Primary Production/Meat and the Environment
Book chapter, 2014

The demand for animal products is predicted to double by 2050 and already today, the global livestock sector is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to some of the most urgent environmental problems. In this article, those impacts are discussed that emphasize on land use change resulting in declining biodiversity and emissions of carbon, human interference in the nitrogen and phosphorus cycle, largely associated with nutrient fluxes and losses from feed cultivation and manure handling, greenhouse gas emissions, and use of chemicals. There is an urgent need for improving animal and crop production as well as manure management in the life cycle of animal products. Consumption of animal products also needs to be addressed, because the mitigation potential for technological improvements probably is not sufficient to meet future climate targets.

Meat production

Eutrophication

Livestock production

Biodiversity

Phosphorus

Land use change

Deforestation

Nitrogen

Greenhouse gases

Author

Christel Cederberg

Chalmers, Energy and Environment, Physical Resource Theory

Encyclopedia of Meat Sciences

502-507
978-012384731-7 (ISBN)

Subject Categories

Environmental Engineering

Environmental Sciences

DOI

10.1016/B978-0-12-384731-7.00170-7

ISBN

978-012384731-7

More information

Created

10/8/2017