« Code Red | Main | Animal Spirits »
Mark Bittman on the economics of meat
In this excellent piece, I was most struck by the following passage:
But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.
Let's say you want to protect the environment, and you are going to eat some meat, should you eat cows or pigs? Pigs. Let's say you care about animal cruelty. Pigs are smarter and more social than cows. A pig (or chicken) also seems to yield less meat per unit of animal suffering. That would imply it is better for animal welfare to eat cows rather than pigs. The conflict between environmental goals and animal welfare goals is one of the most significant underreported stories in this area.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 28, 2008 at 06:11 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
Well, chickens are more efficient than either pigs or cows, and a lot stupider.
There is also the issue of grass fed versus grain fed. So, animals fed on grass
grown on areas where grain cannot be grown are much more ecologically efficient.
So let us eat thos locally grown, free range chickens.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Jan 28, 2008 6:17:30 PM
The idea that it's hard to apply human ideals to animals struck home with me when I found out that a lot of the new mega-dairies are more or less voluntary. These are big industrial feed-lot types of operations that seem smelly & unnatural. But, it turns out that if you open the gates to a pasture, the cows go about their business at will, but they choose to spend most of their time sitting in their manure strewn cubicle, and go in to the facility to grab a snack & get milked pretty much on schedule.
To take the idea a step further, what if we genetically engineered a chicken who LOVED to be stuck in a cage with 5 other chickens in the dark & became frightened if you put them in any other context. Would it be immoral to raise them in a modern chicken facility?
Posted by: kebko at Jan 28, 2008 6:46:50 PM
Chickens and pigs are omnivores with very inefficient digestive systems. Like people. Bittman has his thumb on the scales in that his numbers depend on grain. For all of these animals that's a twinky diet that is bad for them and us, but worst of all for ruminants.
If you want to eat foods that are the least harmful to the environment then eat meat and dairy products from ruminants that are raised on their natural diet of leaves and twigs. Nature makes lots of leaves but not much grain. Eating such meats is even less harmful to the environment than eating grain.
Posted by: back40 at Jan 28, 2008 6:53:20 PM
Yes, Tyler, what about the hypothetical misery-lovin' chicken and the .001% of U.S. meat that's raised sustainably? Bittman's not telling the whole story! Only about 99% of it.
Posted by: David Roberts at Jan 28, 2008 7:17:40 PM
You might look into imported NZ lamb. They're mostly raised on non-irrigated high country pasture land that is not particularly well suited for anything else. Lambs are pretty stupid, and seem pretty happy out in their pastures. I have no doubt that any randomly chosen NZ lamb prefers having been born, and they're dumb enough that the scare of being herded into trucks for slaughter can't be that much worse than being startled by the sun coming up in the morning or by a passing UFO. Ignore the food miles folks: pasture-raised lamb frozen and shipped is still more carbon friendly than ones raised locally on heavily fertilized and irrigated pastures or on grain supplement. Of course, US tariffs on NZ lamb to protect a tiny number of US lamb farmers might make it a bit pricey. Here, decent lamb chops sell for the equivalent of about $4.50/lb.
I'd lean to pasture-raised beef over chicken if I were an environmentalist. Chickens tend to be fed on grain/soy based pellets. On the Canadian beef farm where I grew up, the cattle would be on pasture for as long as decent pasture existed, then were in feedlot where they'd eat a mix of grain and baled hay/alfalfa. A lot of land that would be pretty marginal if broken for grain farming is put to good use either in pasture or in hay production. Kebko might want to wait for the cow that's able to tell him that her liver ought to be particularly tender as she's been force-feeding herself for months.
Ok, enough Douglas Adams...
Posted by: Eric Crampton at Jan 28, 2008 7:40:19 PM
If you want to minimise animal death and suffering, you want to:
1. Eat animals hunted from a free life in the wild.
2. Eat as big an animal as possible. You have to kill a lot more chickens to feed a group of people than you have to kill cows.
3. Vegetarianism doesn't help, because modern mass farming methods kill vast numbers of rodents, insects etc. with the harvesting, plowing and such.
The conclusion is simple. The greenest meal is whale meat.
Posted by: doctorpat at Jan 28, 2008 8:28:38 PM
I suggest veal. Here, where there is a good bit of dairy farming, I know of a small slaughterhouse that recently obtained a couple of dozen head of perfectly good veal for free after an auction. The veal calves are a byproduct of the dairy industry, and there is so little demand for them that there were no bidders at auction.
Thus, as long as there is minimal demand for veal, you are consuming a resource with essentially no marginal cost (in dollars or to the environment).
Posted by: mph at Jan 28, 2008 9:47:02 PM
The piece was very interesting, but I found it far too charged to be an effective advocate for Mr. Bittman's position. The figures were poorly documented, and seemed to come exclusively from organizations whose motivations seemed at least suspect.
Perhaps I came to the piece with incorrect expectations - hoping for more reporting than advocacy (is Week in Review journalistic or editorial?) - but it left me feeling baited.
