Livestock’s long shadow: Difference between revisions

With 1 billion animals worldwide, cattle is an over-sized industry causing the “linear economy” to break the harmonious carbon cycle when feeding huge amount of exported feed to cows, resulting on an excessive production of manure (ergo GHG) and methane per hectare of land. It goes without saying that dairy and meat consumption should be reduced in Western countries, but as any agricultural system is always linked to a particular context, one can say that cattle is still very suitable to some regions such as the so-called dutch “Groene Hart”<ref>In english: green heart</ref> where soils are wet and coevered with grass. Representing 8% of Netherland, these terrains called peatlands are the most efficient ways to stock carbon on Earth. Historically harvested for fuel, peat is now protected in the NL to keep the landscape's integrity: no other agriculture than livestock farming is allowed to legally be persued.