Dr Andrew Bennie says that globally there is a beef with accelerating climate shift.
He is exploring how the polluted climate is intertwined with the economics of the meat industry.
Bennie is a senior researcher in climate policy and food systems at the Institute for Economic Justice, a Braamfontein, Johannesburg-based progressive SA think-tank of academics, researchers and organisations.
Last week, he started engaging with journalists, releasing a 41-page memo for journalists titled: “The Beef with Climate Change: Growth, Equity, and a Just Transition in the Beef Sector in SA”.
Off Track interviewed Bennie and discussed some key themes.
What is your beef?
The beef with climate change refers to the environmental and social impacts of SA’s growing beef industry.
As the country aims to expand beef production and exports, questions arise about the sector’s sustainability and equity.
The memo examines whether SA’s red meat industry, particularly beef, can support a just transition by addressing ecological impacts, enhancing smallholder farmer inclusion and promoting equitable livelihoods.
You seem to peer through the lens of a just transition at the effort to integrate black emerging smallholder farmers into the commercial beef value chain as part of a plan to grow the red meat industry through exports?
Yes, the memo explores the current economics of the beef industry so that we can understand the economic pressures behind the red meat industry’s growth strategy.
We have found that that commercial beef farmers generally operate under high cost-price pressures, with rising input costs over time and stagnant market prices.
This stagnancy is partly linked to stagnant demand for beef in SA due to persistent inequality and low incomes for much of the population.
An economy tougher than farmers?
Our tough economy means that many commercial beef farmers have been dropping out of the industry.
We are in the midst of economic pressures which are driving the tendency to more large-scale production and therefore concentration.
This is one of the challenges of integrating more black emerging and smallholder farmers into commercial beef value chains, a sector where established commercial farmers are already struggling.
Feedlots, the good and the bad
Feedlots, a form of intensive production, play an important role in the challenge of market entry facing emerging and smallholder farmers.
About 75% of beef consumed in SA has gone through a feedlot, and so they are largely unavoidable market outlets for beef farmers.
However, due to economic pressures they have become more concentrated in number and exert more power in the value chain.
This means they also shape the requirements of production upstream of them, such as on farms, in terms of breed and weight requirements, and biosecurity control.
With recent outbreaks of disease like foot and mouth, feedlots have also become even more discerning in terms of the origins of cattle and disease control measures, which are often difficult for poorly resourced emerging and communal farmers to do, such as separation of herds.
What are some of the issues with the drive for commercialisation and growth?
The commercialisation approach poses a number of challenges to broad-based development and inclusion.
There might be need for new policy which suits the need of smaller cattle farmers who might not see commercialisation as the sole purpose for running cattle.
The beef with greenhouse gases
There is also an ecological dimension in the drive to expand beef production in SA.
Globally beef has the largest ecological footprint of all food types, and is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in the food system, where food systems contribute around a third of global GHGs.
Direct emissions from beef cattle in SA are responsible for about 6.7% of the country’s emissions in 2020.
We suggest that some kind of limit should be set, because there is a specific need to lower methane emissions by 46% by 2030 from 2010 levels.
This is required to keep the earth’s warming within 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels.
Beef and inequality
However, we need to look beyond only reducing “point-source” emissions from beef and whether continued growth of the industry is ecologically viable — we need to address inequalities in consumption and production.
How do we shift the economics of the industry so that commercial and smallholder farmers, and workers, can continue to earn a decent living even if within limited or lower levels of beef production and consumption?
There are complexities to solve
There are high levels of inequality in beef consumption and production.
Existing emissions are therefore also linked to patterns of inequality.
However, if inequality were better addressed and consumption by poorer segments increased, this would also then increase emissions.
So we need to both address inequality and also ensure ecologically sustainable levels of production and consumption, while ensuring healthy diets for all.
This means looking beyond only pursuing growth, and turn to look at sustainable levels of production and consumption, decent livelihoods and work, and improved nutrition.
Feedlots
Feedlots as one point source of emissions, have the lowest emissions per cow, because of factors like specifically formulated feeds and the low movement of animals.
Emissions from extensive commercial grazing is higher than intensive feeding, and emissions from communal extensive grazing is higher than commercial grazing.
We might then say, well, in climate terms, intensive feedlot systems are the way to go.
But not so if we take a more holistic sustainability perspective: feedlots are associated with other environmental problems like air and water pollution, animal welfare issues, and human health issues linked to medicines in feedlot animals and the over-consumption of red meat facilitated by intensive production.
They also have other indirect emissions such as from the production of feed like maize and soya.
Grazing carbon
Thus extensive grazing still seems to offer a better ecological option.
But can extensive grazing through regenerative practices while still growing meat production succeed in limiting emissions?
The science shows that it is not clear that regenerative grazing can sequester enough carbon — draw it from the air back into the soil — to allow for ongoing growth of beef production and consumption.
We need to know exactly what production and consumption levels are required to sustain regenerative agriculture systems, and what economic shifts would need to happen.
Off track
There is a concern that in the existing economics of the beef sector and the impact it is has on climate change inequality in beef farming will actually increase, both between the large-scale commercial farmers, and between bigger farmers and smallholder farmers.
This potentially undermines objectives of broad-scale inclusion and development, and a just transition.
There are shifts that need to happen in economics, ecology and inequality in the sector.
We don’t know enough
There is also a problem with insufficient data on the ecological impacts of SA beef production, especially intensive production.
We need a proper socioecological assessment to be done to inform better policymaking.
This should happen along with an economic assessment to identify ways to better bring the economics of the beef sector more in line with ecological sustainability and resilience, and enable decent incomes, livelihoods and work.
Get the memo: https://www.iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/The-beef-with-climate-change_Guidance-Memo.pdf
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