Animal Agriculture and the Environment

By Rocky Jacquet

Adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet, shifting household energy sources to cleaner alternatives, taking more public transportation, protesting nationwide, filing lawsuits against government bodies for their complicity in the climate crisis––these practices have become increasingly common in the 21st century, as citizen engagement in fighting the climate crisis hits its high. They’re an expression of the growing frustration of individuals across the globe with the terrifying effects of industrial and government activities on the global environment, not least because of the ways that international relations underscore climate redress. 

Exploited states, according to the world-systems theory, fall within two different categories: semi-periphery states and periphery states. Semi-periphery states are both exploited and exploiter countries striving to join the assemblage of core states in order to contribute to the establishment of the status quo and to further enable their exploitation of periphery states. In their attempt to follow core state practices, semi-periphery states—such as Brazil and China—have also contributed immensely to the acceleration of climate change. Nations seen as periphery states are those in the world-system that are the most exploited, least developed, and that are trapped in the cycle of poverty. They have no momentum in the world system and simply must accept the systemic configurations structured against them in order to interact and participate in the global community. Seeing as periphery industries are largely built around the extraction of raw materials in order to trade with core and semi-periphery states, these states are not only the most vulnerable in the world-system, but also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. While core and semi-periphery states are predominantly responsible for the immensity of climate change, periphery states are those which will face the soonest and most brutal effects. 

In each of these groups’ industrial activities, the domination over and exploitation of the environment is a central component. Consequently, the world-systems theory elucidates the fact (both intuitively and empirically true) that the abuse of the environment is an intrinsic element to capitalism’s endless wealth accumulation and, concomitantly, to the formation of the modern world-system. And within the arrangement of the world-system’s major industries, few sectors are dealing with the dangers and effects of this exploitation more than animal agriculture. 

The global livestock industry is the leading economic sector contributing to the emissions of greenhouse gases, or GHG. At every level of the production chain, from fertilization to land-use changes to transportation, GHG are emitted into the atmosphere, creating the most dangerous environmental practice in the industry. Due to the lack of regulation around the reports on environmental effects of mega agribusiness, it is challenging to calculate the exact percentage of global GHG that livestock constitutes, but the number tends to hover around 18%. 

The industry relies on other harmful practices as well, including land degradation in the form of deforestation, water and air pollution, and the loss of biodiversity—it is the leading cause for each of these developments. Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest, which constitutes one of the Earth’s most vital spaces for fresh water, oxygen production, and carbon dioxide absorption. These are not only the roots and lungs of the Earth’s ecosystem, but they are also the most powerful protectors of a warming planet. 

The deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest is predominantly led by two US-based agriculture corporations: JBS and Cargill. These corporations, two of the three largest meat processing companies in the world, practice industrial animal agriculture known as factory farming, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO). Factory farming began in the United States around the time of the Industrial Revolution, but over the years it spread across the world and resulted in the overwhelming disappearance of small farms. It is now a global phenomenon––across the globe, 90% of farmed animals live on factory farms; in the U.S. that number rises to 99%. Examining this phenomenon under world-systems analysis, it can be contended that the U.S. as a core state has defined the industrial structure of meat production––without any regard for how these practices affect the domestic environment or that of the other states that adopt the system of factory farming. As the Human League wrote, “Factory farms are the manifestation of corporate takeovers, turning the farming sector into inhumane factories. Their goal is simple: to increase profits for big corporations [and] this comes at the direct expense of animals, people, and the environment.” The animal agriculture industry is not only a prime example of the capitalist tendency to put profit over anything else, but it also illustrates the inevitable environmental consequences that this mindset engenders.

Because Brazil falls within the group of semi-periphery states, it is not in the position to determine or alter the rules of the game––but Brazil also doesn’t necessarily want to effect systemic change in the agricultural industry. Rather, aligning with the assumptions of the world-systems theory, Brazil wishes to work the system for itself by becoming a core state. Animal agriculture and cattle grazing are major contributors to Brazil’s GDP, and in some of the less-populated areas of the Amazon, working in this industry is the only option for personal wealth. A large number of those that live and work in the Amazon’s cattle ranches are in support of deforestation because it provides them with a job, a form of income, and the ability to support themselves and their families. 

Because deforested land can become up to 200 times more valuable,  the economic incentives in place encourage Brazil to maintain U.S. corporations’ exploitation of the Amazon. Accordingly, “international pressure to conserve the Amazon may backfire if it stokes fears that wealthier nations want to keep the Amazon pristine to stymie Brazil’s growth—or to appropriate its wealth for themselves.” The case of Brazil and its animal agriculture industry is a complex one: as a semi-periphery state, it wishes to become a part of the core and thus chooses to ignore the effects that the core’s economic prospects inflict on its valuable (economically and ecologically) environment for the sake of its own developmental agenda and economic growth.

