Impact of recommended red meat consumption in Canada on the carbon footprint of Canadian livestock production
Introduction
In 2019 the Government of Canada (2019) republished the Canada Food Guide for the first time since 2007. National food guides have a long history of promoting the nutritional health of Canadians. Inspired by rationing in the Second World War, Canada published the first food guide in 1942. After rationing for the war effort was no longer required, the federal government continued to publish the food guide every few years. All previous versions of the guide had categorized foods into a few nutritional groups such as milk, fruits, vegetables, bread and cereals, and meat and fish. They also recommended healthy portions from specific foods in those groups, whereas the 2019 version of the food guide moved away from serving portions in favour of the image of the complete dinner plate (Shakeri, 2019). By highlighting the nutritional benefits of diverse protein sources like nuts, beans, legumes, pulses and tofu, along with meat, eggs, and dairy products, the new Canada Food Guide could cause a much larger share of Canada’s protein intake to come from non-animal sources (Kramer, 2019).
Environmental impacts of food systems are affected by dietary choices (Heller and Keoleian. 2015). The human diet, land use and climate change are all connected (Gerretsen, 2019; Weston, 2019). There is growing public awareness that the climate impact of animal agriculture has been underestimated (McMahon, 2019) and that meat production is one of the main sources of greenhouse gases (Mayer, 2019). Public pressure for developed nations to dramatically reduce their intake of red meat is mounting (Abedi, 2018). The EAT-Lancet Commission (2019) called for a 50% reduction in red meat by 2050. Three fast food chains, McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King, have been urged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains (The Guardian, 2019). Plant-based meat products known as Beyond Meat are a reflection of this growing awareness (Kramer, 2019). While numerous literature sources call for livestock industries to set clear yet ambitious Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction targets, they provide little guidance on achieving these targets without compromising the protein component of the human diet.
The earlier food guides took no account of the environmental impacts of the prescribed diets (Yegna, 2017). The 2019 Canada Food Guide makes reference to the environmental impacts of food choices (Government of Canada, 2019), but only in general, non-quantitative terms. By encouraging consumers to diversify their diets towards plant products, including beans, nuts and pulses to meet their protein needs (Flanagan, 2019), the 2019 Canada Food Guide appears to have at least recognized this new awareness (Mayer, 2019). However, because the 2019 food guide did not put forward serving portions as precisely as was done in previous versions (Shakeri, 2019), it could only talk in terms of ‘less of’, when referring to animal products.
The goal of this paper was to assess the potential change in the carbon footprint of Canadian livestock production resulting from meat consumption recommendations in the 2019 Canada Food Guide. Since this assessment does not depend on the validity of these recommendations, whether red meat is a healthy food choice was beyond the scope of this assessment. If, as Mayer (2019) suggests, more Canadians are looking for meat alternatives, this goal will clarify the significance of this potential dietary change to the carbon footprint of Canadian livestock production. Towards that goal, the paper will quantify the changes of both consumption and production of three major animal carcass products, beef, pork and broilers, and the potential changes in the GHG emission budget of these products by the suggested move away from red meat. Because of the vagueness of the recommendations for red meat consumption in the 2019 food guide, medical recommendations for red meat will be used as a proxy for the quantitative guidelines not provided by the 2019 Canada Food Guide.
Section snippets
Canadian red meat consumption
Both medical concerns and the GHG mitigation imperative are potential incentives to reduce red meat consumption. In the last 15 years the public media has increasingly focussed on the health impacts of too much red meat consumption. The chances of dying from cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, infections, kidney disease, or liver disease have all reportedly increased with the increase in red meat consumption (Kmietowicz, 2017). As well as cancer mortality, red meat is
Methodology
To assess the impact of medical recommendations for RM consumption on the carbon footprint of Canadian livestock industries, the analysis considered the three main carcass-producing livestock types: beef, pork and broilers. Dairy was eliminated both because it is not a carcass product and, for the foreseeable future, the Canadian dairy industry will continue to be mainly supply-managed, thus reducing the likelihood of major changes to that supply chain. Veal was not included in this RM
Relating consumption to production
Table 3 shows the national LW from the production and consumption of beef, pork and broilers in 2017 and resulting from the array of scenarios described in Sections 3.3 Recommended red meat consumption, 3.7 Livestock production scenarios. Only the actual 2017 production of LW is shown in units of weight in Table 3.
The actual reported consumption and the projected consumption under the nine scenario combinations are shown as percentages of Canadian production. While the GHG-LW emission
Scenario analysis GHG implications
Table 3 suggests that Canadian RM consumption is already close to satisfying the two most lenient medical recommendations for RM shown in Fig. 1 (Douillard, 2013; Mandal, 2011). Whereas the Lenient RM consumption rate will likely not achieve a meaningful GHG reduction from the livestock industry, the Restricted scenario could lower these GHG emissions by 31% below current production (Fig. 4), depending on how beef producers respond. For example, continuing to feed cattle a high grain diet
Conclusions
This paper showed the potential impact of the recommendation of the 2019 Canada Food Guide to diversify protein sources on Canadian livestock production. It also quantified the potential impact on GHG emissions of diversifying Canadian livestock production. This analysis framed the Canadian livestock industry within two boundary conditions (as illustrated in Fig. 1), medical RM recommendations and required NPI, and considered potential shifts in the production and domestic consumption of three
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Funding provided by: Sustainability Metrics Project, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada.
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