2023-08-04 09:08:30
Heat stress also affects livestock: how to adapt our food systems to improve animal welfare?
Europe has experienced the hottest month of July in its history.
The human impact on work, tourism and health was evident. But, the breeding animals also suffered strong heat stress.
Data from the British publisher Carbon Brief expose the devastating impact of extreme heat on farm animals under very high temperatures during the past summer.
In July 2022, the UK hit 40°C for the first time in its history. That day, nearly 10,000 chickens died from heat stress on one trip to the slaughterhouse alone, according to Carbon. Brief.
Between June and August 2022, 18,500 chickens they died during the journey, compared to 325 in the same period of the previous year.
The pigs also suffered from the heat, which caused a dozen deaths, which even went so far as to show “cannibalistic behavior”.
The alarming figures reveal the overcrowded and poorly ventilated conditions suffered by animals in transportation and on farms, and the pressing need to address them as temperatures rise.
But might the solutions aggravate the cause?
Cooling solutions consume an “insane” amount of energy
The global food system is already one of the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for regarding a third of all human-induced emissions, according to UN estimates.
According to Atul Jain, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who studies the interactions between the weather and human activities such as agriculture, regarding one fifth of emissions come from food products of animal origin.
Unless we significantly reduce emissions, the planet is set to continue to warm.
One of the easiest ways to reduce hot and crowded transport conditions is to put fewer animals on each truck, which means more vehicles on the road and more emissions.
In the farmsthe technology designed to regulate the temperature also consumes a lot of gasoline.
“Fans and misters are very expensive, not only to install, but also because of the amount of electricity they use,” says Michelle Schack, a dairy veterinarian in Arizona.
Other solutions used in the US include apps that predict animal welfare in hot weather, computer-controlled cooling mattresses, and air-conditioning in the stables.
heat stress It not only affects the welfare of the animals, but also the business. May affect weight gain, milk production and fertility in cattle, according to a study 2022 published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health. This might lead to losses of more than 36,000 million euros until the end of the century.
“We want to cool the cows, but we also have to recognize that we want to be sustainable from an environmental point of view “, says Jackie Boerman, associate professor in the department of Animal Sciences at Purdue University in Indiana. These two ideas “are sometimes a bit at odds,” he adds.
Furthermore, much of this technology is beyond the reach of poorest countrieswhich are usually those that contribute the least to climate change, but those that suffer its most serious consequences.
According to the study, heat stress losses in livestock will be much higher in most tropical regions than in temperate ones, due to higher climate impacts and the relatively higher price of climate change adaptation measures.
How can we improve animal welfare and keep emissions low?
According to Gerald Nelson, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and co-author of the Lancet study, something as simple as shadow structures and additional water supply can make a big difference in adjusting to the heat. He also found that switching to more heat-tolerant breeds might help.
The use of solar energy or other forms of clean energy in The farmsmeanwhile, might reduce the cost and emissions of refrigeration.
However, cutting back on meat and dairy is a more direct way to reduce emissions from what we eat.
A vegan diet, that is, without foods derived from animalsgenerates only 0.7 kg of carbon dioxide for every 1,000 calories consumed, according to a survey national health. Instead, the diet Ketogenic, high in fat and low in carbohydrates and high in animal products, it generates almost 3 kg of carbon dioxide per 1,000 calories.
New advances in lab-grown meat might also help reduce our reliance on dairy products. farm. Last year, the US FDA approved a product of farmed chicken for human consumption. It will soon be available in restaurants in San Francisco and Washington DC.
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