New York, Aug 5 : Alternatives to beef that are based on plants beef could aid in reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, however their rise in popularity could affect the agriculture workforce and which could threaten over 1.5 million jobs in the industry according to new economic models.By embracing alternatives to meat protein The US food production industry could cut its carbon footprint in agriculture by between 2.5 percent and 13.5 percent according to the research paper that was published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
However, the changes could affect the lives of the over 1.5 million people working in the beef value chain industry researchers from Cornell University of Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Johns Hopkins, urging policymakers to be on guard and prepared to minimize negative effects of technological disruption.
In order to combat climate change, reducing emissions is crucial according to the researchers but technological disruptions could be a source of many negative consequences both positive and negativeacross the entire economy, including the issues of livelihoods as well as working conditions decent wages, human rights, and health equity.
“Plant-based alternatives to beef aren’t the silver bullet, with their effects on the other environmental aspects of the food chainfor example, total water usage unclear,” said lead author Daniel Mason-D’Croz senior research associate at Cornell.
The team analyzed the possibility of disruption of alternative beef sources that are based on plants by studying the economic impact in a variety of scenarios, in which alternatives to beef produced from plants would replace 10%, 30% percent or 60 percent of the current US beef consumption.
Although the changes could have a slight but possibly positive impact, the effects “would not be felt equally across the entire economy” According to Mason-D’Croz.
It could lead in “substantial disruptions” that could be observed across the food chain in particular in the beef-value chain which could shrink by as high as 45 percent under the 60 percent replacement scenario, which could threaten the existence of the nearly 1.5 million people working in these industries.”
The use of alternative beef sources that are based on plants could also result in other unintended outcomes.For instance, the resources that are freed from the declining beef industries like feed for livestock could allow the poultry and pork sectors to grow.
Modells suggest that this could be swapping 2-12 million cattle to 16 to 94 million chickens, or as high as 1.4 million pigs, which could raise concerns about the welfare of animals, according to Mason-D’Croz.
The sheer number of animals affected may increase and the conditions for welfare of many chickens and pigs in the agricultural sector are worse than the conditions of cattle, according to Mason-D’Croz considering that the poultry and pork sector often rely on restricted feeding operations.
“Nevertheless there are a variety of alternative sources of plant-based products is being developed,” Mason-D’Croz said.”If they are widely adopted and widely, then an growth in animal numbers is less likely, despite the fact that the negative economic impact and disruption on the lives of the people employed in the value chains of food products made from animals are likely to be more severe.”
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