A new study published in the journal Nature Communications, focuses on the climate costs of meat, and argues convincingly for a shift in the pricing of food to act as an incentive to choose those with a lower environmental footprint. If the planetary impact of food production was fully priced into our grocery bills, the price differences would be startling and the research suggests we would make very different choices in the supermarket. This would make for a healthier planet and spread the climate costs of our food choices more fairly across society.
The study examined all of the environmental costs incurred in producing our food — from land use to fertilizers, methane emissions, to heating and transport — to arrive at food prices that reflected these costs.
Using the German government’s estimate of climate damage costs (based on data from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), researchers compared organic and conventional processes of production for meat products, dairy, and plant-based foods in Germany.
Meat was the most costly for the planet due to its high emissions, followed by dairy products, and then plant-based foods. And, generally speaking, compared with conventional farming, organic farming lowered the emissions of dairy and plant-based products, making them less harmful. Plants grown organically (without chemical fertilizers) have half the climate costs of conventional produce but all plants have far lower emissions than animal products.
However, in the case of meat, both conventional and organic methods of production led to similarly high emissions costs. Organic livestock farming is less efficient than conventional farming. Its reliance on grass-feeding takes more land, it produces less meat, and because the livestock grow more slowly they emit GHGs for a longer period of time. Even the lowest impact meat — organic pork, is responsible for eight times more climate costs than the highest impact plants (conventional oil seeds).
Maximilian Pieper, at the Technical University of Munich, who led the research did note, “In certain other aspects, organic is certainly better than conventional farming.” Overuse of chemical fertilizers and mishandling of manure causes water and air pollution, while pesticides can harm wildlife.
Conventional livestock’s emissions come from their manure and, for cows and sheep, from burping methane. The grain they are fed can also result in high emissions, especially if it is associated with deforestation, such as in South America.
A key trend that emerged from the study was that the largest differences in emissions were driven by the type of food, rather than the farming method. That suggests that choosing what we eat might ultimately have more influence on environmental health, than the way our food is farmed.
The researchers made the environmental impacts tangible for consumers by calculating the increases required in prices paid to farmers to cover the climate costs. The results were that conventionally-farmed meat products would, on average, need to be almost 150% more expensive than they are now to account for its environmental toll. Dairy prices would have to soar by 91%. By comparison, the estimated increase in the price of organically-produced, plant-based foods would be 6%.
The price increase for organic meat would be about 25%, because it is more expensive to begin with. Conventional milk prices would rise by about 33% and organic milk by 20%, but the price of plant foods would barely change.
“The climate damage costs for meat are especially startling if you compare them to the other categories,” said Pieper. “The price increases required are 10 times higher than for dairy products and 68 times higher than for plant-based products.”
“The big difference is the simple effect that when you have a field of plants and you eat them directly, then that’s the end of the [emissions], basically,” he said. “But for beef, for example, you need 42kg of feed to just produce 1kg of beef. This huge inefficiency explains the gap.”
Amelie Michalke, at the University of Greifswald and part of the study team, said: “The prices are lying. Climate costs are rising and we are all paying these costs – they are not adequately put on to the [most polluting] products.”
The researchers said the analysis showed an urgent need for policies, such as meat taxes, to ensure food prices reflect their true costs. This would be fairer, they said, as consumers eating climate-damaging diets would pay for their pollution, rather than the costs of increased storms, floods and droughts being borne by society as a whole.
The research hinges on the principle of ‘polluter pays’, whereby those whose food choices cause greater harm to the environment, pay the cost. That would be reflected in the choice to eat a meatier diet over one that was more plant-based.
Not only does cheap meat belie the cost of its true impact on the planet, it also provides no incentive to make environmentally healthier food choices for the planet. But incorporating the environmental cost of food production into the price of our weekly groceries should encourage a shift away from more environmentally-harmful diets towards lower-impact plant-based ones.
In some developing countries, diets may need to include meat and dairy to achieve nutritional balance but they should not be unaffordable. The researchers pointed to the value of government subsidies and social compensation measures in helping to make this dietary transition fair for everyone.
The researchers predict that using costs to drive more sustainable food choices will cause meat consumption to decline. Also, by incorporating environmental costs into all foods, the price difference between conventionally-farmed and organically-produced food would narrow. This could make organically-farmed food more appealing to consumers — who would then be purchasing food derived from farming systems that, in their ideal forms, support soil health, and reduce pesticides and fertilizer use.
“This analysis confirms the high costs that animal-source foods have for the planet,” Dr. Marco Springmann, University of Oxford (who was not part of the study team), told The Guardian. “The policy implications are clear: applying an emissions price across all sectors of the economy, including agriculture, would provide a consistent and much-needed incentive to change towards healthier and more sustainable diets that are predominantly plant-based.”
There’s little doubt that pricing various foods to reflect the costs of their environmental impact will give consumers another opportunity to play an active role in protecting the planet’s health. But, will it happen?