Livestock production causes global warming, strains land and water resources

Submitted by ipsita on Sun, 2006-12-31 00:00

Livestock production has become a major envioronmental management challenge. When its full commodity chain is included, the sector contributes to global warming, causes stress on land by grazing, increases demand for water for feed crop production and leads to water pollution by animal waste and chemicals

80 per cent of the growth in livestock production is due to industrial production.Production of pig and chicken have gone up; cattle, sheep and goat down

It contributes 18 per cent of total greenhouse gas emission, accounting for 37 per cent of anthropogenic methane emission and 65 per cent of nitrous oxide

26 per cent of earth's land is used for grazing. One-third of total arable land produces animal feed crops. Effects are most visible in Latin America. 70 per cent of original Amazon is now pasture, and a large part of the rest is used for feed crop cultivation

8 per cent of total human water use goes for irrigation of feed crop. On the other hand the sector is single largest contributor to water pollution. Key pollutants: