Inside Look in the Meat Industry

The meat industry has become and will maintain to be a very prominent business in countries worldwide. As there are more people in the world, the demand for meat will continue to grow. This sparks concern for environmentalists, as studies have shown that this industry has a significant impact on the environment. The problem lies within the lack of efficiency for farmers to produce meat from animals. It is estimated that nearly 75-90% of the energy consumed by livestock are lost and only a fraction of the remaining energy is used for growth in mass. Being such a large industry, this means that it’s increasingly taxing for natural resources to maintain its current production rates. In America, the average person will consume 122kg of meat each year. With a population of 300 million  that is nearly, theoretically, 36 billion kg of meat consumed each year in America alone. As you see the demand for meat is high.

With an annual production of 285 million tons of meat produced each year, a staggering 1.3 billion tons of grain are needed to reach these production values. An average cow consumes about 75 to 300 kg of dry matter to produce only one kg of protein. In areas where feed is of lower quality, cows may consume nearly 10 times more to produce the same amount of protein. This lack in efficiency translates to the production of nearly 1,000 kg of carbon for each kg of meat in areas such as Ethiopia and Somalia, from the methane produced by manure and through the reduction of carbon absorption as the result of converted forests to pastureland. This does not even consider the amount resources that are needed to grow the feed, which accounts for more than 15,000 liters of water used per kilogram of feed.  Unless more efficient methods are implemented, this industry  would continue to be the industry that places the heaviest strain in the availability of our natural resources.