Environmental Impact of Dairy

It can be sooo easy to convince ourselves that in order to have the greatest positive impact for the minimum lifestyle sacrifice, giving up meat and fish is more than enough action to take. I know that’s certainly how I started my plant-based journey… in fact, whenever I was craving something meaty, I would instead have a cup of tea with half full-fat milk, half water! Anyway, back to the point of this post, a short and sweet introduction to the environmental impact of the dairy industry, just a brief outline as to why dairy is an environmental disaster. WATER

Global animal agriculture has a pretty hefty water footprint, around 2,422 billion cubic meters of water in total. 19% of this is related to dairy cattle. Think about the use of water in the milk production process, from cleaning the milk parlour and equipment to providing the cows with drinking water, it’s involved every step of the way, and in large quantities. The worst culprit, however, is the food that the cows are fed, claiming a huge 98% of milks footprint!

GREENHOUSE GASES In a study called ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Dairy Sector; A Life Cycle Assessment’, when all aspects of the dairy production line (milk production, packaging and transport) are accounted for, the industry was estimated to contribute 2.7% to total anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2007, that is 553 million tonnes of CO2.

I don’t want this to be a bombardment of figures, but these numbers totally speak for themselves. There was me trying not to break too much on my way to work so I would reduce my car exhaust emissions, but I couldn't reduce my carbon footprint this much even if I removed the entire breaking system from my car (highly illegal by the way, not recommended)… What’s worse is that CO2 is almost the least of our worries. Methane has the ability to trap up to 100 times more heat in our atmosphere than CO2, yet it accounts for around 52% of the GHG’s in question. And if you thought it couldn't get worse, another sneaky GHG, nitrous oxide, is up to 300 times more effective at trapping heat in our atmosphere than CO2, it makes up 27% of the GHG’s from the dairy herd.

SOIL HEALTH AND HABITAT DESTRUCTION

At the end of the day, dairy production requires cattle (state the obvious yo). Livestock farming plays a huge role in habitat destruction and soil erosion, with forests being destroyed to provide space for pasture land (where the cows are kept) and to grow feed for the cattle on an industrial scale. With over 264 million dairy cows on our planet, the poor agricultural practices employed by large swathes of the dairy industry is undoubtedly responsible for consequential deforestation, loss of topsoil and loss of organic matter and pollution of surrounding water resources from the farms manure and fertiliser runoff. I really hope this whistle stop tour of the dairy industries crimes against the environment provided you with some more insight into the facts and figures they are responsible for. Again, I won't be preaching about why you should accept these figures because in my opinion they are empirical, you cannot argue with a reliably sourced, peer reviewed, number (well you can, but its kind of a waste of time). So next time you find that your fave nut bar somehow has milk powder slipped into the ingredients, try give it a miss for a more environmentally friendly alternative, your grandchildren will think you for it! Hope you enjoyed reading this, let me know in the comments what you thought. Anna x ALL Statistics, Information and Facts came from: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-dairy-industry-and-the-environment/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/evidence/nitrous_oxide.shtml https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/dairy https://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/5235182/Statistics-Dairy-cows.pdf

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-dairy-industry-and-the-environment/