Organic meats found to have approximately the same greenhouse impact as regular meats

A trio of researchers from the Technical University of Munich, the University of Greifswald and the University of Augsburg have found that the greenhouse gases produced during organic meat production are roughly the same as those produced during conventional meat production. In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Maximilian Pieper, Amelie Michalke and Tobias Gaugler describe their research on the impact of global food production on climate change and their findings.

As the planet continues to warm, researchers continue to work to better understand the sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In this new effort, the researchers studied greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production.

In studying food production, the researchers divided food into three main categories: conventional meat production, organic meat production and plant-based food production. They also took into account emissions produced at different stages of the production process - for example, emissions from growing and processing feed and fertilizer, and methane released from animals and their manure.

The data showed little difference in greenhouse gas emissions between conventional meat production and organic farming. They found that emissions reductions from organically grown animals (in which no fertilizer is used to produce feed) were often offset by increased methane releases due to slower growth rates and the need to raise more animals, since organically fed animals tend to produce less meat. More specifically, they found little difference in emissions between conventionally produced beef and organically grown beef. They also found that organically grown chickens produced slightly more emissions than conventionally grown chickens, while organic pork produced fewer emissions than conventional pork.

The researchers suggested the need for a tax on meat that reflects the environmental costs of its production. They calculated that such a tax on conventional beef would increase its price by about 40 percent, while organic beef would increase its price by only 25 percent (since it is already more expensive than regular beef). The price of animal-related products, such as cheese or milk, would also rise. The price of edible plants, on the other hand, would remain almost unchanged.



Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)