Governments spend large public funds on corporations that expand global industrial livestock and feed production. The expansion in factory farms, and loss of smaller, independent producers, is largely responsible for the steady increase in U.S.-based agriculture-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Another major reason for runaway emissions from the agriculture sector is the impunity with which agribusiness is allowed to pollute water, air and degrade land with the public incurring the environmental and health costs. Just 20 transnational companies combined emit more GHGs than several industrialized countries.
A recent publication, ‘Nature-Based Solutions for Livestock: Redirect, Regulate, Regenerate’, calls on governments to tackle agricultural emissions head-on by redirecting public funds away from Big Ag, ending agribusiness impunity and transitioning farming to agroecology. With agriculture and forestry accounting for 82 percent of the world’s nitrous oxide and 44 percent of global methane emissions from 2007-2016 alone, a just agroecological transition is essential to nearly halving GHG emissions in the coming decade.
An earlier report ‘Missing Pathways to 1.5°C’, found that together with addressing food waste, agroecological practices for crops and livestock and healthy diets could avoid as much as 7.5 Gigatons of GHG emissions per year by 2050 and sequester over 1 Gigaton of CO2 equivalent through agro¬forestry.
The publication is available here: https://www.iatp.org/nature-based-solutions-livestock
– Third World Network
