5.7: Meat Production Methods

Question 1

What is meat production?

Answer 1

Raising livestock for human consumption

Question 2

What type of country eats too much meat?

Answer 2

Developed countries

Question 3

Reducing meat consumption could:

Answer 3

• Reduce carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane emissions
• Conserve water
• Reduce the use of antibiotics and growth hormones
• Improve topsoil

Question 4

What is a CAFO/ feedlot?

Answer 4

Meat farming. They tend to be crowded, and animals are fed grains or feed that are not as suitable as grass to raise them as quickly as possible and generate a large amount of organic waste.

Question 5

Benefits of CAFO

Answer 5

• Maximizes land use and profit (most meat production/ unit of area)
• Minimizes cost of meat for consumers

Question 6

Cons of CAFOs

Answer 6

• Animals produce a lot of waste which can contaminate nearby surface or groundwater
• Given antibiotics and growth hormones to prevent disease outbreak and speed meat production
• Produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide

Question 7

Manure Lagoons

Answer 7

Large, open storage pits for animal waste. The waste contains ammonia, fecal coliform bacteria, hormones, antibiotics.
* e. Coli → toxic to humans
* Ammonia (N) → eutrophication
* Antibiotics & growth hormones → alter endocrine (hormonal system) of human

Question 8

ammonia to nitrous oxide

Answer 8

Denitrification

Question 9

What to do with them?

Answer 9

Can be emptied and buried in landfills, or turned into fertilizer pellets

Question 10

Free Range Grazing

Answer 10

Allows animals to graze during their entire lifecycle letting them grow at a natural rate without growth hormones

Question 11

Benefits of free range grazing

Answer 11

• No need for antibiotics with dispersed pop.
• Doesn’t require production of corn to feed animals
• Waste is dispersed over land naturally, acting as fertilizer instead of building up in lagoons
• Animals can graze on land too dry for most crop growth

Question 12

Cons of free range grazing

Answer 12

• Requires more total land use/pound of meat produced which can affect the natural biodiversity
• Cattle take a long time to grow due to use of less GHGs
• More expensive to consumer

Question 13

Overgrazing and its problems

Answer 13

• Too many animals grazing an area of land can remove all the vegetation (grass) which leads to topsoil erosion
• Animals also compact soil, decreasing H2O holding capacity → more erosion
• Desertification can occur if plants are killed by overgrazing & soil is compacted so much that it can’t hold enough water anymore

Question 14

Solution to overgrazing

Answer 14

Rotational grazing (moving animals periodically) can prevent overgrazing. It can even increase growth of grass by distributing manure (natural fertilizer) & clipping grass back to size where growth is most rapid

Question 15

Energy

Answer 15

All of the energy needed to plant, grow, harvest plants to feed to animals PLUS:
* energy needed to bring water to animals
* energy needed to house animals
* energy needed to slaughter & package
* all of the energy needed to grow plants to feed animals PLUS room the animals take up
* all of the water for crops that animals eat PLUS the water the animals drink