Want to gain food independence from Russia? Lose dependence on animal protein LinkedIn
Want to reduce dependence on Russia's food and agriculture (and gas)?
In 2021, the Inevitable Policy Response, a project of UN PRI, focused investor attention on the fact that reducing consumption of animal protein - specifically beef which contributes to 14% of total global emissions through the release of methane (burping), carbon (transport and deforestation) and nitrogen (fertilizer) - presents tremendous opportunities. Our Forecast Policy Scenario model predicts that meat consumption will drop by 30% from its peak in 2030 to 2050, reducing emissions by 1 Gt, through avoided deforestation and freeing up land to higher value uses including Nature-based Solutions and sustainable "next gen" biofuels.
Last year, which now feels like a different century, neither the world nor IPR could have imagined Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Since then, reducing reliance on Russian exports has become the imperative of most countries.
And the animal protein supply chain - grains, soy, fertilizer and natural gas - offers offers a glimpse of how meat reduction will help to achieve this goal by cutting the world’s dependence on Russia’s food and agriculture commodities. So... drum roll...
10 FAQs on why reducing animal protein is the key solution
- How many animals are being fed, housed, and provided with free healthcare, so that we can eat them later?
- 1bn cows (India, Brazil, and China approx. 75% of inventory in 2021)
- 50bn chickens
- 1 – 2bn sheep and pigs, respectively
- All other (ducks, rabbits, etc. etc. etc.)
- How much of the stuff we grow is for those animals?
- How much of the crops are grown in Russia and Ukraine?
- 30% of all wheat exports
- 33% of all barley exports
- 17% of world corn exports
- 76% of global sunflower supplies
- Where is the soy primarily grown?
- Brazil and the US
- What is the not-so-secret key ingredients for crops and soy in scale?Fertilizer … which is produced in Russia (and Belorus and Ukraine). Russia alone produces:
- 20% of nitrogen/ammonia fertilizer
- 18% of potassium / potash
- 15% of phosphorus / urea
- What does fertilizer production rely on?
- Natural gas...accounting for 75-90% of operating costs of nitrogen-based fertilizer.
- Which countries world’s top 3 producers of natural gas?
- USA,Russia, and Iran
- Which country really needs this fertilizer (which is reliant on the gas)?
- Brazil. As world’s largest producer of soybeans, it purchases nearly half its potash from Russia and Belorus, and it is 21% of Russia’s overall exports, followed by China (10%), US (9%), and India (4%)
- Which country needs that soybean from Brazil the most?
- China … accounts for nearly 75% of Brazil’s soybean export value.
- What does China need soybean for?
- 85% of China’s soybean consumption is in animal feed.
- Extra credit: How are all these products (fertilizer, animal feed & the animal meat itself) transported all around the world? Ships, mainly. And what fuels the ships?... Sorry, that's too easy. No extra credit - just a participation trophy for reading all the way down to here.
We have come full circle. A vicious circle.
No alt text provided for this image
Reduce animal protein, and you can turn this into a virtuous cycle.
Countries are responding to this crisis by relaxing environmental restrictions (Germany and Brazil) and supporting ag industry (US), and other measures.
And this is in an already unsustainable food system that relies on industrial land-destroying agriculture methods and unmanageable (or simply unmanaged) supply chains.
Sound familiar to the energy crisis caused by the unprovoked brutal invasion by Russia into Ukraine? That’s because it is. Countries are desperate – for example, Germany is begging for LNG from the Middle East as it tries to reduce its dependency on Russian gas. We can expect a revival of coal, nuclear, biomass, and anything else that heats homes and feeds the grid. That’s the price we pay for having ignored both climate change and Putin’s increasingly autocratic tendencies and actual invasions into sovereign nations for too long.
The energy supply/demand problem will take time, of course… and let’s assume (hope?) that this crisis is not wasted. Let’s assume (hope?) that, at the same time we use whatever energy options are available to get through the next winter or two, we will also accelerate moves toward renewables, and make the independence from autocratic regimes that sit on fossil fuels (in addition to nuclear weapons or other WMDs) more permanent.
Like energy, the food situation also has many sustainable solutions, including alternative proteins, regenerative ag, etc. As we wrote in the piece “ Land Use – the Secret Weapon in the fight against climate change,” land use offers both opportunities to reduce emissions and to sequester them.
But the quickest and cheapest solution is… wait for it… do our best to reduce animal protein in our food system. We can of course do what the fossil fuel industry has done for years – put all the blame and focus on the consumer to make the tough choices, while lobbying against any changes to BAU. But let’s not make that mistake. Let’s focus attention on the supply side – the food companies, the food retailers, the food franchises.
Right now,less than one third of food retailers have protein diversification targets. Do they know about this whole dependency thing with fossil fuels, gas-fertilizer, crops, etc., in addition to animal protein’s contribution to climate change (and heart disease, and other healthcare issues)?
Let’s move that needle in scale, by focusing on the big players in the food system, and move away from animal protein to address the dual crises of climate change and dependency on Russia.
And the cows may actually thank you!