But beyond a world-systems approach to Brazil, there is a specific role that individuals play in the construction and vindication of this noxious industry. There would be no industrial meat production if there wasn’t substantial global meat consumption. As noted in the previous paragraph, different countries and cultures have varying relationships to meat, but it is certainly true that in every nation, the consumption of meat is a customary tradition. While individuals in core states consume significantly more meat than those in other countries, global meat consumption has considerably increased over the past few decades, most drastically in developing, semi-periphery countries. And due to the overwhelming majority of meat being produced through factory farming operations, radical action must be taken.

China, while being one of the countries leading the increase in meat consumption, has also recently advocated for the introduction of other, more sustainable alternatives. In January, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs released its five-year agricultural plan, for the first time including cultivated meats and plant-based alternatives as part of its plan for food security. This action is a hopeful starting point, allowing for the expansion of research and investment into the alternative protein industry and, more importantly, encouraging consumer acceptance and implementation of more environmentally-friendly eating practices. And much like global meat consumption, which is on its way to doubling by 2050, China’s per capita consumption has tripled since the late 1980s––they are, after all, the number one importer of beef from Brazil. The Ministry’s plan offers a blueprint for other countries to introduce similar goals, indicating the agency that semi-periphery states have in the restructuring of consumption and production practices established by core states, hopefully in order to include ones that aren’t as detrimental to the global environment.

Keeping in mind the need for transformative work beyond just industrial reform, some scholars have even advocated for the global community to implement a plan for the gradual weaning off of meat altogether, and although this would engender a drastic decrease in global GHG emissions, this is entirely unrealistic. Humans have eaten meat almost as long as we’ve been in existence, and although plant-based meat is becoming more widely available and adopted, there is not currently an alternative to meat that offers the same nutritional benefits. As mentioned before, the consumption of meat offers most of the world’s vulnerable communities with the essential nutrients that they need and would likely go without if they lacked access to livestock. Individuals within these countries are also not factory farming, so their livestock practices have not contributed to climate change as the ones in developed countries have. Despite their lack of influence on the acceleration of global warming, periphery countries, especially those within Africa, are far and above the ones most vulnerable to climate change. Not only do core states need to finance periphery countries’ management of environmental damage that countries like the U.S. and industries like animal agriculture have caused, but they could also learn a thing or two from periphery countries’ more environmentally-friendly practices.

 If core states were to start a gradual shift from the industrialized meat production sector to more small-scale farming operations, the GHG emissions of meat consumption would significantly lessen. Whatever steps states decide to take to mend the climate crisis, they should start with restructuring our food systems. This is backed not only by the leading contribution that animal agriculture has made to global GHG emissions, but also scientists’ knowledge that food systems play a more critical role in climate change than even our fossil fuel habits.

Before countries can even start to reimagine the international food system, the global community needs to have access to accurate information on the environmental effects brought about by meat production, which is largely hidden or under-reported by the mega agribusinesses and is enabled by a lack of government oversight. The business-as-usual attitude of industry and government tends to outweigh the minor effects of actions like protests and petitions––the citizen members of the global community truly wish to help address and amend the state of our climate, we must begin the construction of an entirely new system, one that has our interests at its core rather than the economic interests of those in the mega-corporations that have created this systemic crisis.

The top-down approach to decision-making, in which government and corporate group interests determine the rules while citizens are designated as passive agents, is clearly causing harm, degradation, and decay. Instead, the global community and the state of the environment would benefit from adopting what Fenelon calls Indigenous models of governance, where community living dynamics is prioritized above accumulation and growth. Rather than letting the profit motive contribute to environmental exploitation, Indigenous societies champion the agency of all elements of life in their community, both of humans and of nature. This community-oriented and ecologically-minded governance is exemplified particularly in land management practices, which create a positive feedback loop between resource use and natural waste that can be returned to the earth. Extraction and waste will always be part of human life, but the excessive exploitation and extraction of natural resources that form the crux of capitalism must be left behind. 

Humanity’s association with animals can be traced back to the dawn of human life on Earth, but what has mutated this association into a noxious industry is the human capitalist mindset. This worldview has resulted not only in human domination of the global environment but also the capitalist domination over groups of people with access to an environment deemed profitable. No matter a state’s individual position in the world-system as exploiter or exploited, each country plays a part in the larger tenet of the system in exploiting, extracting, and abusing the global environment. As the international community has collectively found ourselves in the midst of crises of ecology and governance, the exploitative nature of capitalist world-systems have no place in a sustained future. Instead, environmental nurturance and cooperation require international action and interconnected restructuring. While it is recommended to start by revamping the international food system and reimagining our relationship with animal agriculture, it is inevitable that to arrive at that point will first require a reshaping of the public consciousness. To practice a symbiotic relationship between earth and society is to be skeptical of capitalism’s appropriation of worth, to reject greed and inaction, and to reinvest in the concepts of inherent worth, determination, and mutuality.