. Second, the relationship between food and health has to be considered for the overall eating pattern, not for one part of the diet. Eating some products in excess as meat will cause health disorders. Nutritional recommendations will be met by consuming in a reasonable amount a variety of foods including lean meats because they provide high-quality proteins, micronutrients (iron, vitamins, etc). Eating meat from herbivores is also an efficient way to indirectly make the most of plants and grass. This is of particular importance in marginal areas, where climate and soil do not allow crop production. Therefore, conversion of plant proteins to animal proteins should be calculated for non-edible proteins (and not for total proteins), since 80% of food consumed by livestock is not consumable by humans. By this way, cattle will appear much more efficient in converting natural resources into edible products. Other claims should be carefully weighted: livestock do occupy 70-75% of agricultural land, but mostly non-arable lands; to produce 1 kg of meat, it is claimed that 15,000 liters are required, but only the blue water (river, ground water) is in competition with human needs, therefore 1 kg of beef requires less than 700 liters of blue water. In addition, carbon storage by grasslands corresponds to 30-80% of methane emissions by ruminants. Livestock manure in Europe represents an important supply of nitrogen and phosphorus to the soils. They are also a source of organic matter essential for soil fertility. Finally, livestock and meat consumption are closely associated with our cultural heritage (food gastronomy). Rearing livestock also offers jobs in rural areas and poor countries. In conclusion, livestock and meat production are faced with a range of sustainability challenges, including changing consumer perceptions and improving rearing practices, but no more meat is not realistic.

Mots clés: consommation de viande; élevage

Domaines: Autre [q-bio.OT]

Jean-François J.-F. Hocquette, Pascale Mollier, Jean-Louis Peyraud. Is a world without meat realistic?. 68. Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP), Aug 2017, Tallinn, Estonia. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production, 2017, Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production. ⟨hal-01597864⟩