Posted by: Atstjx at Jan 28, 2008 9:49:00 PM
Bentham wrote: "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
Pigs being smarter and more social has got nothing to do with it.
Posted by: Kerim Can at Jan 28, 2008 10:12:18 PM
Countries where land is scarce eat pigs. Countries where land is plentiful, eat cows. Everybody eats chicken.
Posted by: green apron monkey at Jan 28, 2008 10:45:45 PM
Kerim Can: As far as I am concerned, the capacity to suffer requires some ability to reason. Merely feeling pain is insufficient, you need to be in some sense self-aware to truly suffer. Of course to my standards, pretty much no animal is worthy of rights, so YMMV.
Posted by: James at Jan 29, 2008 12:00:33 AM
Doctorpat, your argument neglects the tremendous amount of grain necessary to produce an equivalent amount of meat.
See Wikipedia: Ethics of Vegetarianism.
Posted by: Braden at Jan 29, 2008 12:13:16 AM
Since the animals we "process" are bred specifically for human consumption, its fair to say that the only reason they are alive to begin with is to serve as food? So is wallowing around in your own feces for a couple years before death better than not living at all? I would say yes.
Further, using this reasoning, hunting for wild animals is cruel in that we are taking away a life that we didn't first create.
Posted by: Nate at Jan 29, 2008 7:26:10 AM
From what I have read, the best converters of grain to meat are turkeys.
Since a domesticated turkey is about as smart as a rock, they win hands
down.
Posted by: George McCandless at Jan 29, 2008 7:55:47 AM
EAT MOR CHIKIN
http://www.tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/chicken/
Posted by: chug at Jan 29, 2008 8:13:13 AM
But he's only looking at one side, the supply side. Obviously if we are to maximize utility, we're going to prefer a combination of pork, chicken, and beef.
Thankfully, I have no qualms about the suffering of livestock. They're providing a valuable service to the global community.
Posted by: Jarick at Jan 29, 2008 10:23:32 AM
As a practical matter I think virtually all that matters is already incorporated into the retail price.
In a world where there was a Pigouvian Greenhouse Gas (GHG) tax, they'd all be more expensive simply because of methane, and pound for pound they all have the same "food miles". However the added price in any case would be a lot more marginal than envirosocialists (i.e. putative environmentalists who are really capitalism haters rather than intergenerational welfare maximizers) would like.
As far as the cruelty issue is concerned, I'd say the imputed extra price is either zero (for those who could care less, or claim to care or think they care but go on eating the critters anyway) or infinite (i.e. vegans), depending on your point of view, and thus a nonissue as well.
So, buy what works for you on a price/quality basis, as usual.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Jan 29, 2008 12:53:27 PM
Simple solution: eat whatever meat you want, but only 2 or 3 portions each week.
Ta-da!
Posted by: thekittykat at Jan 29, 2008 1:14:24 PM
as noted, eating domesticated animals can be justified on repugnant conclusion grounds. and intelligence/whether social seems to tie into possible suffering (unless you're going to say you don't distinguish between killing a chimp and rabbit, which seems a little silly). you can assert that one shouldn't eat any animals (question is whether they suffer), but this discussion is about how to rank the various animals in terms of minimum damage done for output (question is who suffers least).
Posted by: dj superflat at Jan 29, 2008 3:29:19 PM
The conflict between environmental goals and animal welfare goals is one of the most significant underreported stories in this area.
Indeed, just think of the horrible deaths suffered by wildebeest all over the African savanna. What are we going to do about it?
Posted by: ad at Jan 29, 2008 4:40:10 PM
I have heard that rabbits are even more efficient at turning plants into meat than chickens are.
Posted by: floccina at Jan 29, 2008 5:05:23 PM
Doctorpat, your argument neglects the tremendous amount of grain necessary to produce an equivalent amount of meat.
See Wikipedia: Ethics of Vegetarianism.
Posted by: Braden at Jan 29, 2008 12:13:16 AM
Ummm....? Whales don't eat grain.
(Neither do cattle in my country, that is an American distortion).
Posted by: doctorpat at Jan 29, 2008 8:58:46 PM
Doctorpat, vegetarians reduce animal suffering because they are not eating animals for meat, regardless of the animals that might die from farming. Plain and simple logic.
Posted by: alakaea at Jan 30, 2008 12:23:45 PM
To the poster who asked, "Wouldn't it be great to breed a chicken that preferred a cage?," the answer is that a recent study in Australia revealed that chickens, whose greatest natural predators are birds of prey - who must always be feared and watched above for - actually relax to a much greater degree in their cages than in vaunted so-called 'free-range' conditions.
Posted by: rwwilc01 at Jan 30, 2008 2:39:28 PM
Last time I was in Austrialia I saw a graffito that said,
"What do vegetarians have against plants?" I would remind
that some religious perspectives assign souls to plants,
including Jains, whose diet forbids the killing of anything,
thus no roots from vegetables.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Jan 30, 2008 3:32:55 PM
